Given how mild it was, and the fact it had already cost her nearly thirty quid to get back from Wells, Rosie decided to walk home, the alcohol making her struggle to focus on the road ahead. The sky that had earlier been a vivid blue was now inky black, a reminder that darker days would soon be on the way.

In a couple of months, it would be winter, and Rosie found it harder to keep her perky party girl mask up in shadow-filled dreary days that offered little in the way of light. It was ironic perhaps, as her worst nightmare had happened to her during the warmest of summers, but the blackness and the misery she had experienced then always seemed to surface when the sun was furthest away, reminding her that she could hide and pretend that the summer of 2002 hadn’t scarred her, but deep down, everyone knew it was a lie.

The others had moved on. Even Hannah to an extent. But not Rosie. During the day, she painted her fake-as-fuck smile onto her face and tried to fool everybody. But at night, she drank herself stupid or took sleeping pills, occasionally did both together, to try to block out the memories. Mostly it worked, but sometimes it didn’t.

That self-destruct button of hers was just waiting to be pushed.

By the time she turned off the main road, heading up the twisting sloped driveway to the building where she lived, her mood had plummeted and she was indulging in one of her self-pity parties.

The sound of rustling in the bushes pulled her out of it, halting her in her tracks, her anxious eyes looking for the source of the noise.

She hadn’t heard any footsteps, but was someone hiding on the path up ahead?

The thought had her hesitating and unsure if she should continue as she watched the bushes, waiting for another sound.

Maybe it had been her imagination.

It was the bravado of the alcohol running through her veins that spurred her on. That, and the fact her bladder was close to bursting. She hurried up the driveway, passing the spot where she thought that she’d heard a noise. There was nothing there, no one tried to grab her.

But then the rustling came again, this time from closer to the building, and her heart hammered.

‘Who’s there?’

She had aimed for strong and assertive, but her voice sounded weak and pathetic, the slurred words telling whoever was tormenting her that she was drunk and vulnerable.

Of course no one answered and she reached into her bag for her keys, gripping the one for the main door tightly between her fingers.

She was just about to take another step forward when, with no warning, a shape ran out of the bushes at her.

Screaming, Rosie dropped her keys.