"I'll do it."

I hadn't expected to hear Sammie barge into the house the following evening and greet me with such determination. In fact, the more I'd thought about our conversation the night before, the more I'd worried I had pressured her into doing something she didn't want to. I should have known that taking drugs was a difficult topic for her, and that all I'd likely done was remind her of her parents, but I still selfishly kept on at her. So it was very much a surprise to find her stood, one hand on the flaking paint of the doorway and a look of unwavering resolution on her face. Her tear-stained face.

"Did something happen?" I saw something new in the way she came across. Not quite anger, not quite fear, but it was a strong emotion nonetheless, "Did she do something?"

Sammie's stare remained static and intense, "I said I'm doing this. Does it matter why?"

"I just want to know what changed your mind."

"You want to know?" she raised her voice, annoyed, then took a deep breath and lifted her shirt up, revealing a large purple bruise across her stomach, "That's why!"

Anger seethed through me. I wanted to march down to the children's home and smack Weaver in the face for what she'd done, punch her over and over until she fell to the floor then hold her by her throat until she apologised. How dare she touch Sammie, how fucking dare she. I felt swamped by the desire to get revenge, to do what I should have done years ago, but I had to bite my tongue and concentrate on the person stood in front of me. She wasn't here to get me to fight Mrs Weaver, she was here to find some respite from the hell of her life, just as I was.

But I couldn't let it slide that simply, "I swear to God I'm going to kill that woman, Sammie."

"Catra... Look, I don't want to talk about it," she closed her eyes, taking more long breaths to calm herself, much as I should have done too. When she spoke again, she was a lot more unaffected, detached even, "You said you could help me forget it all. I want to forget it all."

I didn't exactly need asking twice when it came to chemical happiness. My entire life was now spent either in the pleasant haze of drugs, taking them or fucking people for money to get them, and I'd never felt better. All of the shit that had happened to me would have been the end of someone lesser, the sheer horror of my life would have driven others to depression, but me? I found a way to live, to stop worrying about the past and to at least give me a platform to move forward from. Sure, my life wasn't in the best shape, but I was just giving myself time to reorganise and work out where to go from here.

Now I was well-accustomed to taking heroin, I could share my knowledge with Sammie. I wasn't some kind of careless junkie, though, just giving her drugs and a needle and wishing her good luck, I was going to ensure she was okay. I was going to take care of her. Even the amount I took the first time would have been too much, so I made sure to measure out just the right amount to have a positive effect without causing any harm. I helped her prepare it, keeping the closest eye on everything she did so that there would be no mistakes that could hurt her, and then showed her the best place to inject it, even holding her hand as she did so.

"How do you feel?" I asked a couple of minutes later, hoping that it would have had time to start flowing around her body and that she'd see that it wasn't all bad.

Sammie leaned back against the chair she was sat on and sighed, "I think… I think it's helping."

"Enjoy it," I was genuinely relieved that I'd been able to help take away her pain. Leaving her with Mrs Weaver was the only regret I had about running away from the home, and it killed me inside to know that she had taken the brunt of the old woman's rage at my escape. It was almost a responsibility to give Sammie the chance to forget it all for just a few hours, a form of atonement for my leaving.

Once I had assured myself that she wasn't having any bad reaction to the drugs, I was able to get my fix too. It was a beautifully familiar feeling as always, the calm that enveloped my body and made life perfect, and was made even better with the knowledge that my best friend – my sister, even – was here with me enjoying that same bliss. I felt it touch every inch of my body with happiness, and it relaxed me to the point that I began to drift in and out of sleep. I could hear people shuffling in and out of the house, as well as some music channel playing quietly on the ancient TV in the corner of the room, but it was more dreamlike than reality. My body had become one with the mattress I was laid on, I could no longer tell where one ended and the other began, and reflections of the lights of passing cars in the windows flashed past my eyes like some kind of ethereal spirits. Consciousness mixed with unconsciousness, as it often did for me these days, combining the two in a beautiful surrealness that lasted into the early hours.

"Catra?" Sammie's voice was quiet, though it pierced my sleep and brought me back to reality. I tried to turn my head to look at her, but the muscles in my neck refused to take any orders and I remained staring at the ceiling.

"Mh?"

"Thank you."

I smiled; the knowledge that I'd really helped her and given her temporary sanctuary from her life was all I'd wanted, "Sure. Any time."

"No…" she drew a sharp breath and groaned as though in pain, even though she couldn't have been anything but blissfully happy right now, "Thank you for everything."

"Sure," my head became heavy once again, falling forward to drag the rest of me to sleep. As I drifted off, I let my mind run free with the idea that we could do this again, that now Sammie had found the secret to my happiness that she would want to join me another time too. Of course, I'd be responsible enough not to let her get addicted, but the two of us having a break from reality every once in a while would have been exactly what we needed.

Daylight was trying its best to stream through the gaps in the grimy blue curtains that covered the windows when I awoke again, refreshed from my night's sleep. The serenity of the morning gave way to a slight panic as I realised Sammie should probably have left by now, Mrs Weaver would probably be going spare if she wasn't back by 9am – that was our 'sleepover curfew', but as with most of her rules, it was completely arbitrary and merely another way to control our lives. Even so, I didn't particularly want Sammie to have to face the wrath that arriving back even a minute late would have generated.

I grunted as I sat upright, my body creaking like that of someone twice my age and tried to gently talk her awake, "Sammie, get up, it's like… half eight."

There was no response, so I called over again, this time a little louder but she still remained asleep. It wasn't surprising really; she must have been so tired having to deal with Mrs Weaver constantly. With a little difficulty, I shuffled my feet around off the edge of the mattress and tried to stand, but my still-unconscious legs gave way the moment I tried to put any weight on them. I wouldn't let that stop me though, I knew the penalty that awaited her if she stayed here much longer, and I couldn't let her go through that. I must have been a rather sorry sight, crawling across the mess of empty plastic bags and discarded plates of food on the floor, but responsibility meant more to me than image at that moment.

"Hey, Sammie," I pulled myself up on the arm of the chair she'd fallen asleep in and nudged her shoulder. The moment I touched her, something felt wrong about the way her body fell against the back of the chair, almost like I was trying to wake a doll. A jolt of terror ran through my body, and I brought my hand up to her face in the hope that it would disprove my fear, that my worries about something being amiss were totally unfounded.

My world stopped.

Her cheek felt like ice, and it felt like the floor fell from underneath me with every nanosecond my hand felt the cold of her face. I couldn't move, I was static there on the floor beside her until the panic broke through and sent me into a desperate search for life. But wherever I tried to seek reassurance, wherever I looked for a sign of life, I found none – her chest didn't rise and fall as it should, and I could feel no breath leaving her lips.

"Sammie, please… no…" tears began to stream down my face as I frantically prayed for anything that would tell me this wasn't happening. A tiny movement, a shred of warmth, something that could divert the path of my thoughts from the inevitable conclusion. Anything that would mean I didn't have to face the reality that was rapidly dawning on me.

I reached down for her hand, and though my own found it, it also discovered something that made me gasp audibly. There were several empty bags wedged between her thigh and the side of the chair, the type that the drugs had been delivered in, and my heart felt as though it had fallen out of my body. The part of my brain that tried to rationalise what was happening, that tried to find alternative explanations, was instantly drowned out by the part that had already reached a terrifying realisation: she had taken far too much, more than I'd given her, and it had killed her.

"No..." remorse spiralled through my thoughts, and knowing that I had been so occupied with numbing my own pain that I completely ignored hers began to hurt. I thought back to what she'd told me a couple of nights before, that she wanted to die, and how the only thing I had done was give her access to a way of making that happen. I should have taken her more seriously; I should have looked after her better and not have distracted myself with my own drugs. How could I have let her down so badly?

My panicked thoughts soon turned to what to do next. I had no idea what the procedure was for anything like this – did I call an ambulance? The police? A funeral home? Should I find help from the people here? I picked up my phone and before I realised what I was doing, Lonnie's name was on the screen.

"What the fuck do you want, Catra?" I wasn't surprised by her response. It was the first time I'd spoken to her since she kicked me out, and I didn't expect her anger to have lessened any; it clearly hadn't.

"I... I didn't know who else to call. Sammie's dead," the words didn't feel real as they tumbled from my mouth. Nothing about the situation, frankly, felt real.

There was silence on the line for a few moments before Lonnie spoke again, "Poor kid. What's that got to do with me?"

"I think..." I pressed my hand into my forehead, desperately hoping beyond hope that this was all some horrible dream or something, "It might be my fault."

"The fuck? What did you do, Catra?!"

"I gave her some heroin."

From the muffled thuds on the other end of the line, I think Lonnie dropped the phone in surprise. It was several seconds until she said anything else, "Jesus fuck, Catra. Why the hell would you do that? Were... Fucking hell, I can't believe I'm asking you this... Were you trying to kill her?"

"No, I swear! I'd never do that, never," this was the most animated I'd been for a long time. I would never have deliberately hurt her, not in a million years, and I would never stop ensuring people knew that. But it wasn't the time to start thinking about myself, I needed Lonnie's help and I could only pray that she still held some tiny fraction of affection for me, "I don't know what to do, Lonnie. I'm going to go down for this, fuck..."

She heaved a sigh, the type that usually meant she was doing something she didn't want to, "Have you called an ambulance yet? Or the cops?"

Maybe I should have done, but Lonnie's was the first number I thought of, "No, I... I haven't."

"Good. Do you still have any gear lying around?"

"Yeah..." you couldn't move in this house for drugs or paraphernalia, and I followed Lonnie's train of thought to the realisation that I was looking really fucking guilty right now, "Oh God..."

"Don't move, don't touch anything," she sounded like she knew what to do in this situation, and in my panicked state I had no real option but to obey her instructions, "I'm going to make a call, wait until the drugs have gone before calling an ambulance."

"What do you mean, gone?"

She hung up without giving any answer, leaving me in silence with only Sammie's body for company. I assumed there were other people in the building, Kylie was probably in her room across the hall as usual, but I'd not heard anyone passing by on their way downstairs. If they knew what had happened...fuck, they'd want to get rid of me and never see me again. In fact, I imagined no-one would ever want to see me again – who could ever feel anything positive towards someone who would give a child drugs and not realise that she was taking too much? I was the lowest of the low and probably deserved everything that was coming my way.

Twenty regret-filled minutes passed before I heard the door opening downstairs and slamming shut. Footsteps investigated the ground floor, no doubt searching for anything that might reflect badly on me, and eventually found their way to the staircase. I opened my bedroom door slightly, allowing me to peer through the gap and check who was coming up. The moment I saw his face, framed by that same perfectly styled long blond hair from the memories I was trying to repress, I jumped back into the room, unable to stop the scream coming from my mouth. My breath quickened, panic erupting inside me, and I pressed my body against the wall furthest from the door to provide even a tiny level of protection for myself from my visitor. Protection from Hordak's friend, Prime.

"Stay away from me!" I shrieked when he arrived in the doorway, my teeth bared and hands balled onto fists with my nails digging into my palms. My mind was aflame with that night in Hordak's office, thoughts and emotions firing non-stop and my body telling me it was about to happen again.

"Now, now, I'm here to help..." his voice was condescending, with all the sleaze and self-importance someone who really believed his own bullshit, "Catra, wasn't it?"

I shivered as my name left his mouth, angry that it too was being tainted by him, the one part of me that he hadn't defiled until now. My eyes stayed fixed on him, watching for any movement that might bring him towards me, and every step he took into the room was like another, more sinister threat. I tried anxiously to bat away the vivid replay of the last time I'd seen him, but my brain steadfastly refused to listen to my silent pleas for it to stop.

"Don't come any closer," I warned, though with the level of fear in my voice, it wasn't exactly the intimidating threat I wanted it to be, "What… what are you doing here? Where's Lonnie?"

He smiled arrogantly, like a politician 'delighted' to be in charge of something they've spent their career trying to destroy, "I'm here because Hordak sent me. When there's a mess to clean up, when the Horde's interests are in danger of being harmed, I'm the one who gets tasked with fixing it."

"Are… are you going to kill me?"

"Interesting…" Prime furrowed his brow theatrically, as though pretending to consider it. He moved closer, and I backed up against the wall behind me, but he still continued forward into my space, his face inches from mine. I was terrified that he would try something again, that he'd force himself upon me once more, but he simply placed a hand on my trembling cheek, "I hadn't thought of that. You're a clever one, Catra."

Ugh, my name again soiled by passing through his lips. I had to get him away from me and Sammie, if only to allow me to calm down from the high state of alert he'd put me in, "Just… just do whatever you need to do and go."

"Hand over any drugs you have, and I will do just that," he ordered, finally stepping back with his hand outstretched and ready to take what I had, "We wouldn't want you to get in trouble now, would we?"

"Will I get them back?"

Prime laughed an incredibly sinister chuckle as I carefully reached for the tin that I kept my stuff in, my eyes staying locked on him the entire time, and dumped it on the floor in front of him, "Oh, Catra, spoken like a true addict. Hordak is offering you a chance for freedom and all you care about is getting a fix. Although, I must say it was clear from the moment I arrived that that was your only goal in life. Like a sister to you, wasn't she?"

"Don't you touch her!" I saw him stepping towards Sammie and I felt rage growing at the idea that his hands, the ones that had overpowered me and forever corrupted my body, would even go near her. She was innocent, perfect, a far cry from the sordid world of drugs and sex that I had fallen into, and I wouldn't have him take that from her, not even in death.

"Okay, okay," he picked up the tin, giving it a cursory look through and satisfying himself that I hadn't tried to deceive him, "I'll leave you alone so you can call the police. But before I do, Catra, one final piece of advice: You know nothing about the Horde, do you?"

"What?"

Prime sighed, a hint of irritation entering his voice at my not having properly understood his point, "The police will no doubt be interested in the unexpected death of a teenager, and they'll want to ask you about it. Hordak does not care what you say about what happened last night, but the second you mention his name, or the Horde… let's just say that Sammie won't be the only one leaving here in a body bag. You understand, don't you?"

I nodded, understanding all too well that Hordak looked out only for himself. All this had nothing to do with protecting me from prison, or clearing my name when they looked into what had happened her – it was all about making sure that Hordak kept his operation secret and his money still flowing in. What hurt more was knowing that the sliver of hope I got from having Lonnie help me was false; all she was doing was making sure I didn't rat her out to the cops. She didn't even trust me to keep quiet, she just cared that she and, by extension, Hordak would be sleeping soundly in their beds tonight, undisturbed by any police sniffing around.

"Very good, Catra," with unnecessary flourish, Prime turned on the spot, ready to make his exit, "And you should be careful, there are some horrible people about."

My fists, already clenched tight, clamped down even harder, my nails breaking skin as I took in his words. He knew, he fucking knew what he had done to me and I wanted to cave his fucking face in for that little comment. 'Oh, there are horrible people about', yeah, and he was by far the worst of them. But I had little time to stew in my anger at him, I had only barely stopped myself from smacking him in the face because it would only get me into more trouble. I was in enough shit as it was.

I spluttered my way through a phone call to the emergency services, finding it painfully surreal telling them that Sammie was… fuck, she was really gone. The second I ended the call, my knees crashed to the floor, phone falling on the ground beside me, and I finally began to feel the gravity of my situation. I had lost everything: I had no job, no real home and now I had nobody in the world who cared for me because the last person who gave a shit was slumped in a chair, dead. And it was my fucking fault; I had given her the drugs, I had shown her how to take them, I had fallen asleep while she took way more than her body could handle. All I wanted was to go back in time, even just twenty-four hours, change something so that I could still have her in my life. But I couldn't bring her back now, the one person who was always on my side, who would never give up on me, and I was more alone that I had ever been.

Flashing blue lights flickered off the walls of my room not long after, and I wasn't surprised to see the ambulance outnumbered by police cars. The cops were first into my room, gently pulling me away from Sammie before allowing the paramedics in to attend to her. As I expected, it took them seconds to work out that she was long past any point at which they could save her and they solemnly began moving her body, taking her away to God knows where. I began to wonder briefly it that was the last time I'd ever see her face, that my last memory of her would be inseparably linked to my sadness and guilt. But as more cops swarmed into the room, any chance I had to mourn was lost to fear; I was not just the last person to see her alive, I was an addict living in a hovel that was normally crammed with drugs. It wasn't a stretch to draw a conclusion about what had happened and who was responsible.

The whole house swarmed with cops, presumably trying to find any trace of illicit substances, but Prime had obviously done a decent job at cleaning the place out. Even so, it didn't stop them taking one look at me and working out what my deal was – I was stick-thin and gaunt, my arms littered with tell-tale marks and dark circles around my eyes. I was a caricature, a stereotype of everything they expected an addict to be, and it was little wonder they put two and two together, asking me to hold out my hands to be cuffed.

The officer spoke robotically, parroting out the lines without really knowing what they meant, "At this moment in time you're under arrest for manslaughter. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Now please come with me."