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Chapter One
Then

Bovington Garrison, Dorset

The spiky twigs scratched at Natalie’s face as she raced further into the pitch-black forest, trying to claw her back to where she daren’t return. Her chest burned with fatigue, but the burst of adrenalin brought on by the sheer terror of what she’d just witnessed prevented her aching legs from stopping. Pumping her arms, she willed the never-ending darkness to evaporate, but as she tried to focus on any sign of the path she’d come in on, the darkness swallowed up the ground ahead.

She’d known it had been a bad idea to venture out here at the bewitching hour; she’d wanted to tell the others that she wouldn’t be a part of it, but they’d insisted and had muttered amongst themselves when they’d sensed her reticence. Whilst Natalie didn’t necessarily know what those mutterings were, she knew the other three well enough to understand the grumbling to be about her perceived weakness. And Natalie accepted that as the youngest in the group, she would forever be the weakest link, and in order to gain their acceptance, she would occasionally have to ignore her own feelings.

As another branch scratched at her cheek, catching her just below the eye, she wished she’d never agreed to sneak out in the middle of the night and join them. If her parents ever learned of her deceit, she would be grounded for the rest of her life – and her dad’s belt would seek out its own punishment.

‘Your parents will never know,’ Sally Curtis had said at lunchtime on Friday as they’d stood behind the sports hall, pretending to smoke.

Natalie hated the taste of the cigarettes that Sally pinched from her mum when her back was turned. Every morning, Natalie would promise herself that today would be the day when she told them that she didn’t want to smoke, but her willpower would wane when she’d see them exchanging glances, certain that if she didn’t go with them she’d inevitably end up as the chosen subject of conversation. At least they weren’t brave enough to gossip about her when she was in their presence.

Natalie’s foot caught on a thick root, and then she was flailing… falling through the air, with nothing to stop her. Her palms bore the brunt of the tumble, but her chin and chest took up the slack. Every part of her stung, but she was too tired to get up and keep moving. If it was fate’s choice that it all end here and now, then so be it; she wouldn’t fight it.

Lying still, her breath catching, she rolled onto her back, hoping to reclaim the wind that had been knocked from her. Through the towering bare branches, the large saucer of moon stared down at her, but for all its brightness, it offered little guidance to where the main path was. She was certain they hadn’t come this far into the woods. The walk to the clearing had only taken a few minutes so she should have found the entrance by now. Was she running around in circles? With the ground covered in dried branches and decaying leaves, it was impossible to know exactly how straight and level her running had been. What if she never found her way out?

No, that was a silly thought. Daylight would eventually come and at that point she’d be able to figure a way out. The forest couldn’t have been much wider than a mile in any direction, so with daylight she’d find a way to the edge, whether it was the side she wanted to be on or not.

Her palms were still stinging, the icy air swirling around her only heightening the warmth of the grazes. She was certain her hands must be bleeding, but even when holding them up to the moonlight it was impossible to distinguish blood from mud.

She should never have let Louise take the torch. Three fourteen-year-old girls, and she – at thirteen, the youngest by four months – was the only one to think a torch would be a good idea.

Bloody Louise! She hadn’t always been such a cow to Natalie. Back before Sally Curtis’s family had moved onto the base, Louise and Natalie had been best friends. But then Sally, with her blonde mop of curls and rapidly sprouting chest had turned up in September, and suddenly everything had changed.

Not afraid to challenge the rules and push boundaries, Sally soon latched on to Louise, who was only too happy to be led. Jane also welcomed an extra member to the group, especially as Sally had that je ne sais quoi that had all the boys tripping over themselves to please her. Jane welcomed Sally Curtis, because Sally’s lack of need of padding somehow elevated the rest of them. Not Natalie, of course, whose chest, she felt, would remain flat as a pancake for all time.

Branches snapping somewhere off to her left had Natalie’s head snapping round, her own breathing instantly silenced. Was it possible they weren’t the only ones who’d come into the woods on this dark night? Natalie focused on the black hole where she was sure she’d heard the movement, but couldn’t make out a thing.

Maybe it was just a wild animal – a squirrel or rabbit of some sort. Yes, that had to be it. Certainly not the ferocious wolf-like creature with blood dripping from its fangs that she was desperately trying not to picture. No, wild beasts like that were things of lame horror movies and books.

Right?

More snapping – this time only yards from Natalie’s feet – had her breath puffing out like a steam engine, and she clamped her eyes shut, covering her face with her hands, hoping that whatever bloodthirsty beast it was would simply pass her by.

‘I’ve found her.’ Louise’s voice carried on the wind, and a moment later, woollen gloves were tearing at Natalie’s hands as she screamed and kicked out in desperate survival. ‘Natalie, stop, it’s us.’

Natalie didn’t dare to believe it, and squinting up at the torchlight, she’d never felt so relieved to see Louise and a panting Jane crouching beside her.

‘What happened to you?’ Louise asked, deliberately shining the torchlight into Natalie’s eyes, until she batted it away. ‘One minute you were there and the next you were gone.’

Natalie really couldn’t explain exactly why she’d started to run, at least not in any coherent manner, so she bit her tongue instead, recognising the warm feeling between her legs and hoping the darkness would hide the patch that had to be forming in the crotch of her black jeans.

‘I fell,’ Natalie said, pointing her palms towards the torchlight and seeing the grazes, which were far milder than she first feared. They certainly stung more than the dull redness would suggest.

‘Yes, well, what did you expect when you raced off without the torch? God knows how far into the forest we are now. Your inner compass was way off, mate. Come on, let’s get you up, and then the three of us can go home.’

Louise nodded at Jane, who promptly grabbed one of Natalie’s hands, ignoring the grimace as she squashed Natalie’s palm and tugged her to her feet. It was only now she was up that Natalie noticed the pain in her right leg, and as her two friends tried to pull her back into the thorn-like branches, she screeched with the pain.

‘What is it now?’ Louise huffed, stopping and pointing the light into Natalie’s eyes; a single tear rolled the length of Natalie’s cheek, before dropping from her chin.

Natalie snatched the torch and pointed it down towards her foot. Jane gasped as the beam highlighted the thin stake protruding from Natalie’s calf, the tip of it red as blood.

‘Oh, Jesus!’ the normally silent Jane exclaimed.

‘Oh, bloody brilliant!’ Louise echoed. ‘Look what you’ve gone and done to yourself now, Natalie. Well done!’

Natalie didn’t take well to the sarcastic tone, but was in too much pain and panic to retort. ‘I think I should go to the doctor.’

‘No,’ Louise snapped. ‘If you do that, you’ll have to explain how it happened, and then they’ll want to know exactly what we were all doing here in the woods when everybody else is in bed. No, Natalie. Just pull it out, and clean it up when you get home.’

‘I can barely walk, Louise.’

‘That’s because it’s still in there so your leg can’t begin to heal. Pull it out and everything will be better.’

‘But there might be splinters left inside. It could get infected.’

‘Don’t be such a wet blouse, Natalie. It’ll be fine. Come on, we don’t have long. You don’t want your parents to find out you snuck out after they’d gone to bed, do you?’

Natalie could easily imagine how angry her dad would get if he even suspected she’d snuck out. ‘No, of course I don’t.’

‘Well then, what are you going to do?’ Louise sighed, and her tone was more empathetic when she spoke next. ‘Listen, I’m sure it does hurt, but we can’t stay here and wait until it gets light. Why don’t you pull it out now, then me and Jane can help you get back to the fence, and we can all sneak back through and into our homes. Then, in the morning when we’re walking to school, we can pretend like you’ve done it then and get the nurse at school to look at it.’ She paused and checked her watch. ‘It’s nearly 2am, which means we’ll be at school in less than seven hours. Right? Surely it won’t get infected in seven hours?’

Natalie had to admit there was some logic in Louise’s argument, and she knew that if she didn’t agree there was a chance Louise and Jane would just leave her here in the woods to hobble home alone.

‘Okay, okay,’ she puffed, the winding she’d sustained finally easing. ‘Shine the torch at it, will you?’

Louise obliged, and as Natalie reached down to the jagged shard, the second she touched it a burning sensation shot up the length of her leg.

‘I can’t do it,’ Natalie admitted in defeat. ‘One of you is going to have to pull it out. Please?’

Louise leaned down and studied the bloody branch before declaring, ‘Jane, you pull it out.’

‘What?’ Jane pleaded. ‘Why me?’

‘Because I’m holding the torch, obviously,’ Louise argued, though it was clear to both of her friends that Louise was as freaked out about the blood as the rest of them.

Not one to cause a fuss, Jane crouched down, coiled her hand around the shard and yanked it out without even warning Natalie.

Natalie yelped in agony, unable to hold back her tears any longer as Jane lifted up the shard of wood, no longer than a cigarette. Up close it didn’t look like it could have caused so much pain.

Looping Natalie’s arms over their shoulders, the two girls supported their friend back to the main path and ten minutes later they emerged from the all-enveloping forest, back at the perimeter fence through which they’d crawled an hour earlier.

‘We’ll have to be quick,’ Louise warned. ‘The security guards will be due to complete their hourly perimeter check soon. Jane, you go through first. Then it’s back to our homes, into bed, and then we never speak of this night again.’

‘Wait,’ Natalie challenged, propping herself against the fence to take the weight off her bloody limb. ‘What about Sally?’

Louise’s eyes grew dark as she lashed out and slapped Natalie hard across the face, almost sending her tumbling back to the ground. ‘Sally was never here. Is that clear? We must all swear a pact – here and now – that we were never in these woods tonight. So long as we sneak back into our homes, nobody will be any the wiser.’

‘But Sal—’ Natalie began to say, before Louise’s raised hand cut her off.

‘She was never here.’