CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

Jane had fallen asleep waiting for her father to finish with his paperwork, and when she woke up the next morning, he had already left to go to his job. Jane decided to walk to into town and take a bus over to Andover as she was sure that Sammy and Sarah were at Sammy's house. She'd come back later when her father was home.

When Jane finally arrived on Parkview Close, she walked up to the Gilmore house and rang the doorbell. Sammy's mother answered.

"Hi, Mrs. Gilmore. I was wondering if Sammy was home," Jane said, peering into the house.

"Oh, no, dear. She's with Sarah up at the lakes," Mrs. Gilmore replied, pointing in the general direction of the Charlton Lakes.

Jane nodded and headed for the lakes. It took her about six minutes to walk there; the whole time she was trying to get the black horses out of her mind. What would she do if she saw them again? What if she saw them when she was with Sammy or Sarah? Should she tell them about it? Would they think she was crazy?

Jane decided that telling Sammy and Sarah about it wasn't a very smart idea. She decided to keep it to herself. She found the two girls on the bridge that they had always hung out on during the summer.

"Jane!" Sammy called, smiling and waving her over to them.

Jane smiled back, and she took a seat beside the two girls on the bridge.

"We were wondering when you'd finally make it home," Sarah said, offering Jane a cigarette, which Jane gladly accepted.

"Just got in yesterday," Jane said, lighting the cigarette. "When'd Test get out?"

"Two days ago," Sarah answered.

"So how goes life at the nice boarding school?" Sammy asked. "Was your Christmas all right?"

Jane nodded.

"Yeah. Just kind of feels like this year's going by really slowly," Jane said.

"I know what you mean," Sammy said, leaning back onto her elbows and looking up at the sky. "So, nothing interesting has happened at all since the summer?"

"Oh, there've been plenty of interesting things," Jane said, sucking on her cigarette, "just none I want to talk about."

None that I really can talk about, Jane added bitterly inside of her head.

"Fair enough," Sammy said. "But hey, Friday night, my cousin, Mike, and a few of his friends are heading out to a party in Southampton. You game?"

"Southampton? Who's he know from there?" Jane asked.

Sammy shrugged.

"I don't know. A friend of a friend or something. Mike says it's gonna be big though, bigger than any party we've ever been to," she said.

The corners of Jane's mouth tugged downward a bit as she thought it over.

"So, you don't know whose party it is? It's not anyone you know?" Jane asked.

Sammy shook her head.

"I don't know, guys. I mean, Southampton? Bit out of the way for a party, isn't it?" Jane asked.

Sarah shrugged.

"It's only twenty-five minutes south of Romsey, and we've been to parties there before," she said.

"Yeah, but you knew those people; you went to school with them. We aren't gonna know anybody at this party," Jane explained. "And if these are Mike's friends, then they're gonna be a bit older than us. I just don't think we should go to this one."

"Oh, come on! It'll be fun! Besides, Mike's only twenty; that's not that much older than us," Sammy countered.

"I just turned sixteen last month," Jane said. "Four years is a bit of an age gap, Sam."

"Did you miss the part where she said it was going to be bigger than any party we've ever been to?" Sarah asked.

"No, I actually caught that part. That's one of the reasons I don't like the idea. We don't know what kind of people are gonna be there. They could do drugs for all we know," Jane said.

"Well, that's funny because you didn't seem to have a problem with the grass we smoked over summer," Sammy said, flicking her cigarette butt into the lake.

Jane rolled her eyes.

"I'm not talking about weed; I'm talking about harder stuff, like Smack and Coke," she said.

"Don't forget about Lucy; it's the best," Sammy said, but Jane didn't catch onto the sarcastic tone she was using.

"You've done Lucy?!" Jane exclaimed.

"No!" Sammy said in an exasperated tone. "What? You think I'm stupid? I was being sarcastic!"

Jane relaxed a little bit and laughed at her own stupidity. Sammy might have been reckless and wild, but she wasn't completely mental.

"Listen, if they have stuff like that, then we'll leave," Sarah assured her.

Jane sighed.

"I don't know, guys. I just don't have a good feeling about it is all," she said, still unconvinced.

Sammy rolled her eyes.

"Just think about it, all right? You can decide later."

Jane just nodded. However, she had already given it enough thought, and as far as she was concerned, she wasn't going. At least, that was how she had felt about it at the time.

Jane spent most of her day with Sammy and Sarah, catching up on the things she'd missed, like the fact that Sarah had a new boyfriend or that back in October, Sammy had had a pregnancy scare. And Jane couldn't help but to feel a little left out when they ventured into the topic of sex.

Secretly, Jane wondered if she should just go ahead and get it over with. The idea of saving oneself was becoming more and more passé, and it seemed as though so many of her peers had already jumped off the virginity train. However, Jane also knew that she shouldn't push herself into something that she wasn't really ready for, and especially not with someone she didn't really care about. Therefore, she tried to remain content with being a virgin even though her curiosity tried to get the better of her sometimes.

After a fun filled day of really doing nothing productive at all, Jane took a bus back to Stockbridge. Once again, she tried to mentally ready herself for the conversation that she had been fully prepared to have the night before. It was now harder to convince herself to actually tell him than it was the day before. It was as though the more time lapsed, the more she found reason not to tell him. She needed to tell him soon before the time came when she didn't want to tell him at all.

However, as she walked into her house, Jane found her father packing a suitcase. She furrowed her brow.

"I'm home," Jane said, trying to get her father's attention.

He looked up at her.

"Oh, Jane. I thought you were in your room," he said.

Jane frowned a bit. He had to have been home for at least an hour now, and he hadn't even noticed that she wasn't home. That kind of hurt her.

"No, I was with Sammy and Sarah up in Andover," she said, hoping that he might start an actual conversation with her.

However, her father just remained silent, stacking papers into a briefcase. Jane sighed.

"Are you going somewhere?" she asked, looking at the briefcase and the suitcase.

"Business trip in London," he said quickly. "Really urgent."

"But it's the holidays," Jane said, a little disappointed.

"It's only for a few days. I'll be back before Easter Sunday," he said.

"That's not the point I was making. This is the first time I've been home all school year. Can't someone else go to London?" Jane asked.

"It's only for a few days, Jane," her father repeated, not looking at her.

Jane just stood there with a look of pitiful incredulity on her face as she watched her father pack his things. Suddenly, the phone rang, and Jane walked into the kitchen and grabbed it off of the wall.

"Hello?" she asked bitterly, twirling the cord around her finger.

"Hey, it's Sammy."

"Hey," Jane said, still frowning a bit.

"So, have you thought about the party? Mike needs to know if you're coming with us or not."

Jane started to chew on the inside of her lip, listening to the sound of her father shuffling papers in his office. Why did he have to go to London right now? Why couldn't he ask someone to fill in for him? Had he not missed her at all?

"Hello? Earth to Jane!" Sammy's voice drifted through the phone.

"Huh?" Jane asked stupidly, not having paid attention the first time.

"The party! Are you coming with us?" Sammy asked again.

"You know what?" Jane said as she continued to listen to her father packing up his things. "Count me in."

"I knew you'd come around!" Sammy said. "Hey, Sarah! Jane's coming with us!"

Jane heard a muffled voice in the background that she assumed belonged to Sarah.

"Hey, Sammy, I'm coming back to your place tonight, all right?" Jane said.

"Yeah, okay," Sammy said. "I can't wait for Friday! This party's gonna be the best! Oh, can you pick me up a pack of smokes on the way over here? I'll pay you back."

"Sure thing, Sammy," Jane said, scowling at her father's suitcase in the living room. "See you soon."

"Leave it alone, Jane. It looks fine!" Sammy said, trying to get Jane to stop touching her hair that Sarah had fixed for her.

Jane was sitting uncomfortably in between Mike and Sammy in the front seat of Mike's car as they drove to Southampton that Friday; Sarah and a couple of Mike's friends had taken up the backseat. She had been sitting squished between the two of them for at least forty minutes now. Jane looked around at the buildings they were passing.

"How much further did you say we had?" Jane asked, trying to shift into a more comfortable sitting position.

"Not too much longer," Mike said, looking at the road intently.

Jane rolled her eyes. That had been his answer for the last three times that she had asked. However, this time, Mike seemed to be telling the truth because a few minutes later, they pulled up to the party.

They had been right when they had said it'd be big. There were so many people there that Jane almost didn't understand how they all fit in one spot. Jane immediately felt out of place as she looked around at all the people. Sammy, Sarah, and herself had to be the youngest people there. And there was just too many people, way too many people that she didn't know at all. However, this didn't seem to deter Sammy in any way.

"This is wicked," she said as she had walked inside.

Jane let out a caustic laugh.

"It's something, but I don't think 'wicked' describes it," she said, not liking how dark it was inside the building.

"Oh, quit being a spoilsport!" Sammy said. "Have some fun!"

Jane pulled a face and ducked around a couple that were snogging right in front of her.

Fun, Jane thought. I'm gonna need alcohol for that.

Jane walked over to the makeshift bar they had set up where a couple of girls were mixing drinks.

"How can I help ya?" one of the girls asked.

"Have any tonic water?" Jane asked.

"Yup," the girl answered, popping the 'p' sound.

"Vodka and tonic then."

The girl eyed Jane for a second.

"Aren't you a little young to be drinking?"

Jane resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Vodka and tonic, please," she repeated.

The girl just shrugged and poured Jane her drink before moving on to the other people.

Jane took a sip of the drink and winced a little as it went down. She sat down on the arm of a chair near her and just looked around at the crowd of people. She tried to make out what music was playing in the background, but everyone was just so loud that she finally gave up.

A few minutes passed, and she had to admit that she wasn't having too bad of a time. Sure, she was being dreadfully antisocial, but at least the people were entertaining to watch. She was now on her second drink, just watching and listening. Somewhere in between wondering how people could dance when they could hardly hear the music and wishing that she had a lime wedge to stick in her drink, Jane was accompanied by a guy in a green jacket that appeared to be either nineteen or twenty.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked in a slick voice, and Jane was repulsed by the creepy grin he smiled at her.

"Well, I can tell you that it's not 'sweetheart,'" Jane retorted.

He seemed unfazed by Jane's off-handedness, as though he were used to this type of rejection from women, and Jane wouldn't be surprised if he was.

"Vodka?" he asked, pointing to her drink.

"Yeah. What's it to you?" Jane asked, hoping that if she were rude to him, he'd go away.

He just shrugged and pulled something out of his pocket.

"You take this with it, and it's guaranteed to get you drunk way faster," he said, holding up something between his thumb and forefinger.

Jane looked at the little white pill in his hand. She could just barely make out the word ROCHE carved in it. She wasn't exactly sure what it was, but she had no intention of figuring it out either.

"No, thanks," she said, turning her body away from him ever so slightly.

"You sure? You'd have a lot of fun on this—"

"I don't do pills," Jane interrupted, standing up from her spot and sitting her drink down on the table in front of the chair.

Jane walked off without a word, wanting desperately to find Sarah or Sammy. As she walked away, she turned back to make sure he wasn't following her. Luckily, he wasn't; he was too busy bothering the next girl that was closest to him. She assumed that he talked to any girl he could find until he found one that was just as desperate as he was.

Creep, Jane thought as she shook her head and made her way through the crowds of dancing people.

By this point, Jane was delightfully buzzed by the vodka, and when she found Sammy and Sarah, she let them convince her to dance with them.

"Took you long enough!" Sammy shouted over the music and the people. "Where have you been?"

"Drinking," Jane yelled back, stumbling a little and accidentally bumping into a couple that were dancing near her.

Jane seemed to giggle involuntarily as she apologised; the alcohol was working its wonderful magic on her. She had been planning on telling them about the guy with the Roche tablet. She was going to ask them if they knew what kind of drug it was, but as she danced with them, the thought slipped further and further from her mind.

Pretty soon, it didn't seem to matter to Jane that she didn't know anyone there. She didn't seem to care anymore that she was only sixteen and that the guy she was dancing with was probably far too old for her. She didn't care that just two people away from her, she saw a girl take a blotter, not caring that LSD had been one of the things she'd been worried about from the beginning. For a while, she forgot about the creatures she saw at Hogwarts, and she felt like a normal teenager. And she lost herself in the music that she still couldn't hear clearly, finding her own drunken rhythm to dance to.

After a few minutes, she felt someone grab her hand and pull her out of the dancing crowd. She looked up to find that it was Sarah.

"Having fun?" she asked, and Jane just smiled and nodded in return.

"Sammy and I are going upstairs. Mike says they've got some killer grass up there. Wanna come?"

Jane, who was sticky with sweat by this point from dancing and being in the midst of so many people, just looked for her drink.

"Yeah, you go on; I'll be up in a minute," she said waving Sarah off.

"Third door on the left when you come up, all right?" Sarah called back to her as she walked towards the stairs.

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Jane said, pushing her hair out of her face, looking for her drink.

Jane finally found her drink sitting on the table right where she'd left it. She started to drink what was left of it and sat down, trying to cool off. Once she realised that it wasn't cooling off in the house, she walked outside.

Jane stood on the porch, letting the cool night air wash over her, relaxing her. She closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. For a second, she was filled with that empty feeling again, and that confused her. She was having a good time, wasn't she? So, why did she feel so low? Maybe the whole party scene was just getting old. After all, hadn't she been getting better without it?

Well, she had been getting better. And then she started seeing things. God, why did she have to start seeing things? Everything had started to go back to normal, and then it had gotten screwed up again. Jane sighed.

Story of my life, she thought bitterly.

Jane pushed herself off of the railing she had been leaning against and felt a little dizzy. She shook her head, trying to shake the dizziness away, thinking it was just the vodka. She took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth, but as she flicked her lighter, the dizziness got worse.

Jane stumbled backwards a bit, the unlit cigarette falling from her mouth. She rubbed her eyes, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that she shouldn't be this drunk. She'd only had two cups of vodka, and they had been watered down with tonic; besides, she hadn't even finished the second one yet.

Jane walked back inside and everything seemed to be in slow motion. She didn't feel good. She felt weak and sluggish and tired. Jane stumbled into the hallway and leaned up against a wall. She sucked in deep gulps of air that tasted like stale cigarette smoke. She ran her hands over her face, trying to snap herself out of it.

Someone was grabbing onto her, pulling her away from the wall. They were talking to her, but their words were all distorted. They were trying to take her upstairs, and Jane found that she couldn't really push them off of her. She didn't have control over her body.

As he pulled Jane up the stairs, Jane reached out to grab onto the railing to try to hinder him from dragging her upstairs. But as her fingers glided over the railing, she couldn't seem to work the muscles in her hand, and the guy continued to pull her up the stairs.

Jane didn't know who it was, and she couldn't get her head to turn the right way to see who it was. She tried to call out for help, but nothing came out. Her legs collapsed underneath her, and the guy seemed to lift her off the ground to carry her. And before her mind had any real time to panic, everything went black.

When Jane woke up, she was on a bed, and someone was stroking her forehead. Her head felt as though it was going to split open when she opened her eyes.

"Good morning."

Jane looked up to see Sarah.

"What happened to me?" Jane asked, though her words kind of ran together.

"We don't really know for sure," Sarah said. "Mike went looking for you, and he said he found you downstairs pissed out of your mind. When he brought you upstairs, you were passed out cold."

Jane let out a little laugh.

"It was Mike," Jane said in relief. "Mike's the one that brought me upstairs."

"Yeah, it's a good thing he found you and not some creep," Sarah said. "Did you take something?"

"No," Jane said.

The door of Sammy's bedroom swung open and Sammy walked in.

"Mike says that one of his friends saw some guy at the party trying to give out Rohypnol," she said. "He thinks that maybe that's what she was on."

"But I didn't take anything. All I had was vodka and tonic. I swear," Jane said, taking the glass of water that Sammy was holding out for her. "And what's Rohypnol?" she added as an afterthought.

"A sedative," Sammy said.

"Well, how did I—?"

"Your drink probably," Sammy said. "Must've been roofied while you were dancing."

Jane gulped down the water, and the realisation washed over her that she was lucky. Something really bad could've happened to her last night. Thankfully, it hadn't, but she had still been drugged.

Jane handed the now empty glass back to Sammy and fell back into the pillow. It had been stupid of her to even go to the party in the first place. She had had no business there; she didn't know anybody from Southampton and neither did Sammy or Sarah. So, why had she gone?

Because she had needed something to take her mind off things. She had needed something that made her forget that she had started seeing things or that she couldn't get her father to listen to her.

Jane's mind went back to what Hellen had told her during her first session of the school year:

"Trying to forget and actually dealing with a situation are two completely different things, and one of them can be very destructive in the long run."

Jane guessed Hellen had been right. Jane didn't want to try and forget anymore. She needed to start actually dealing with things instead of trying to run away from them. But it was just so hard to do sometimes. She had tried to tell her father about it, and he wouldn't listen, and now, she just didn't really want to tell him at all.

Unfortunately, Jane knew she needed to tell someone. After all, the boys already knew, and she couldn't just make out like it was a joke. So, she made a compromise with herself. She would just wait and see if she ever saw the creatures again. If she didn't, then what was the harm in not telling? If she did, then she'd go straight to Hellen.

Jane spent the rest of the morning nursing a terrible hangover and hoping beyond hope that she never saw those creatures again and that everything would just go back to normal.

A/N: Just thought I'd tell you that you should never leave your drink/food unattended at parties or bars, and you should definitely never take drinks from people you don't know. There are too many things that people can drug you with that are far too easily accessible to the wrong kind of people. This kind of thing didn't just happen in the 70s and 80s, it still happens today, even with some of the safety measures that drug manufacturers go through now. Also, if you go to a party with your friend, make sure that you look out for each other. There are too many twisted people in this world, and no matter how many times you think it won't happen to you, it still could. You are not impervious to these things and neither are your friends. Also, never drug anyone. There is never a good reason to do that. I don't care whether it's just for a laugh or something stupid like that; it's sick and wrong. Also, to any person out there that thinks it's okay to take advantage of someone because they're drugged and won't/can't say 'no,' that's still considered rape.