When she opened them again, the monster Belle would be gone.

She opened her eyes – but Belle was still standing there. Still scarred.

‘No, no . . .’ Milly muttered, squirming on the bed, knocking the pipe and foil onto the floor. Knocking some of the precious rocks off, too. She lunged for it all, couldn’t lose it, but it was gone, hitting the floor, gone, oh shit, gone . . .

‘Milly?’ said Belle.

‘No, you’re not there, you’re not real.’

Now they’d found her, Belle couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her old friend Milly had always been plump. This Milly had dropped a shedload of weight and the effect was awful. She looked somehow sunken. Her face was gaunt and pale, peppered with acne. She stank of sweat, like she hadn’t bathed in days.

Milly was muttering to herself, leaning off the side of the bed, scrabbling after what was left of that shit she’d been smoking. Belle was suddenly furious. Everything had gone tits-up in her life. Charlie and Nula dead. Her mum and dad, dead. Harlan after her. And now this.

‘Milly?’

Milly’s dirt-blackened fingernails were searching the floor like a beggar after crumbs. Belle saw that her fingers were burned from handling the pipe. Milly’s eyes were bloodshot, her pupils dilated. She grabbed Milly’s shoulder and hauled her back up. Then she slapped her hard, across the face.

‘Milly!’

Milly clutched at her cheek in shock. Her eyes filled with tears of pain as they stared up at this creature who couldn’t be Belle.

Belle slumped down on the filthy bed. The sheets were white fading to grey, and there was all sorts of stuff scattered about on it. Pencils and burned shards of foil. A make-up bag, the contents scattered, powder spilled, lipstick staining the sheets red. Ring-backed exercise books with dates on the front.

‘You’re not real,’ said Milly, gulping back tears.

Belle looked at the ruins of her friend. ‘Yeah. I am. Harlan did this to me, Milly. He did this.’ Her heart felt like a stone in her chest. She didn’t think she had a single tear left in her. Not one. Then her eyes fell to the notebooks. ‘What are these? Milly?’ Milly’s gaze had wandered off and now she was staring at the wall, gone into some trance-like state. Slowly, Milly’s focus returned to Belle. ‘Mills? You been keeping a diary? I didn’t know you did that.’

Milly’s eyes fell to the notebooks. Slowly, she shook her head. ‘Not mine. Mum’s. You remember? Part of her treatment. S’posed to help her straighten her mind or something.’ Milly’s chapped lips lifted in a thin ghost of a smile. She nodded toward a brown monogrammed holdall open on the floor beside the bed. ‘Did a load of the things. Don’t think it worked, do you?’

With that, Milly lay back and closed her eyes.