Read Online Wild by Naomi Clark - Free Book Online Page A

other on how much they could snort in one go.
    But where else did she have to go?
    She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, watching the first brilliant rays of afternoon sun penetrate the clearing storm clouds. The wolf in the park, Nick Doyle’s words, they swam round her head in an endless loop as she looked for something that would make sense of it all.
    Her mind flickered back to Nick. Should she try to track him down? No, she dismissed the thought immediately. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, he couldn’t help her. She needed real help, proper help. She glanced at the clock in the dashboard. Almost three o’ clock. Where did the time go?
    An edgy, itchy sensation settled over her bones as she sat there, akin to claustrophobia. Her skin felt too tight, as if her skeleton had expanded within her, trying to burst free. Her head burnt and throbbed and a deep, gnawing sense of want crawled in her stomach.
    Maybe Vic had brought some ketamine over. A good k-hole would be just the thing right now.
    Bowing to the inevitable, she locked the Mazda up and headed inside.

nine
    H ER HANDS WERE shaking so hard she could barely get the key in the lock. A mixture of cold and craving pulsed through her. She needed a shower and a fix, not necessarily in that order.
    Harris and Vic were in the living room, bent over the coffee table. She could feel the buzz vibrating off the pair of them as Vic cut the lines of snowy powder. Harris twitched and grinned, rubbing his hands together. His grin faded a little when he saw Lizzie. “Hey babe, you okay? You look like shit.”
    She gritted her teeth. Why couldn’t he have OD’d instead of Hannah? She wouldn’t have missed him. “I fell over in the park,” she said brusquely.
    Vic looked up at her, eyes fever-bright. “You want some?” He gestured at the powder on the table. “This shit’ll perk you up.”
    “I don’t need perking up.” Her pounding head begged to differ. She wet her lips and forced herself to smile. “Unless you brought any ket over, Vic?” She wanted that numb, bendy feeling, wanted to loosen herself up.
    “Sorry. You still owe me for the last lot.”
    Anger pricked at her but she marched to the table and snorted up a line anyway, almost just to spite him, then stomped into the bathroom before her temper got the better of her and she slammed her fist into his fat nose. She heard Harris mutter something as she ran up the stairs, something that Vic laughed uproariously at.
    She turned on the shower and stripped off her sodden, mud-covered clothes. The water was lukewarm, which didn’t improve her mood any. She scrubbed her face angrily, hot tears mingling with the cooling water.
    By the time she’d washed all the mud from her hair, the water was icy cold. She wrapped herself in a giant, but slightly damp towel and cracked open the bathroom door, hearing laughter from downstairs. She loitered in the hallway, torn between staying in the bedroom until Vic was gone and going downstairs to see if there was any meth left. In the end, as much as she hated herself for it, she went for the meth. One last line wouldn’t hurt, right? One for the road, one for luck.
    She dressed quickly and tied her hair back before heading downstairs. In the living room, Harris and Vic were crowded round the computer in the corner, laughing hysterically. “What’s so funny?” she asked, coming up behind them to see Wolf Watch’s familiar black and red logo on the screen. “God, I don’t know why you two are so obsessed with this stupid site.”
    “Look at this, Lizzie.” Vic snatched the mouse from Harris and scrolled down the screen to a fuzzy night-time picture of a dog – maybe a dog, anyway - rooting through an upturned dustbin. “Someone took this just the other night in town. Reckon it was the same wolf that attacked you?” he mocked.
    She stared at the photo, fingers shaking as she clutched the back of Harris’s chair. It was … was it? It looked like the