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  Praise for Caroline Green’s Cracks:

  ‘If you devoured The Hunger Games this will hit the spot.’

  The Times

  ‘Taut and suspense packed right up to the last page.’

  The Financial Times

  ‘A fast-paced thriller in which nothing is as it seems.’

  The Independent

  ‘A beautifully crafted complex thriller.’

  The Independent on Sunday

  ‘A gripping story, impossible to put down. Green cranks up the tension with every page.’

  L. A. Weatherly, bestselling author of Angel

  Recommended by Radio 4 Open Book

  Praise for Caroline Green’s Dark Ride:

  Winner of the RoNA Young Adult Award

  ‘Full of tension, mystery and real-life drama, Dark Ride is not to be missed.’ Chicklish

  ‘Almost impossible to put down.’ Goodreads

  ‘Fresh and convincing.’ Booktrust

  Caroline Green is an experienced freelance journalist who has written stories since she was a little girl. She vividly remembers a family walk when she was ten years old where she was so preoccupied with thoughts of her new ‘series’ that she almost walked into a tree.

  Caroline lives in North London with her husband, two sporty sons and one very bouncy Labrador retriever.

  Her first novel, Dark Ride, was longlisted for the Branford Boase Award and won the RoNA Young Adult Award. Her second novel, Cracks, has received high critical acclaim and fan praise.

  To Mia, Andrew, Jennie, Alex, Christine, Trudy, Rowan, Luke, Ben and Lily from East Barnet School.

  First published in Great Britain in 2013

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd

  A Templar/Bonnier publishing company

  Deepdene Lodge, Deepdene Avenue,

  Dorking, Surrey, RH5 4AT, UK

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text copyright © Caroline Green, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of Caroline Green to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 170 6 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 209 3 (ePub)

  Also available as an ebook

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK), Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Cover design by Simon Davis

  Cover photo © gifyo.com/wickedlace

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1 – KEYS

  CHAPTER 2 – NORMAL

  CHAPTER 3 – SHINY

  CHAPTER 4 – LIFEGUARD

  CHAPTER 5 – GODS

  CHAPTER 6 – ANGEL

  CHAPTER 7 – WIND CHIMES

  CHAPTER 8 – SKIN

  CHAPTER 9 – BEAUTIFUL

  CHAPTER 10 – SALT

  CHAPTER 11 – KNIFE

  CHAPTER 12 – SACRIFICE

  CHAPTER 13 – TING

  CHAPTER 14 – SPIN

  CHAPTER 15 – SWIM

  CHAPTER 16 – SHELL

  CHAPTER 17 – CUT

  CHAPTER 18 – BREATHE

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  The blackness began to dissolve. She tried to move her head but pain jack-hammered inside her skull and nausea gripped her stomach. Closing her eyes, she willed the sensations to pass.

  Minutes went by. Or was it longer? Time didn’t seem to run in a straight line any more but looped and rolled back on itself. When she opened her eyes again her bottom lip was smushed against something damp and cold. Raising her head and blinking heavy, sticky eyes, she saw that she was lying on a duvet with a faded pattern of daisies and that she had been drooling on it. Coldness had seeped through the duvet from the hard floor beneath it. Groaning, she forced her body up onto her elbows. Her head hurt everywhere, but one part of her scalp throbbed with bright urgency. She drew her tongue over dry lips, tasting blood; it felt swollen and oversized in her mouth.

  She rolled onto her back and discovered her wrists and her ankles were bound with strong plastic ties. A single lightbulb hung in the middle of a ceiling above her, its glow sickly in the gloom. Familiar . . . but why?

  A wooden chair, heaped with blankets, was opposite her. Then the blankets moved.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  The hissing voice kicked her heartbeat faster. She could see now that there was a figure there, sitting upright, hands folded between their knees.

  ‘Well, are you?’

  She hoped she was asleep. Then she would wake up in her own bedroom with sunlight soaking through her curtains.

  But hot tears slid down her face because she knew this nightmare was really happening.

  CHAPTER 1

  KEYS

  ‘We’re going to be late!’

  ‘I know, I know! Oh for God’s sake, has anyone seen my keys?’ Mum bustled into the room in a cloud of perfume, her kitten heels tapping the stone tiles with a staccato rhythm.

  Tara met her mother’s eyes for just a second. But it was long enough. She turned her attention back to the screen of the laptop.

  ‘Tara?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said flatly. ‘No idea where they are.’

  Mum sighed and left the room.

  Tara knew the cocktail of emotions her mother was feeling. Relieved, because Tara hadn’t done her ‘thing’, yet wishing she’d been able to locate the missing keys all the same.

  As they say, it was complicated.

  She looked down at the maths problem in her homework and breathed slowly. Distraction, that’s what she needed in these moments. Focus on something else. She was getting good at it. Then Beck turned his music right up and both her parents yelled, ‘Turn it down!’ at the same time. Tara’s concentration shattered.

  The inside of a pocket. A rain jacket. A crumpled tissue. The packet of cigarettes that Mum thought no one knew about. Nestled beneath them, the keys with the sparkly heart charm lying at the top.

  Dad spoke, bringing her attention sharply back to the room.

  ‘What were you wearing yesterday?’ he said, his voice taut with irritation.

  ‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘I popped out to get milk at teatime. It was raining a bit . . .’

  ‘So maybe your cagoule?’ Dad was the only person in the world who referred to a rain jacket as a cagoule. Tara felt a squeeze of affection, despite the queasy feeling in her stomach. At this rate, they’d be late for their anniversary meal and it would be her fault. She contemplated opening her mouth and freeing the words stacked up there. ‘Mum, your keys are in your cagoule.’ But she knew it would prompt quick, alarmed glances between her and Dad. This again? Didn’t we think Tara had stopped this?

  But thankfully she didn’t have to say anything.

  ‘Oh!’ said her mother. ‘Now there’s a thought . . .’

  A few minutes later the keys had been located. Mum and Dad yelled goodbye and the door closed behind them. Tara could imagine the conversation only too well.

  ‘I really think she’s grown out of that phase now, thank God. Don’t you?’

  ‘I told you it would only take time. The whole sorry episode is best forgotten.’

  Yes, Dad, she thought. Let’s just pretend none of it happened. Let’s pretend Tara’s normal. And that no one ever got hurt.

  Beck came into the room then. One hand was rummaging inside his jeans, as usual. The other held a can of Coke, which he scrunched up and
tossed into the bin before burping roundly.

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ Tara said, wrinkling her nose.

  He grinned, flashing his perfect teeth. His green eyes twinkled. Tara snorted and turned back to the computer screen. That cheeky smile might charm most of the female population between the ages of ten and eighty but it didn’t work on her.

  ‘Right, I’m offski,’ he said, snatching up his jacket from the back of the chair.

  ‘But you said you were staying in tonight!’ She couldn’t control the desperation that clung to her words.

  Beck shrugged. ‘Had a better offer. Anyway, you don’t need babysitting, do you?’

  ‘No, but you told Mum and Dad you’d —’

  ‘Oh come on, Tar,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘You might want to sit in every night like some sort of nun, but some of us have a life.’

  ‘Get lost then,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to —’

  ‘Off you go,’ she interrupted. ‘I don’t care what you do anyway.’

  She turned back to the computer screen.

  A few minutes later she heard the front door close again.

  Tara gazed at the screen but the homework may as well have been in hieroglyphics. The numbers began to swim and distort and she knew that one of those horrible headaches was coming. They always did after she’d ‘found’ something. Even though she hadn’t even been trying to find Mum’s keys. Which was pretty unfair.

  Getting out of the chair, Tara stretched, trying to free the tightness in her neck and shoulders. Mum was always telling her off for her posture. She raised her fingertips into the air as high as she could, her T-shirt riding up and exposing her waist. A memory of Jay’s warm hand on the small of her back at the pool party loomed out of nowhere. She caught her breath at how much this still hurt, despite everything else that had happened.

  Some of us have a life, Beck had said.

  Maybe other people deserved one.

  Beck had no idea what it was like to be her. To have guilt gnawing at your insides every single day. A wave of bitterness washed over Tara then and she swore. The word rang out, loud and satisfying, in the empty house.

  A walk, she decided. She’d get out of here for a while and try to walk off the headache and the bad thoughts.

  ‘Sammie!’ she called. ‘Here, boy.’

  Their yellow Labrador trotted into the room, brown eyes hopeful and tail wagging with a metronome beat. Tara smiled and went to the cupboard to get his lead. When Jay had been pushing her further with whispered promises and urgent kisses last summer, she’d lain on the back lawn, arm slung across Sammie’s furry back. The dog had slumbered peacefully next to her and Tara had felt like the smelly old mutt was the only loved-one in her life who didn’t put any pressure on her.

  Their shadows stretched long and thin in the low evening sun as Tara and Sammie headed down the alley near the house. It led to the river, which ran all the way into the centre of town.

  It was the beginning of October and everyone was talking about an Indian summer. The weather veered from unseasonal heat to thundery rain from day to day. But tonight, the air felt soft and warm on the bare skin of her arms and the edgy feeling inside Tara began to calm a little.

  A duck skimmed onto the water with a creaky quack, sending a long V-shape in its wake. The long grasses at the side of the river were tangled with the remnants of wildflowers, humming with insect life, and the trees opposite were mirrored on the still surface of the water. Tara took slow, deep breaths of the sweet air.

  A mother and a small girl on a bike were coming towards her and she stood to one side, allowing them past. She got out her phone and pretended to text someone. She always looked away when small children were around. But it was hard to ignore this one, with her over-the-top bike. It was festooned with ribbons and a bunch of bells, which looked like the sort that came with chocolate Easter rabbits. The bells ting-tinged as the girl trundled by, fat knees pumping away.

  ‘I zooming, Mummy,’ said the little girl proudly.

  ‘Yes, lovey, you are,’ said the woman, swooping her weary eyes up and grinning at Tara. Tara smiled back weakly and then let her gaze slide quickly away as they passed.

  ‘C’mon, Samster,’ she said, too loud, slapping her thigh. The dog was engaged in some vigorous sniffing action in the bushes but happily trotted over at the sound of her voice.

  Walking along with her dog in the warm air helped the knots of tension in her muscles and mind begin to loosen. She reached into her pocket for her iPod. Soon she was humming along to Kings of Leon, her feet moving in easy rhythm to the pounding beat.

  She liked walking along the river. It always calmed her.

  In fact, she didn’t mind living in this new town. Not that she had made any friends but, for now, being anonymous was the very best she could hope for. She dreaded someone knowing someone who knew someone at her old school.

  If anyone asked, the official reason for the move was that Dad had got a new, better-paid job and it meant relocating fifty miles north of where Tara had grown up. But there was another, unspoken reason. No one knew them here. There would be no sly stares when she went into town. No whispers behind her back at school.

  No one here knew about a little boy called Tyler Evans.

  The music was loud and she was engrossed in thought, so when someone walked past close enough to brush her arm, she yelped, yanking out her earbuds.

  ‘God!’ she said. ‘You scared me!’ Her shocked heartbeat echoed into her throat and her cheeks flushed.

  A tall boy, a little older than her, was regarding her with a surprised expression.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said gruffly. ‘I said s’cuse, but you didn’t hear me.’ He had close-cropped dark hair and navy blue eyes with enviable lashes. He was wearing a white T-shirt that showed tanned arms with curving muscles and low-slung jeans. Almost gorgeous, but with an arrogant moodiness that was a turn-off. He looked like he loved himself a little too much. He took a step back as Sammie bounded over to say hello. ‘Whoa . . .’ His hands were up now, his lips drawn into a tight line.

  ‘He’s just being friendly,’ said Tara. What a wimp, she thought. Fancy being scared of Sammie.

  The boy muttered something and hurried off, checking his mobile as he went. There was a single word written on the back of his T-shirt. Lifeguard.

  The dog looked as though he had every intention of chasing after the boy in an attempt to bond with him further.

  ‘Sammie!’ barked Tara harshly. ‘Play dead!’ It was one of the many commands Dad had painstakingly trained the dog to do as a puppy. But it was the only one he’d trained him to do successfully. Calls of ‘Sit!’ and ‘Fetch!’ were met with looks of stubborn resistance.

  Sammie flumped down onto his belly and placed his head on his paws.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Tara. She clipped on the lead and sat down on a bench, watching the boy disappear around the bend in the river. He had that air about him, of someone who thought he was a bit of a Hard Man. She knew his type. She didn’t like really short hair on boys either. Much nicer to have something to twist your fingers into. Like Jay’s hair. It was impossible not to think about the way it curled into his neck now. And his sparkly brown eyes, which always seemed to contain some vaguely naughty knowledge.

  Tara sighed deeply. When would thoughts like that stop bugging her?

  The list of Things Tara Didn’t Want To Think About was getting longer by the day. She wished she’d listened to her friends at the time. Hadn’t they warned her about Jay Burns? She was just another notch. That’s all. Nothing special about her, despite all the things he’d said about her being ‘like no one else’. That was probably true, she thought. But not in a good way.

  Irritated to find tears pricking her eyes, she found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose, then tried to rub away the leaky mascara that had somehow strayed under her eyelids.

  Coming here was a fresh start. In future she was going to keep her h
eart locked away. She wouldn’t let herself get hurt like that again.

  Getting up, Tara looked up the river path and wondered whether she should just go home. But she was thirsty and remembered there was a row of shops up the road a bit, off the river. She’d buy a can of something to drink first. An evening alone in front of the telly wasn’t something she was in a rush to do.

  She carried on walking and turned the corner, where a distinctive iron bridge covered the river. Standing in the dark curve underneath, where the bricks were stained green and the river usually smelt like drains, was the boy who had passed her before. Tara’s steps slowed down. He wasn’t alone. Voices echoed off the walls. The words were indistinct, but clearly full of anger and heat.

  A girl was leaning in towards him, her face pushed so close to his they must have been breathing each others’ air.

  Oh, thought Tara with a sinking feeling, recognising her.

  Melodie Stone. The biggest bitch in her class.

  Melodie had sleek golden hair and a mean, pretty face. She always had the top of her school skirt turned over that extra inch, one more button on her shirt undone than anyone else. Tara had accidentally sat in her seat on her first week at school. Melodie had looked at her as though she was pond life, lip curled and eyes bright with malice. She hadn’t even spoken, but had waited until someone else pointed out Tara’s ‘mistake’. Tara had been tempted to stay put but decided there was no point making enemies on her first day. In the few weeks since then, Tara had heard some of her withering put-downs to other people. Once, Melodie had almost reduced their mousey art teacher, Mrs Henderson, to tears. It was probably best that she’d taken a deep breath and moved seats that day. She didn’t need the hassle.

  Tara sat behind Melodie in English and was therefore in prime position to witness the tedious way Melodie lifted up her silky mane of hair before letting it swing back again, like she was in some shampoo advert. She’d caught Tara watching her once and given her an annoying, slow smile as though saying, ‘Gorgeous, aren’t I? Unlike you.’ Tara had swooped her eyes and looked away again, cheeks flaming.