The Recruit

3. Worse

Ash stumbled into the hallway, one hand clasped over his stomach. He glanced at the display on his mum's mobile:

48 MISSED CALLS

4 TEXTS

He turned the phone off and stuck his head in the living room. The light was off, TV on. His mum was still asleep in her chair and there was no sign of Giovanni.

'"He's gone," Ash said.

"Thank god for that," Leaf said. "He always kisses me and his breath's revolting."

Leaf pushed the front door shut and picked a handwritten note off the doormat.

"It's from your school."

Leaf read aloud, struggling with the messy handwriting:

"Dear Mrs Ryan, Please contact either the School Secretary or myself urgently on one of the numbers below, con... Con something?"

"Concerning," Ash guessed.

"Concerning Ash's behaviour at school today," Leaf continued. "Michael Jäger, Deputy Head Teacher."

Leaf followed Ash into the kitchen. Ash ran a glass of tap water and slumped at the table. Leaf sat opposite and kicked off her trainers.

"Mum will absolutely massacre you," Leaf grinned. She was looking forward to seeing Ash suffer.

"Can't you shut up? I'm trying not to think about it."

Ash locked himself in the bathroom. He was shocked by what the mirror showed him. The left side of his face and the ends of his spiky raven hair were blood red. He emptied his pockets and stuffed his wrecked clothes in a bin-liner. He'd hide them under the other rubbish later so his mum didn't find them.

Ending up in this mess made Ash start asking questions about himself. He knew he wasn't a very good person. He was always getting in fights. He was clever, but he never did any work so he got bad marks. Ash remembered all the times his teachers had told him he was wasting his potential and that he'd end up in a bad way. He'd sat through billions of lectures with his brain turned off. Now he was beginning to think they were mostly right and that made him hate them even more.

Ash unscrewed the cap on a tube of antiseptic, but realised it was pointless without washing off the blood first. The hot shower soothed his face and stomach as a red puddle whirled around his feet.

Ash wasn't sure if god existed, but he couldn't see how everything just got here without something making it. If there was ever a time to pray this was it. He wondered if you were supposed to pray while naked in the shower, but figured what the hell and pressed his wet hands together.

"Hello, God... I'm not always good. Not ever really. Just help me be good and stuff. Help me be a better person. Cheers... Amen. And please don't let Paul Dean kill me." Ash looked awkwardly at his hands, not convinced about the power of prayer.

After the shower, Ash put on his favourite clothes: a Manchester United shirt and a pair of tatty Adidas tracksuit bottoms. He'd had to hide them from his mum. She chucked out anything that didn't look as if it had been shoplifted the previous week. She never understood that it was cooler if some of your clothes were a bit on the shabby side.

After milk, two of Leaf's toasted sandwiches and half an hour playing Pokemon X with his duvet over him, Ash felt a bit better. Except his stomach killed if he moved suddenly and he wasn't looking forward to telling his mum what he'd done when she woke up. Not that she looked like waking up soon. She must have had loads of drugs to help her sleep and not hurt.

Ash clicked the wrong move and he did no damage to the opposing Pokémon, and then that Pokémon OHKO'd his one. He hurled his 3DS XL across the room. It was boring playing alone, but there was no point asking Leaf. She didn't mind computer games, but she preferred watching Netflix and art, as well as playing sport.