Toxic

by Nicci Cloke

  Contents

  Title Page

  ALSO BY NICCI CLOKE

  Dedication

  Hope

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Logan

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Daisy

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Acknowledgements

  Nicci Cloke

  Copyright

  ALSO BY NICCI CLOKE

  Follow Me Back

  Close Your Eyes

  For Mum, for everything

  Sometimes, you must wonder.

  What it was like to be me that day. To wake up and to not know. To not remember.

  Maybe you imagine it. We’ve all been there, after all. Waking up with that sinking feeling you get when you know that your memories are missing, that the pieces of the night which went before don’t quite fit together. That twisting fear, the voice whispering, ‘I don’t know what happened to me.’

  But you do know what happened to me.

  You know because you were there.

  ‘C’MON, HOPE, LIGHTEN up!’ he says to me, his hand closing round mine, and the rest of the boys laugh.

  ‘You guys are disgusting,’ I say, turning away, and that only makes them laugh harder.

  To be fair, I can’t help smiling either, even when Dev lets off another rancid fart next to me. It smells of rotten Egg McMuffin – unsurprising, given he ate three of the things on the way here – and would be an antisocial thing to do even if we weren’t all stuck in a cramped plane with the air being recycled for the next five hours. But yep, I’m still smiling. Because we’re finally off. We’re finally on holiday.

  JB, who’s sitting across the aisle from me, seems to find it less funny. He’s gone a strange greenish colour. Nate nudges him, probably about to make some snide remark, but JB lurches out of his seat, and just makes it to the tiny toilet in front of us before we hear him hurl his McMuffin back up.

  This is also unsurprising, given that JB lost almost every round of the drinking game we played in the minibus taxi to the airport, and also got dared to down two dirty pints in the Wetherspoon’s back at Stansted.

  Some people say that girls and boys can’t be friends, and with the combined smell of Dev’s bumhole and JB’s regurgitated breakfast mingling around me, I can understand why. But I’ve also laughed so much this morning that my stomach’s already aching, and I’m feeling really glad that they invited me to tag along on their ‘lads’ holiday’. They’ve had it planned for months, and for a while, the girls were kind of planning one too. But that didn’t pan out, because, well, reasons. And secretly I was glad. Lately there’s been a bit of tension between a couple of the girls and it feels like we’re starting to drift apart.

  ‘Any drinks? Snacks?’ The air hostess bumps her trolley back up the aisle past us. We’re near the front of the plane – which has turned out to be lucky for JB – and I think she’s a bit sick of us already. You’d think that the fact we have to pay for our drinks on this uber-budget flight might put the boys off ordering round after round. You would be wrong.

  ‘Six Stellas, please!’ Zack says, beaming at her and waving his credit card. He’s always buying rounds. OK, so it is his dad’s money, but still, he doesn’t have to share, does he? It’s like a job he’s given himself in the group – always trying to make sure we’re having a good time. The air hostess smiles at him – one of those smiles that’s so tight at the corners and at the eyes that you know it’s meant to be a screw you – and starts dolling out our cans of beer. My head’s feeling a little bit fuzzy but not too bad; I managed to skip a couple of drinks in the cab and one at the airport and I’ve also been carb-loading like mad all morning. So actually I kind of enjoy the taste of this one, the way it fizzes over my tongue. I can feel my whole body relaxing as we fly higher, higher, away from England and the stress of AS exams.

  The only slight kill to my buzz comes when I glance past Dev and his cloud of weapons-grade gas and see Logan in his window seat. Don’t get me wrong; me and Logan are cool. Now, at least. Well, actually we have been for ages. Almost a year. It definitely feels like the break-up was a long time ago anyway.

  But still – it’s never going to be easy, going on holiday with your ex, is it? Even though we’re mates now, sometimes it’s hard to forget that we’ve, you know, seen each other naked. And he’s looking good at the moment. His smooth brown skin is a shade darker from the freak sunshine we had at home last week and he’s let his hair grow out a little bit, the way I always liked it.

  I guess that’s the way Daisy likes it too.

  ‘Hey, Hopey,’ Zack says, leaning across the aisle and interrupting my thoughts. ‘How’s your first lads’ holiday turning out?’

  There’s the sound of a fresh round of retching from the toilet and the boys all laugh. And even though it’s totally gross, the beer is going to my head in a lovely, bubbly way, and I can’t help joining in.

  WE LAND AT Heraklion airport just after 3 p.m. Greek time, and are shepherded onto a waiting coach by Zack, who somehow manages to get his dad act on despite having downed about seven beers on the flight. It was Zack who organised the apartment too, but as we watch all the other groups of guys and girls boarding the coach – some of them in matching tour T-shirts with nicknames printed on the back, including a hen party complete with veiled (and hammered) bride – I’ll admit that I’m sceptical about where we’re going to end up.

  JB, now perked up (and mouthwashed), sits down next to me, and as the coach sets off, we watch the rocky road ahead as we climb through dusty hills. Logan sits across the aisle from us, along with Nate, who’s been quiet all day, while Zack and Dev have already started chatting to the two Welsh girls sitting opposite them.

  ‘You excited then, Novak?’ JB offers me the crumpled pack of Monster Munch he’s just rescued fr
om his bag. He needs to hurry. He’s got about thirty seconds before someone notices and starts up the ‘Eating’s cheating’ chant.

  ‘Course,’ I say, glancing out of the window as we hit some kind of main road. ‘So good to be away.’ I reach out and pinch his cheek with its patchy attempt at stubble. ‘We’re free!’

  He laughs. ‘Sure are. Hey, sorry about your girls’ holiday. Georgie was really disappointed.’

  Georgie is JB’s stepsister, and I get on really well with her. But things have been a bit awkward between her and Charlotte, one of our other friends, since Georgie started going out with Josh, who Charlotte’s had a crush on since we were about nine. It’s silly and I’m sure it’ll all blow over – it’s hardly a good reason to lose a friend. But I also don’t think Georgie was that disappointed about our holiday plans not working out – I get the feeling she’d much rather spend the time with Josh, anyway.

  But I just shrug, because that’s easiest. ‘Thanks for letting me tag along on yours.’

  ‘Hey, any time, Novak. You’ve always been one of the boys.’

  ‘Course she is,’ Dev says, turning round and pressing his angular face through the gap between the seats. ‘Hopey, I’m expecting you to be my wing-woman allllll week.’

  ‘She’s not a miracle worker, Devdas,’ JB says, flicking Dev’s nose.

  I meet Dev’s eye and wink. He needs this holiday, and JB knows it. Dev might be pretending he doesn’t miss Mollie, who he broke up with a couple of months ago, but it’s obvious he’s still gutted. I don’t know exactly what went on there, but Dev hasn’t been the same for weeks. It’s really good to see him in such a good mood today, back to the goofy joker he usually is.

  I’ve known all of them since Year 7 – well, not known them, not really, because I came from the tiny little village school while most of them had gone to the big primary in town. I was cripplingly shy when we started at Dean Valley and so spent most of Years 7 and 8 in a spasm of panic and terror of being called on or noticed or in any way not invisible. It was only in Year 9 that I ended up in a maths class with Nate, Dev and Charlotte and got chatting to them about the sheer suckiness of SOHCAHTOA, after which we ended up sitting together. And then I started to get to know the others, at lunchtimes and stuff, and now we’ve just finished Year 12 and I can’t imagine life without them. I love their stupid nicknames for each other and for me, and I love their stupid goofy jokes and their awkward hugs. The boys stink a lot of the time, but still. It’s like having a whole bunch of extra older brothers. And since my actual brother decided to skip off to New Zealand for the next five years, that’s been kind of welcome.

  The barren road is starting to give way to civilisation: villas and abandoned building sites, everything bleached out in the bright afternoon light. The Welsh girls are still laughing at Zack’s jokes, which is kind of normal. He has this way of talking to people – even if he’s just met them – that puts them totally at ease. Making jokes but not too many jokes, interested but not too interested. He does it with boys as well as girls and the more time I spend with him, the more I wish I could do it too. He’s the friend you always want to have in a group, the person who makes any awkward situation kind of fine.

  Behind JB and me are a couple of girls who look a bit nervous about the rowdy crowd they’ve found themselves in the middle of – everyone chatting and singing and standing up to yell stuff at friends in other seats. I hear one of them mutter, ‘I thought you said it was a chilled-out place,’ but then I get distracted by the shots of some violent green spirit Zack is pouring out of a tall bottle he’s pulled from I have no idea where, into plastic shot glasses he also seems have magicked from yet another pocket in his fancy holdall.

  I think I’m quite drunk now.

  The two girls behind us get dropped off first, at some gorgeous-looking hotel with pillars outside the front door and giant palms in the driveway. But the next group aren’t quite so lucky. Their hotel is up a dusty drive with spiky, dead-looking plants filling a ditch along one side. We can’t quite see the building properly from where the coach has pulled up, but the bit we can see is covered by scaffolding. The hen party get off here, looking annoyed, and a group of boys also have to get off, all of them jeering and jostling one of their friends, who was apparently in charge of booking their accommodation.

  JB makes a pretend scared face at me. ‘Hope Zack hasn’t stitched us up.’

  And he hasn’t. We pull up outside Amiti Apartments ten minutes later. It looks freshly painted, brilliant white, with a bright orange sign beside the sliding doors. It’s five floors high and I can just see the neon blue of a swimming pool behind the reception. It’s nothing fancy, but it looks clean and, you know, finished.

  We climb off the coach, Dev and Zack pretending not to be ecstatic that the Welsh girls – who are called Lucy and Rachel – are staying here too.

  ‘Well in, Zack,’ Nate says, looking up at the building and then through the glass at the pool. ‘You’ve done all right here.’

  ‘As usual,’ Zack says, grinning, before following Lucy into reception.

  ‘Are you guys here for a week?’ Rachel asks, as we step into the cool of the lobby.

  ‘Just four nights,’ I say. ‘The flights were really cheap that way.’

  She nods. ‘Yeah, we got cheap ones too – although our flight back is at like stupid o’clock on Tuesday.’

  ‘You been here before?’ Nate asks her, and she shakes her head.

  ‘We went to Kavos last year, but we heard it was better here. More going on.’

  ‘Yeah, our mate Zack found this page, Malia Unlocked,’ Dev chips in, leaning on my shoulder. ‘It has all the cool secret stuff listed – you should check it out.’

  Rachel smiles at him. ‘Cool, thanks.’

  ‘All sorted!’ Lucy says, skipping over with a form and a set of keys clutched in her hand. ‘First floor, pool view.’

  ‘Nice work!’ Rachel smiles at us. ‘Well, catch you guys later.’

  ‘Yeah, we should all hit the strip together,’ Dev says, although they’re already halfway down the corridor. Lucy turns round and smiles, gives him a little wave.

  ‘They’re nice,’ he says with a grin, once they’re (just about) out of earshot.

  ‘Very nice,’ Nate says, clapping him on the back. ‘Come on then, let’s see what Zack’s lined up for us.’

  Zack pads over to us. ‘Right, boys and girl, we’re all set. Someone call the lift – we’re up on the third floor.’

  We’ve been given three sets of keys – each with a fob for the front door afterhours, and a big gold key for our own door – one of which is immediately entrusted to me.

  ‘Don’t give Hope one,’ Logan laughs. ‘She’s always losing stuff.’

  He looks at me with this kind smile, that same twinkle in his eyes that I know so well. The look that says, I’m only kidding. That says, I love you. Except it doesn’t, not any more. ‘I trust her more than I trust Dev,’ Zack says, also laughing, as the lift pings open and we step out into the third-floor corridor. Our apartment is right at the end, and we all stand outside the front door and watch Zack slot his key into the lock. He takes his time over it, turning to grin at us all like we’re his kids. And that’s kind of the way things are, Zack looking out for us. When Logan and I broke up, it was Zack who came and found me in the common room the next day, his hands full of packets of sweets from the vending machine. He sat next to me and he didn’t ask if I was all right, just handed me the sweets now and then, and after a while he just said, ‘You’ll be all right though, won’t you? You can still be friends?’

  And he was right. We are friends.

  ‘Honey, we’re hooooome,’ Zack says now, clicking the door open ceremoniously and letting it swing open.

  It’s probably a bit too much ceremony, to be honest, because the room inside is pretty basic. It’s clean and tiled, a wooden-framed sofa in front of a wooden coffee table, three wicker chairs dotted around it too. There’s a kitche
n – well, a sink and two electric rings, a microwave, a tiny fridge and a couple of cupboards. The bathroom’s there, through another door, and then, beside that, sliding doors out onto a little balcony, which we all crowd towards.

  ‘The sofa turns into a bed,’ Zack is saying, ‘so one of us can kip out here.’

  The hot air outside hits us in a wave as Nate slides open the balcony door. The pool is below, with its smell of chlorine and suntan lotion and damp towels. Beyond that are the grey concrete buildings of another, bigger hotel, and a scrubby bit of wasteland; behind that, in the distance, the sea.

  ‘Ahhhh,’ Dev says, taking in a lungful of pool air. ‘Now this is what I’m talking about.’

  On the other side of me, JB burps. It smells faintly of McMuffin. And Monster Munch.

  ‘Let’s take a look at the bedrooms,’ I suggest.

  There are two bedrooms, one with a double bed and a little fold-out camp bed, and the other with two singles.

  ‘So obviously,’ Zack says, in his most gentlemanly voice, ‘Hope should sleep in here.’ We’re in the room with the two singles. ‘And then whoever’s not shagging can take the other bed each night.’