This chapter is going to get a lot more dramatic, ending with a cliffhanger, so I'm just going to say now that nothing really bad is going to happen to Tee. Not for at least two chapters, anyway...
I immediately felt a sharp jab of pain in my head, but I ignored it and tried to turn round. But before I could, I was slammed against the wall again. I felt another stab of pain, and for a moment everything spun round. In that dizzy moment, they grabbed my schoolbag, and tightened their grip on me. I shook off the dizzy feeling and swung myself round with a force unexpected to them.
I could see now who'd attacked me; Matt, Sean and a bunch of other boys. Thomas's friends.
"Get off me!" I yelled, trying to wriggle free, but there were too many of them. Matt continued to shove me against the wall as Sean delved through my schoolbag, before tipping it upside down.
"Stop it!" I screamed as school books, lunch, the whole contents came pouring out. I strained as my phone fell to the hard floor, breathing a sigh of relief as it hit the ground seemingly unharmed. But Sean had seen my reaction.
"Want this, do you?" he said, before stamping on it with his shoes, then grinding it into the ground. I gasped, helpless. It had my mum's phone number on it. The only copy of it I had.
But that wasn't what Sean was after. He and another boy were now rooting furiously through the pile of stuff that lay on the floor, and inside the pockets of my bag. Sean, seemingly unable to find what he was looking for, turned back to me.
"Where are they?" he demanded.
"What are you talking about?" I said in a strangled voice, unable to hide how scared I was.
"The phones. Hand them over."
"I haven't got them!" I managed to say, wishing I did. Anything to get away. And it was obvious they didn't believe me. Another friend of Thomas's was searching me now, his eyes narrowed when he didn't find anything. I noticed that all this time, Thomas himself was nowhere to be seen. This scared me even more; whatever they were going to do to me, it was obviously serious enough that it was in his best interests to avoid being seen.
"Tell me where they are." said Matt in a quiet, sinister voice.
"I don't know," I stammered, my stomach twisting with such heavy fear it was all I could do not to be sick. Because there was no way I was going to give Jenny away. And I knew I'd face whatever was in store myself.
"Tell me," Matt repeated, an even more dangerous edge in his voice.
"I - don't - know." I spoke.
And then I froze. Because I saw what Luke was holding. Luke, the tough guy of the area, the one everyone avoided. He was deadly, fast working his way to the top of one of the toughest gangs in town. I hadn't noticed him before; he'd been skulking in the shadows. But now he came forward, the shining sharp blade of a knife swinging in his hand.
And he passed it to Matt.
"I told you," I repeated. "I don't know."