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but it’s not enough. He slams into my chest, plunging the jagged glass into my gut. It rips through my shirt, my skin, the muscles of my stomach and everything in its path. I drop instantly forward into his arms. Holding me up with one arm, he twists his hand, driving the glass upwards, shredding my insides as if his purpose is not to stop until he pierces my heart.
    I glance up, our eyes connect, and instantly I know two things for certain. One is that I’m looking into the eyes of someone who has lost his grip on reality, and two, I’m going to die.
    It occurs so quickly it starts to feel surreal, as if I’m watching it happen to someone else. Sophie and Danny reach me simultaneously, pulling Skinner off and tossing him to the ground. From there he crawls past the bags of garbage along the back wall, scrambles to his feet and disappears into the night.
    Automatically my hands search for the broken bottle. They fold around the glass, still stuck in me, slippery with my blood. I look up through a growing haze, my brain registering pain from front to back, rapidly becoming excruciating. Everything that follows is a blur. I hear sirens in the distance. People are pouring out of the club, their faces curious,alarmed, horrified. Danny and Sophie support me, one on each side. I’m still clutching the bottle with Danny’s hand now folded around mine. They talk over me, frantically discussing whether they should or shouldn’t remove it.
    A security guard takes a look. ‘Don’t touch it!’ he orders. ‘Right now it’s acting as a plug. Release it, and he’s gone.’
    Gone?
Dying, he means. I know that. He orders a staff member to bring a blanket, then tells Danny to lay me down. ‘Flat on his back,’ he says. ‘Here, I’ll help you.’
    My mind drifts. It’s a strange sensation, as if part of me is floating while the rest is heavy as mud. I get a moment of clarity. ‘Where’s Skinner?’
    ‘Beats me,’ Danny says, ‘but the cops will find him. His life is over, man.’
    Like mine
… It seems an alluring thought.
    No life, no pain. Right?
    This life was too hard anyway
.
    But it was getting better, remember? You met that girl tonight, the girl of your dreams
.
    Yeah, and now I’ll never get her number … never get her name … never …
    I close my eyes, drifting in a fog, but Danny urges me to stay awake, his voice breaking through my thoughts. ‘Don’t shut those pretty blues of yours, OK? Stay with me, Jordy.’
    I open them and see Sophie. ‘Where is that ambulance?’ She sounds scared.
    There is blood everywhere, saturating my clothes, sticking to my legs, all over Danny and Sophie. She shakes her head. ‘Forget the blood. They’ll give you more at the hospital.’
    I feel myself drifting once again, but then I hear Danny pleading as if from a distance, ‘Stay with us, Jordan. Come on, buddy. Stay focused, man!’
    Sirens bleat loudly and an ambulance reverses into the lane. Two paramedics leap out and start working on me. The urgency in their voices scares me more than the sight of all the blood. They put me on to a gurney and gingerly take over the bottle-holding. My hand slides away.
    Danny and Sophie stay close as the gurney starts moving, and Danny asks, ‘I can come to the hospital, right?’
    I don’t hear the reply because a girl steps into my line of sight and for a second there is nothing else but her. It’s the girl of my dreams.
    A grey haze swims before my eyes, making everything blurry, and now the girl with the violet eyes and Sophie are side by side.
    Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. I have a broken beer bottle carving up my insides; it’s not outrageous to be seeing things.
    They slide me into the ambulance. Danny tries to climb in after us, but the paramedic stops him. All I can do is hold on to the three stricken faces until the door closes. Then I give in to the pull of the darkening haze.

7

Ebony
    Kids with shocked faces fill the corridor near the exit. It