Bang, bang, bang. 

"Let me out of here you mother-" 

"No," Sasha yelled. "Calm down first!" 

"I am calm."

"Yeah, right?" Sasha raises an eyebrow and lifts the coffee cup to her lips, she hooks her tongue around the straw and sips. 

----------------------------------- 

The deafening music, a relentless pounding rock beat that seems to vibrate through their bones and the lights, flashing in sync with the music, alternating with bursts of purple and green creating a kaleidoscope of colours dancing across the packed room, all add to Sasha's growing headache. All she wants is to go home and curl into a ball where she can sleep like she hasn't slept for the last week. She's about to push herself to her feet and mumble an apology when the bartender puts his black tray down and takes off the three shot glasses to put in front of each of them. Sasha tries not to inhale too deeply, she doesn't want to breathe in the scent of sweat, spilt beer and the faint tang of cheap cologne. 

Lennie slides into the stall and grins, "What are we drinking?" Her voice is barely audible over the music.

"What?!" Riley yells louder than necessary. "I can't hear you!" 

"The music is too loud." Sasha yells as well, "What music even is it? It's horrible." 

Riley's mouth drops open as he turns to stare at her, "You what?" He asks, feigning offence. "It's AC/DC" He shakes his head, Sasha is hopeless with music. 

"What are we drinking?" Lennie yells again, rolling her heavily made-up eyes, coated in thick lashings of mascara and eye pencil. 

Sasha leans in, shouting to be heard. "tequila!" She hollers, her words nearly drowned out by the bass. 

Riley claps his hands together and laughs. "Let's go!" They each grab a shot glass. 

Lennie lifts her glass, "To surviving the week!" She yells, her eyes sparkling under the flashing lights. 

The week isn't even over yet, it's only Wednesday. But Sasha and Riley echo her, "To surviving the week!" The three of them lick the salt off the back of their hands and Sasha braces herself as she downs the small glass of tequila quickly, as if it might run away from her otherwise. Fire tumbles into her throat, burning as it goes, sweet but earthly. Quickly she bites into the lime wedge, the citrus juice dribbling down her fingers as she squeezes it into her mouth. 

Lennie scrunches her face up, trying not to gag. "God, that's awful." She laughs, shuddering.

"But it gets the job done." Riley grins, slamming his empty glass onto the table. "Another round?"

"Slow down a mo," Sasha tells him, still recovering from the taste, scraping her tongue against her top teeth as if she could scrape the taste away. "What's the hurry?" Riley shrugs, so she continues, "We're still waiting for Roscoe and Jaide." 

As if on queue another swarm floods into the room, and Roscoe and Jaide are walking towards the table, pushed together, hips touching, Roscoe's arms slung over Jaide's shoulders. When they reach the table they pause for a second, and their lips meet each other's. Sasha tears her eyes away, she's never very sure where to look when people are kissing in front of her, it's like they want her to watch, but she doesn't want to seem weird, so she averts her gaze to the floor, her cheeks burning.

"Uhm, do you two want to sit or would you rather get a room?" Lennie laughs, rolling her eyes. Roscoe pulls away from Jaide and sticks his tongue out at them as Sasha and Riley both laugh. Roscoe and Jaide had been dating for the majority of the year, which always left Lennie, Sasha and Riley looking kinda out of place, but not as out of place as their other dorm mate, who they had lived with for a couple of months now, and hadn't met once. 

Sasha's pretty sure there's something ominious about them, the way they hadn't met and hadn't even stumbled into each other in the corridor or in the kitchen, but she tries not to think about it, if they want to keep themselves to themselves they can. 

"Jaide was telling me on the way over, that the art block you know the one for the painting students, one of the classrooms has been closed for a week." Roscoe tells them as he slides into the stool beside Lennie. "So, we're thinking-"

"You're thinking." Jaide corrects him quickly. 

He glances at her, and then shrugs. "I'm thinking, we could creep in there." 

"That sounds like a great idea." Lennie mocks, rolling her eyes. "Note the sarcasm." 

Roscoe frowns at her, feinging hurt. "There's no need for that." 

Lennie turns to stare at him, Sasha can see in her best friend's eyes that she's trying to work out if Roscoe is actually offended or not. Sensing this as well, Roscoe slips off his stool and suddenly grabs Lennie, pulling her into him so she's tilted backwards on the stool. "Ross you mother-" 

"Say sorry." He teases. 

"No, you absoloute bit-" 

"Say sorry, or I'll step back and drop you." He laughs.

"Roscoe," Jaide's voice is enough to make him push Lennie upright again and step away. 

He slaps the table, grinning wildly, from ear to ear. "Another round you mortals?" 

Lennie and Jaide roll their eyes, but everyone agrees. Everyone except Sasha, sensing everyone staring at her she looks up and sighs, "Go on then."

"Whoo!" Riley shouts. "That's the spirit." Which makes everyone laugh, even though it wasn't a particulary funny pun. 

Seconds later they were on the dance floor. Their bodies swaying and throbbing to the music, Riley and Lennie whispering amongst themselves, Roscoe and Jaide kissing behind cupped hands as if people couldn't work out what they were doing. Sasha shook her head, tried to let the music take her to somewhere far beyond, but the alcohol was running through her veins, and she remained grounded. The lights played tricks on her eyes, faces all around her turned into demons, black eyes sunken behind pale flabby skin, mouths flapping in the wind, humming, screaming, cursing her. Someone's face peered into her vision, evading her personal space, their mouth moving but no sound coming out. 

"A! Asha! Sasha!" Someone is yelling, she stares into the face in front of her, Riley? "I think we should go home." He says.

"What's wrong?" She asks. 

"You've had too much to drink." He tells her, shaking his head, his eyes wobbling in his skull. 

"I've only had two." She argues, but she can't tell now how true that is, it feels like she's had a lot more than two, even to her. Riley grabs her hand, and she bites back her protests, she wants to stay, but she knows it isn't a good idea. "We should leave." Riley tells the others, "I think something's wrong with Sasha."

Jaide is peering into her face, and Sasha wants nothing more than to slap it away. Roscoe and Lennie are laughing at something that she didn't hear, and Riley is trying to lead her away, through the throng of people to the front door, muttering quickly something about fresh air and space. 

But fresh air and space don't help people, Sasha knows that better than anyone. She's been here before, she's sure she has, stuck in the middle of chaos, a storm of people moving around her, blood dribbling to the floor from open wounds, her hands clutching at thin air, people screaming, the sirens blaring. Sirens? 

She glances up as they leave, cold air hitting her fiercely, making her squirm. A police car rushes past in a blur of blue and red lights, the harsh wail of the siren screaming past her ears. She frowns, why is there a police car here? It turns down the road, and heads towards the accomodation, and suddenly Sasha is wrestling Riley away and taking off running down the street, because she knows this, she's been here before, she knows what's to come... 

"Urgh." Sasha groans. She lifts her head away from the pillow, regretting the motion instantly and dropping her head back to her pillow again. There's a knock on the door and then Riley is entering, not waiting for a reply. "Shit." She swears at him, reaching for the duvet to cover herself even though she's fully dressed in last night's clothes. 

"I thought you might like a paracetamol?" Riley shrugs, placing a small white pill next to a glass of water on her bedside table. "Are you okay?"

"I feel like death." She replies, hoping that's enough of an explanation for him. Of course she isn't okay. "I don't remember anything that happened last night."

"I'm not surprised, you were downing shot after shot, even Roscoe was worried." That makes Sasha laugh, because Roscoe is the most laid back person of all, and Sasha's known him since September, and she's never seen him worry once. 

"He was worried about me?" She asks. 

"Oh yeah, you're not in Jaide's good books." Riley smirks, "You know how she feels when Roscoe so much as glances at another girl, to make him worry about one; phew-eey, boy are you in trouble."

Sasha laughs again, even though the action of lifting her lips makes her head throb again. She's glad for the comfort of Riley, because he always knows how to make her laugh, and how to make her feel better. She tried to slip out of bed, but her limbs didn't want to play along. "Was I sick?" She asks.

"Everywhere." Riley replies, "But hey, you can run pretty fast when you're drunk." He shrugs, "So I guess that's an accomplishment." He glances at her now, concern drawing his eyes to hers, "Did someone make you scared? Is that why you ran?" 

She tries to remember, but shakes her head. "I don't know." She replies with a shrug. "I'm sorry, I can't think right now. It hurts too much." 

Riley shakes the concern away quickly, brushing it off him like it's a spider. He chuckles and adds, "I thought you'd be used to it hurting when you think." And then he's laughing, dodging her swatting hand and pushing himself to his feet. "Come to the kitchen, when you feel better." 

Sasha shakes her head as the door closes behind him, but there's no mistaking the huge smirk plastered across her lips, Riley just has that effect on her. She couldn't believe they'd puarsuaded her to go to the club, how could she have let them do that? She was there to study, and even though she was eternally grateful that Lennie and Riley were her best mates, she couldn't afford for anything to be messed up, not again. She wouldn't let them distract her from her course. 

She reached across the bed for her phone, but glancing at the screen made her head hurt so much more, so she dropped the phone back down to her mattress. She glared at the ceiling as if it was the cause of all her problems, and she groaned loudly. She wasn't in her Nan's crummy little flat anymore, which meant she could do all the things she'd never got to do at home, like stay out all night, get drunk, have sex? (Not that she'd do the last one.) But it also meant she couldn't wake up in the middle of the night and walk across the landing to her Nan's room to snuggle under the covers in the safe arms of her grandmother, and most of all, it meant that she could no longer be hugged the way her grandmother hugged her; warm, safe. 

Sasha's limbs finally took part as she pushed herself out of bed and padded across her dorm, she pulled the white wooden door open and stepped out into the corridor, the bright yellow lights illuminated the hallway even though it was day time, and she could hear voices from the kitchen. 

"I don't think we should tell her, not now."

"She really didn't seem herself last night, I don't know how she'll take this news."

"Did she even know her?" 

Sasha pushed the door open to the kitchen and glanced around at everyone. Jaide and Roscoe were leaning against a cupboard, their hips practically joined together. Lennie was sitting on the table, one biker boot resting on the chair, her other swinging lazily. Riley had his head in the fridge, gazing along the shelf of food. 

"Tell me what?" Sasha asked, her eyes widening. 

Riley jerked away from the fridge at the sound of her voice, and everyone exchanged a quick glance. 

Roscoe was the first to talk, "Emily Manhurst is dead."