There was nothing particularly special about my father. He's just an ordinary man. But he had power – so much power – over me. Whenever he became angry his face would go hard and I could see darkness flood his eyes. And when he beat me, it was if he had detached himself, like what he was doing was routine, a process pressed into his brain. No matter how much I pleaded with him to stop, he kept going. I don't think he even knew who he was when he was like that. He certainly didn't know who I was.

I hated my father like that. But he was always angry. It had all happened after Mum had died. There was no longer anyone else to keep him in line, to make him stay who he was. I know that I wasn't enough to stop him from changing, but hell, I tried. I tried so hard to bring him back.

My real name is Neil Cracker. Most people call me Nut-Cracker – Nuttie or Cracker for short. The funny thing is that no one even knew that I existed until Dad became bad. I don't mean the general public, by the way. I mean the street gangs. The greasers and the Brumly boys.

I used to be part of the Socs. But then everything changed, as these things tend to do. Mum died and Dad went pretty loopy. He was always angry; so angry. He had so much rage inside that it hurt me to look at him now.

So one day I decided that I'd had enough and I ran away. I know that that sounds really clichéd and all, but I needed to get away and think. I was already building up a name with the greasers, so I thought that I might be able to fit in OK with the Brumly boys.

And I was right. They saw that I was here to stay and they knew that I had had a rough time at home. They were all for armed fights, and on that first night, the first place they took me was the drug store. It was there that I stole my first blade.

Felt good too. Being part of something. Being part of a gang, a group of people who were both feared and respected. I liked that best. I wasn't too sure about the stealing part – Dad had always taught me the right way of things – but I did it anyway. Just to prove to myself that I could.

That was when I was at my lowest. It felt as if the whole world had turned against me, and I know that there are about a hundred teenagers out there who would say the same, but I was different. There was always something different about me and my situation, because my father never came looking for me.

I had never discussed this with the gang, cause that would be showing that I actually cared. But deep down, I did care. I cared a lot about why my father hadn't even tried to look for me, to hunt me down.

I had cried on the first night. I was 14 years old and I had cried quietly into a worn pillow because I had run away from my father. It was pathetic, and I felt pathetic afterwards.

Now, I'm a lot tougher. I've become one of the gang, but there's still something that separates me from them. I don't want there to be any gap, so that's why I agreed to this.

I'm the only one in the gang who hasn't killed someone yet. Here, it's a badge of honour. I need that badge if I'm to get any further in this life, if I want to survive.

Tomorrow I'm going to kill my first man. I know who it is, I know how I'm going to do it and I know when and where I'm going to do it.

I just don't know why.