Untitled
an excerpt

The first paragraph:
As the pieces of broken glass showered the alleyway from the scrum a few yards away, the two teenagers crouched between a pair of skips whose contents were so rotten it smelt almost as though someone had died. The boy, a thick-set young person whose size was comparable to that of a rugby player, edged around slightly, nervously contemplating their situation. His hand met a large, particularly jagged piece of glass and he fought hard not to make a sound. Swearing in his head – the worst words he could think of – he winced in silent agony as the beer still on the glass found its way to the cut, and it began to sting even more. Slowly, he moved it to show his companion, and she took from her pocket the remains of a handkerchief: it was the best they could do now; it was a mercy they hadn’t yet been discovered. They were an hour late already, and the others might have been beginning to lose hope; of course, losing hope was an easy thing to do these days. There wasn’t a lot of hope to be lost in the first place.