It was funny. Well, Brendan thought it was funny. Warren thought it was hilarious and Macca was laughing harder than any of them. It was only Walker who seemed disapproving of the situation, but they say laughter is the language of the soul and if you looked into Walker's eyes, it wasn't always obvious whether or not he had one.

'Cheer up, will you?' Brendan groaned, nudging Walker in the ribs. 'We're not hurting him.'

'It's humiliating,' Walker hissed as Warren moved onto "point 27" in a long, long, long list of things that were wrong with Lawrence's plan to rob a bank.

'He needs it,' Brendan insisted. 'He's been telling everyone who'll listen that he's forth in charge.'

'Idiot.' Macca laughed even harder. He always laughed too loudly at times like this. It was suspicious, Brendan knew it was. Macca was trying too hard, but Brendan didn't care enough to question the younger man's motives. He had no interest in them.

'You're in charge,' Walker held his hands up.

'You always do this,' Brendan shook his head, handing an empty beer bottle to Macca. 'Get us another.' Macca did so immediately, leaving Walker free to ask:

'Do what?'

'Wash your hands of the punishment.'

'I believe in an eye for an eye,' Walker said firmly, turning away as Warren continued onto "point 31, you can't ignore the laws of physics". 'But Lawrence got a bit big for his boots….'

'And now, he's being dragged down a peg or two,' Brendan interrupted.

'In front of everyone in Blue Zone!'

And there was the problem. It was the publicity of the humiliation that bothered Walker. Brendan shouldn't have been surprised. Walker always did like to do things on the sly. He was like a wily fox. He'd probably have been happier if they'd crept up on Lawrence like a shadow in the night, got inside his head and destroyed him over time. He wasn't the showman that Brendan was, and he wasn't as sadistic as Warren. But that's why Brendan had them both, they came in handy for different reasons.

Brendan scanned the crowd from Blue Zone as they watched on. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves. He could imagine that every one of them had been on the receiving end of Lawrence's nonsense at some point. Some more than others, he thought, as he spotted Steven laughing as loudly as any of them, occasionally touching the bruise under his eye.

'Breeeeeendaaaaaan.'

Brendan snapped out of his gazing and noticed a beer bottle floating around in front of his face. He snatched it from Macca's freezing hand and took a swig.

'Where's your glove gone?' Brendan demanded, as Macca rubbed one gloved hand and one bare hand together in a feeble attempt to create some heat. He'd probably bought the gloves for Macca, he had a right to ask about his property.

'I took them off so your beer wouldn't get too warm when I carried it back.'

'Idiot,' he heard Walker mutter under his breath.

'Thoughtful,' Brendan nodded approvingly, though he couldn't help agreeing with Walker, which was a first this evening.

'You into blondes or brunettes, Ste?'

The question felt out of the blue, but Ste had been daydreaming for several minutes, so it might have been exactly what the rest of the group were talking about. He looked over to his three housemates, they were scattered about on the sofa and threadbare armchair in the sitting room.

'Er, dunno,' Ste frowned. 'I'll take anything, me.'

'Stud,' the lad called Kevin laughed.

'Desperate more like,' the lad called Bart added. Everyone seemed to think he was a bit of a tool.

They seemed alright. They weren't as carefree and funny as Callum had been, but they were better than some of the people he'd met here. And they were definitely better than the threat of Lawrence following through with his original threat of turning Ste into his bitch. It may not be prison, but you still needed protection here and a small gang of barely-men was better than one burly-man, especially one who was desperately trying to reassert himself as the leader of Blue Zone.

'Lads,' a face popped up at the window, making Ste jump so much he almost fell off the window seat.

'We're gonna play some footy,' he yelled through the glass. 'You up for it?'

'House 16, vs House 4?' Bart asked, jumping to his feet. He actually looked like he wanted to play football in the streets, in the drizzle. 'Rush goalie?'

'Whatever you want, mate. We'll still kick your arses. Always do.' The boy outside the window was too smug for someone who was getting soaked by the fine rain.

'We've got four players today though,' Kevin nodded towards Ste, as though Ste was going to go out in the rain and play football. Funny.

'You've still got a Scott,' the boy from house 16 jabbed a finger against the glass in a feeble attempt to point at Joel. 'Bloody Jocks can't play football for nothing.'

'Aye, you've had it, right,' Joel shouted good-naturedly, running out of the house.

'What's he saying?' the boy outside the window asked. 'I didn't understaaaa….' But the word turned into a half-scream as Joel hurtled out of the house causing the other boy to take off in fake-fear.

'Coming Ste?' Kevin asked, as he reached the front of the house.

'Oh, I don't….'

'Course he is,' Bart said firmly. And Ste was aware of himself being dragged to his feet by the shoulder of his hoody and bundled towards the front door. He only realised he hadn't put shoes on when he felt the water from the ground soaking through his socks. Fantastic! Now his feet were going to get cold and he'd get pneumonia or something and then he'd be ill in this crappy Estate, and no one would even bloody notice.

He glanced around at the other boy's feet. They were all barefoot, and he noticed how everyone's toes were bent up, or oddly shaped, or hairy like a gorilla. It was rank. And then he thought about how much kicking a football would hurt without trainers on. The thought made him feel sick, more so than the thought of pneumonia, or the fact the rain was flattening his hair and causing gel to run straight into his eyes.

He barely paid any attention to the faintly foreign football language that Bart and the boy from house 16 were blabbing away in as they settled the rules. "Rush Goalie", "No offside", "kick-off". None of that meant anything to Ste, but before he knew it, he was in a weird sort of football game where the road was the pitch and some old 2l Sprite bottles were goal posts.

It turned out, no one on his team was much better than he was – though they didn't hide like Ste did. He learned that if he stood next to the American boy from house 16, they wouldn't pass to him, which seemed like a good plan. It also turned out to be the American's plan.

'I don't understand soccer,' he drawled in his phoney New York accent.

'Football,' Ste corrected, but that was as much as he knew about "football".

'Riley loves it,' he nodded to the boy who'd been at the window earlier. The tool who'd started this whole hellish game.

'Yeah, well, he can actually play, can't he?' Ste muttered, as Riley did some kind of trick that sent the ball over his own head and Joel's head before dropping neatly the other side so he could smash it past Kevin, who looking nothing more than nervous in goals.

Bart was jogging around the centre of the pitch but he only managed to tackle Mickey and Spike from house 16 and Riley wasn't passing to them.

'His dad used to be big-time apparently,' the yank carried on. 'Top leagues, caps for England; something Costello.'

'Never heard of him.'

'Me neither,' Doug shrugged. 'But he played for England with David Beckham.'

Ste shrugged. The name meant nothing to him.

'What! You've never heard of Beckham?' Doug seemed pretty amazed.

'Like the place in London, from Only Fools in Horses.'

'I think that's Peckham,' Doug smiled; bright, shiny, white, American teeth practically pinging in the dim light. Knowing more about England than an Englishman was just pathetic. 'Beckham's a soccer player.'

'Football player,' was all the reply Ste could manage. He didn't really care anymore. He was bored of the happy-go-lucky yank.

Before Ste really had time to announce how stupid the yank looked, continually smiling despite the fact they were playing football in this cold miserable weather, a car tore around the corner at the end of the street, headlights flashing and horn beeping. It was coming straight for them.

'Move!' Riley yelled, because of course they couldn't have thought of that by themselves.

Ste jumped out of the way, but not before he'd shouted a few swears at the metal monster, and aimed a few choice gestures at its maniac driver. He recognised him. He was one of Brendan's henchmen, the one who'd made a fool of Lawrence, the one with wild eyes and apparently wilder driving.

'What the hell!' Ste demanded, once the car had disappeared and all that was left were men picking themselves up and running around like a bomb had gone off. The car's engine roaring in the background. It sounded like he was racing around the entire estate.

'The girls are here,' the yank shrugged, as though that was an explanation for all the chaos. It wasn't, so Ste found himself trying to get more of an explanation from Doug's expression. He looked … disinterested. But then Ste tended to read people about as well as he read words and for a dyslexic whose mother only managed to scrape together the energy to get him to school once or twice a week, that wasn't saying much.

'I'm Doug by the way,' the yank said uneasily and Ste realised he'd just been staring at the lad silently for the past few seconds. Ste looked at the space between them, Doug was holding out his hand like some kind of English gentleman from a history film. Ste felt no impulse to shake it so he just gave a slight nod of his head and grunted:

'Ste.'

'Well,' Doug's optimism seemed unending as he dropped his hand to his side. 'It's a pleasure to meet you, Ste.'

Ste gave a forced sort of smile. "Pleasure to meet you", was this guy some kind of alien? He looked the guy up and down, smart maroon trousers rolled up a little to show of some ankle, an ugly Christmas style jumper and slick back John Travolta hair from that horrible musical film his mum used to watch all the time when he was a kid. And only one question came to mind:

'What kind of crime did you do?'

'Oh,' Doug smiled, and all Ste could see were those bloody teeth. 'I deal drugs … or at least, I did. Not too much call for that here. Now I just help the guys in the Green Zone with distribution.'

'Riiiight,' Ste nodded, but he didn't really understand.

'Never got caught.' He seemed proud of himself for that. 'Police never suspect the innocent looking ones in a sweater.'

'You look boring.'

'Yeah, well,' he smiled through the insult. 'As long as he keeps me away from the cops, I don't care what I look like.'

'Ste, mate.' Joel's unmistakeable Scottish mumble, accompanied by a hand on his shoulder, drew Ste's attention to the fact that everyone else had left the street. 'Didn't you see the car?'

'No, I went blind for a moment,' Ste scorned.

'So what are you waiting for … the girls are here!' Joel was practically tearing off Ste's shoulder in excitement and Ste vaguely remembered Walker's weird little "Welcome Tour" and a mention of visits from the local whore house. Dammit! The girls were here!

'Unless, of course….' Joel let go of Ste's shoulder and looked purposefully at Doug.

'What?' Ste asked.

'Well, if you'd rather stay here with Doug,' Joel's eyes were glinting with some kind of hilarious, unspoken joke.

'Nah, no way,' Ste frowned. 'Show me the girls.' Then he glanced at the yank. 'You coming Doug?' Only seemed polite to ask.

'Oh, no,' the American blushed a little. 'Not this time. You boys have fun.'

'More in to men, aren't you Doug?' Joel grinned, starting to pull on Ste's arm to get them moving, but that stopped him dead.

'Wait, you're gay?'

It did explain the stupid clothes and the perfect teeth. And all Ste could think was that he'd never met a real gay person before, if you didn't count Macca or Brendan, which he didn't, and how weirdly "normal" Doug seemed. But what he said was:

'Watch out for Lawrence, mate. He's well creepy about all that bumming, him.'

'Thanks for the heads-up,' Doug chuckled, all teeth and stupid hair as he gave a half wave and Ste realised that Joel had lost his patience and was now dragging him along the pavement.

'Awww! That is your fault.' Joel punched Ste in the arm, nodding towards a big-boobed, blonde girl tottering after some huge bloke from Red Zone. 'She's usually mine.'

'Alright,' Ste frowned. 'How am I supposed to know that a car trying to run me over means the girls have arrived?'

'Everyone was yelling it?' Joel suggested, and Ste remembered that even Doug had mentioned it. 'You gotta be quick, man, or you end up with the skanks … or the oldies … or the ones who used to be dudes.'

'Hey, if the plumbing's right, who cares?'

'Me,' Joel looked disgusted. 'Jesus, Ste! Do you have standards?'

Ste just shrugged.

'Aye, look at that,' Joel chuckled nodding towards the main table on the stage. There was a glamorously beautiful woman sat in Brendan's chair and next to her Riley was trying, and failing, to smooth talk her.

'He does that every time she's down here,' Joel chuckled. 'He's getting nowhere slowly.'

'Who is she?'

'She's the madam, Mitzeee,' Joel half answered, but his attention had been completely usurped by a brunette, with huge eyes and fake lips and fake boobs and fake everything, who was beckoning him over from a few tables away. 'See you later, mate.'

Ste felt alone suddenly. Apart from the glitzy, Cheryl Cole Copy Cat, who Riley was failing with, the other girls were pretty plain. The girl-next-door type that some guys liked. They weren't what he'd have preferred, but Ste had never been particularly fussy when it came to girls. He could do the average "girl next door" if that was his only option.

'Hi,' a timid voice sounded from behind him. He span around and there was a girl spinning golden hair around her finger. 'You look as lost as I feel. It's just so awkward standing here waiting to be chosen.'

'This some kind of act?' Ste asked. She had bouncy blonde hair like she'd just stepped off a red carpet, but other than that she looked pretty ordinary. Minimal make-up, slightly rat-like features with pale smooth skin. She looked young, maybe that was why she was here, to fill a gap for the guys who liked their girls fresh out of school.

'No,' she shook her head, hair flew everywhere. 'I'm a bit … new to this line of work. I don't really know how to look … appealing.'

Ste looked her up and down, she had tight jeans on and a pastel blue sweater, nothing particularly striking.

'You could dress up more,' he shrugged. 'Tight jeans are a pain to get off.'

'Y-you could tear them off,' the girl suggested, stepping close suddenly. But her stutter gave away her nerves and Ste found himself laughing.

'How long have you been doing this?'

'You're my sixth … client.' She quickly clarified: 'not my sixth time. I've got loads of experience.' Then she faltered, blue eyes flicking across his face. 'Or no experience.' Her forehead creased anxiously. 'Which were you after?'

Ste glanced quickly around at the other women. There weren't any better than this mess of a hooker, so he just sighed and said:

'You. I'm after you.'

'Great,' she narrowed her eyes. Ste had to guess it was a move that was supposed to be sexy, but she just looked a bit like she'd had a seizure and Ste chose to ignore it.

'Let's go to mine,' he sighed, taking her by the hand and leading her back out towards Blue Zone.

They were at Ste's room before things became awkward. She was sat on his bed; a contraption of wooden pallets and a thin mattress. He was hovering near the door, alternating his gaze between the balding, threadbare carpet and the prostitute on his bed. It was her fault it had turned like this. It was the innocent way she was dressed, the uncertain smile, her nervous hair twisting. He knew what she was, but she didn't look right.

'So,' she said eventually, 'what do you wanna do?'

Ste tried to smile and dug his heel into the wall behind him. He was surprised the cheap plastering withstood the action.

'You told to say that?' he asked.

'Maybe,' she lifted her thin shoulders in a half-shrug, but it was all just a thinly disguised "yes".

'What else to they tell you to say?' He was genuinely interested. He'd never met a prostitute before, unless you counted the time he'd ended up on Manky Manchester Street. And they were rent boys everywhere, but he hadn't been looking at them, and that was totally different.

'They tell us not to "say" much,' she smiled, lifting herself easily to her feet. 'And they tell us to "do" plenty.'

She unzipped her pastel-blue hoody and allowed the material to flap open. She was naked underneath and had some undecipherable words tattooed onto her right ribcage. Now, she looked like a prostituted and Ste marched towards her, intending to treat her like one.

Ste pulled the thin bed sheet up around his stomach. It was probably a bit late for modesty but he still felt a bit uncomfortable and there was nothing wrong with covering his regrettable hip-tattoo of a sparrow. He'd been drunk, and too easily influenced by Callum and his infamous "Come on mate, it'll be a laugh". Now, he was infected by a girly, coloured scar for the rest of his lift. He'd noticed that this girl had avoided the tattoo like a policeman.

He glanced over to her. She hadn't bothered to cover up, but she rolled onto her front when she noticed him watching her, kicking up her feet behind her. She was the perfect picture of innocence; blonde bouncing hair falling into searching blue eyes.

Ste pushed her hair behind her shoulders.

'What's your name?' he asked.

'Rizzle.'

'I didn't ask what queer nickname you'd given yourself. I asked for the name your mama gave you when she popped you out all gooey and slimy.'

Her head cocked to the side like a puppy. Her eyes darting back and forth across his face, like she was hoping to find something there. Ste didn't know what she was looking for, so he just waited for her to sigh and answer:

'Rae, my mum called me Rae.' And: 'Really proud she'd be of me if she could see what I do to make money. Spreading my legs for just anyone … no offence.'

Ste shook his head. It took more than that to offend him, besides, she was beginning to sound like a prostitute too now, and that was oddly comforting. Anyway:

'At least you own what you sell, you're not hurting anyone with this.'

'Is that what you do?' she asked. Her legs had fallen flat now, like trying to retain her girlish playfulness had become to exhausting. 'Steal?'

Ste nodded.

'From who?'

'Shops, mainly. A few houses, pickpocketing too.'

'Pay well?'

'Sometimes,' he smiled weakly. 'You wouldn't believe the amount of cash old fogies keep on them when they're shopping in Chester. Got by alright, me.'

'So why stop? Why leave Chester and come here?'

Ste sighed, and picked at the thin sheet. It felt kind of comforting to him, which was why he opened up so easily and told her the truth:

'Used to go on the nick with my mate, Callum. But he gave up, got a fiancé, council flat, snotty kid.' He hit the mattress hard with the base of his fist. Just thinking of Callum's pseudo-normal-life made him angry.

'Sounds nice,' Rae mumbled, laying her head on her forearm, her hair fanning out around her. 'I think I'd like that.'

Ste just stared at her, naked on his bed, pretending to be this wholesome young girl. She was as much of a liar as Callum had been. She was pretending, just like he had.

'You should go,' Ste said calmly.

'Huh?' she asked, looking up at him.

'Go,' he repeated, rolling onto his side and staring at the wall. There was a grey stain there. Maybe someone had kicked the wall with a trainer, or maybe someone had spilt something against it. Maybe someone had crushed a big moth and smeared it across the wallpaper. It was a mystery and Ste could easily spend enough time thinking about it, so that he could ignore Rae wandering around the room gathering together her clothes before tip-toeing out.

But the next time the car came tearing around the roads and all the men starting running for the Central Square, Ste found himself desperately searching for Rae. And he found her patiently waiting for him.

Lots and lots of Stendan interaction in the next chapter! :D