“I don’t want to go,” Millie grumbled into the phone as she pushed her glasses to the top of her head, snagging strands of her fringe in the clasp. “Argh!”

“What now?” her mum asked, her voice blasting from the mobile.

“I caught my hair in my glasses.” She waited for a lecture about how she needed to sort out her glasses, her ratty hair, or her entire life. There was always something.

Millie checked the map on her phone. The organisers of Single Mingle, an event for single people in their twenties, chose one of the sketchiest neighbourhoods in London. “I’m not sure tonight is for me.”

“We’ve talked about this,” her mum replied with an exasperated sigh. “You can’t spend your life in your little flat in the middle of a city, hoping you’ll magically find friends, a social life, or—god forbid—a boyfriend.”

Millie pursed her lips.

“Going remote was the worst thing you did for your counselling business. You don’t see people face-to-face. You’ve hidden in your new flat for the last six months, surrounded by your books. At least in Manchester, you spoke to the people you graduated with years ago. Talking to people online isn’t the same…”

Millie tuned her mum out. They’d had this conversation too many times. Online friends were real friends, and she had people all over the world who shared her love of spicy books. Even though she’d never met them in person and probably never would, they cared about her.

“Wear your biggest fake smile tonight, Millie.”

She wanted new people in her life, but anytime she’d tried to meet others, she ended up on the edge of the group, watching as everyone else had fun.

Millie sighed and forced a smile.

“Don’t sigh,” her loving but misguided mum continued. “You’re too used to listening and caring about people. You forget to show the real you and let people get to know you.”

I don’t even show you the real me.

“I struggle to connect with people, Mum, and to make friends.” Some said it was her particular brand of sarcastic sunshine.

She gulped as she glanced at the road to her right, where the map directed her. Half the streetlights were broken, and trainers hung from the power lines.

Everything about this area was a red flag.

The graffiti covering one wall announced Neil wanted Kinka to suck him off, and another suggested Neil wanted a “blowey from Zoey.” Greedy Neil.

She rolled her eyes at the street art of a soldier kissing a woman. She didn’t need reminders of her best friend and neighbour who had ran away to join the army.

Online friends and book boyfriends didn’t break her heart like he had.

“I know you struggle, darling, which is why you need this mingle. I want you to be happy, and you’re not.”

“That’s not entirely true.” She smirked, remembering the cowboy romance she’d read on the train. The single dad cowboy fucked the nanny like his life depended on it. “Real-life men only want me to listen to their problems.”

The man she’d met off Tinder last year said she was “such a good listener and so cute. You’re like the little sister I never had.” The hot hockey players she read about would never say that. They’d bend her over a kitchen counter and—

“Please tell me you’ve put effort into what you’re wearing.”

Millie glanced at her jeans and trainers. Her jumper had stars on it, and she wasn’t in sweats like she wanted to be. She pulled on her bottom lip. “Yup.”

“Liar.”

Millie kicked at a ball of scrunched rubbish before popping it in the bin. London wasn’t like her hometown.

The longing to drive two hours to see her mum picked at her, but her parents wouldn’t be there. Besides, she couldn’t face proximity to her old best friend’s house after seeing that street art, even though she’d probably read a soldier romance into the early hours.

She glanced back toward the street art, yawning, but it was out of view.

Good.

Millie shook her limbs, resetting her body to enforce the same to her mind. “I’m nearly there. Are you and Dad set for your holiday?”

“We’re at the docks already. I can’t wait.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a lovely anniversary trip.” What I’d give for a four-week cruise.

“As long as your father stays in line.”

“Will you cope with not calling me every day?” Millie cheeked, although speaking to her mum daily was a habit she was keen to break.

“I’ll struggle, but I’ll try to be okay with it. Have you got conversation starters for the social? You need to engage with people to make friends.”

“Yes, I’ve got them.” Millie turned into an alleyway and rifled through her bag, her hand diving between lip balms and hand cream. She squeezed her e-reader briefly.

“And they’re not about what Theodore what’s-his-face billionaire book boyfriend said on page fifty-five of Danger Seeker or whatever it’s called?”

“I’ve researched how to make friends. My list includes questions about people’s jobs, their favourite holiday destinations, and where they’re from. It’s like dating but worse.” Millie stopped by a huge bin and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t wait to get home, take my bra off, put pyjamas on, and have a book in my hand.”

“Please do this for me.”

Her mum wanted the best for her, as she always had, but Millie couldn’t forget the numerous rows she’d had with her parents over studying to be a counsellor rather than a doctor when her mum had insisted she focus on a “solid career.”

“Okay. Love you, Mum. Travel safely, and see you in a month. And don’t call me.”

“Love you, little pixie.”

Millie rolled her eyes at the nickname her parents and brother used. “Love you.”

Millie hung up and rechecked her maps app. The social was at a bar at the end of the quiet side street and around the corner.

She fumbled for her purse to make sure she had her ID ready.

She was still carded when buying alcohol from the supermarket. She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. When she was completing a counselling degree placement, someone had asked her if it was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day and where her dad was.

She stowed her bag and grabbed her phone.

She never felt like a child when she scrolled her apps. She had her book account, but there was also an app she considered her gateway to anonymity.

Her fingers danced over her phone, drawn to the app no one knew about, tempted to see what comments and messages the men she outrageously flirted with had sent her that day.

They’d give her courage for the mingle.

She giggled at a message from a man who called her a vixen with a social life to rival influencers. Another asked if she was jumping into a different stranger’s bed every night. A third complimented her on her underwear choices.

She didn’t post photos, but she described things.

She led a dual life, but at least on the app, no one told her she was like a little sister or rejected her because of her kindness.

They didn’t know the real her, and that allowed her to express her wild side freely. She never lied to them, but they still presumed a twenty-seven-year-old single woman with a dirty mind must be having the time of her life.

If the time of your life meant thinking about your former best friend whom you’d lost your virginity to and never saw again, then sure, her life was peaches and unicorns.

She opened her book account and sent a message to her book friend, Rylee, in America.

They’d never met and never would, but it didn’t make their friendship less.

Millie: I don’t want to go.

Rylee: Then don’t. Sprint home and read the new soldier romance you were telling me about. I’ve got a why choose romance on the go, and the college hockey player is about to do something dirty on camera. I love it.

Millie’s shoulders relaxed.

Rylee: What would you tell your counselling clients if they avoided socials?

Millie: That everything is worth a try. But they glare at me when I say shit like that.

Rylee: Channel your lovely welcoming personality, and add a side of seductress, and if all else fails, listen to their problems. People love that.

Millie: Thanks for the pep talk. Here goes nothing.

Rylee: And remember, you can be home chatting with me while reading in two hours. You can do this. Make sure you have your ID.

At least she could say she’d tried when her older brother called to check on her as per their mum’s instructions.

She pressed the heart emoji and stashed her phone in her bag.

She grabbed her purse again, even though she’d checked it for her ID three times already.

Towering buildings loomed above her.

She shook her limbs again and sprung up and down a couple of times, loosening all her muscles. It was a weird technique for relieving anxiety, but the jumping often helped. Her purse flew out of her hand and dropped behind the huge bin.

As she ran behind it, angry voices rose in the middle of the side street.

She ducked down and gripped her bag tighter, searching for her purse. Keeping her life online meant she didn’t need to deal with aggressive people.

She’d wait out the argument rather than get involved with a couple of grunting drunk guys.

Millie peeked out from behind the bin.

A black-haired guy shoved a blond guy up against the wall. He was familiar, and he resembled a Hollywood actor who always played the bad guy. She couldn’t catch their words.

She knelt on the ground, scrabbling in the rubbish for her purse.

Nothing said sexy siren like arriving at the mingle smelling like thirty-day-old fish.

I’ll break my ten-year celibacy spell within seconds.

“All I’ve got to do is meet that reporter, and your dad’s career’s ruined,” the blond rasped as the one resembling the Hollywood star pinned him.

Mr. Hollywood, handsome but dangerously stylish, poked him in the face as he sneered. “I’m not giving you any more money, you piece of shit. Don’t threaten me. You don’t know what my dad is capable of.”

He grabbed him by his collar and slammed him into the wall again.

Millie gulped as he shoved his elbow against the other man’s neck. His hands shook violently, adding to his menace.

“Daddy isn’t going to be happy with you, Hugo. The paparazzi will lose it when they know the truth,” the blond guy said with a choked laugh.

Millie committed their faces to memory.

There was something more put-together about Hugo, aka Mr Hollywood. Maybe it was his tailored black trousers or the fit of his shirt. The light barely beaming into the dark alley shone off his expensive leather shoes.

She couldn’t stop the fight safely, but she could call the police. They wouldn’t get here quickly enough, though. There was a protest on the other side of town. Not only was the protest snarling traffic, but most of the police would be staffing it.

And even if she did call them, what if the guy denied everything? She should film it and take the evidence to the police station.

She mouthed one of her life’s mantras: Stay quiet, hidden, and out of the way.

As the verbal sparring continued, Millie scrunched smaller.

Her trembling, sweating fingers made it impossible to unlock her phone. Hugo looked like a guy who’d corner you in a bar and not take no for an answer. 

“I’m going to end your fucking life,” Hugo spluttered at the stranger as a streetlight flickered on.

Millie flipped her phone into video mode. She gripped it tightly to stop the image from blurring and shaking.

Her pulse thrummed in her ears, like when she dived under water too quickly.

She pressed herself against the wall, willing the clench in her gut to release.

Suddenly, Hugo grabbed the other guy’s head, pulled it forward, and then smacked it against the wall. The man dropped to the ground.

Millie froze.

Sweat covered her palms, and she wiped them down her jeans while the phone, still filming, wobbled in her hand.

Wooziness made her body twitch as she scrabbled for her purse, which was stuck in a tight gap between the edge of the dumpster and a wall. She crawled forward. As her fingers brushed the soft leather, she pushed it farther away.

She held her breath as she stretched and twisted, contorting her body into the tiny space.

At a grunt sound, her stare whipped back to the fight.

Hugo held up a knife.

It glinted in the sun as his hands shook.

“I’m the lesser of two evils,” Hugo snarled as he plunged the knife into the chest of the screaming man.

Millie gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth, but it was too late.

Hugo’s head snapped around.

Even at this distance, his eyes were like black beads against the white pallor of his sweaty skin. He wiped spittle off his face with the back of his hand as he stared in her direction.

Her pounding heart threatened to split her ribcage as she glanced at her purse, which she still couldn’t reach. Her muscles tensed as sweat beaded her forehead. 

Fight or flight.

She bolted from behind the bin, away from the sound of Hugo’s shouts. A glance behind her convinced her the man on the ground needed serious medical attention.

As she ran, her fingers hit 999 on her phone. She stuttered brief details as she gasped for air.

“What’s your name?” the control centre man asked.

“Come to Drilden Street now. A man’s been stabbed,” she screeched before hanging up. She sprinted, ducking between groups of people and jumping around strangers.

Tower blocks closed in on her. Shouts sounded. Smoke clogged her throat as she passed revellers taking drags from cigarettes outside pubs.

The underground station was so close.

Millie dashed across the road.

Car horns blasted, and she dodged a cyclist, who raised their fist at her.

The fitness she’d gained from the drills she did with her best friend when they were teenagers had served her well as she’d grown up. It was almost like he was in her head, telling her to speed up, as the shouts behind her continued.

She barrelled down the underground stairs, managing to pay via her mobile at the barriers. 

She didn’t look behind her. That was what they did in films, and that was what made them trip or panic.

Look straight ahead. That’s where you are aiming for. It’s all you. Her best friend’s words echoed in her head. A train was about to leave. She’d never make it.

You can do this.

Her heart rate was out of control, but she needed to get on that train. The doors were closing as she jumped on. She squealed when they nearly trapped her. She yanked her arm, and her cuff slid between the gap. She was safe.

Hugo banged on the closed train door, and she jumped back, her limbs shaking. Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths.

He scowled, his eyes so black it was as if hell was waiting for her inside of them. It was the same eyes she’d seen when he was featured in gossip columns because of his dad.

Hugo Dankworth, the son of the Deputy Prime Minister, made a slitting throat motion with his finger against his neck as her train eased out of the station.

She pressed her hand to her throat as if it could stem the imagined wound he wanted to make across her skin.

She’d left her purse behind. If he found that, he’d have her address.

If she didn’t escape properly, she wouldn’t survive the night.