Prising her sticky eyes open, Miley stared at the skirting board, watching the insects crawling through the carpet. The beetles had been breeding, laying their young in the fibres. One of the larvae wriggled towards her nose. Heart pounding, she jolted up, fighting the sway of the room. She shuffled away and nudged the caterpillar with her big toe. It still kept coming at her. She leaned forward, flinching as she poked the creature with her index finger.

A burning pain shot from her fingertip to her hand, the burns now starting to blister. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as she shook her hands, trying to shake away the stinging sensation. As she struggled for breath, she cried out. The pain wasn’t easing at all.

The caterpillar remained still. She’d killed it. Maybe it wasn’t a moth caterpillar, maybe it had come from her. ‘It was a dream,’ she yelled as she closed her eyes, willing the wriggly creature to be gone. Imagine that it will be a beautiful butterfly soon.

There was another bang on the bedroom wall, coming from Jackie’s room. She remembered the bang in the night that had filled her with fear. She hadn’t heard anything of Jackie since. Holding her breath, she listened. Her heart began to pound.

She had work to do. No work, no medicine. No medicine, she would be forced to live in a perpetual state of horror. She gazed around the room, an empty bottle of vodka sat on the bedside table and the lamp was still on. She lifted her hands up and stared at her seeping fingertips. Besides the vodka bottle was a pack of unopened bandages. Tears fell down her cheeks as she pulled the packet open with her teeth and struggled to wrap, tie and tape down the thin bandage over some of her fingertips. ‘What have you done to me?’ she yelled, her voice weak and breaking as she sobbed. ‘What have you done to Jackie?’

Again, someone banged on the wall and Miley’s heart sunk. Someone was there, listening to her every move. Her heartbeat throbbed through her head, affecting her hearing. Jaqueline began to make the only noises she could now manage, repeating the same pattern over and over. She exhaled and smiled. Jackie was still there.

‘Just keep still,’ the other boss’s voice called out. She heard a slap. Jackie began to shout uncontrollably and there was a crash to the floor. ‘You’re nothing now, look at you. Nothing!’ the other boss yelled, slapping Jackie once again. ‘Look at me. Who ever thought things would turn out this way. I told you then, what’s yours is mine, and I meant it, every word. You little bitch. This is what happens to little snitches.’

‘Jackie,’ Miley called, tears streaming down her face. Caring for Jackie was her job and she’d failed her – she couldn’t protect her friend. He wouldn’t be happy with her now. She shivered, wondering what punishment he’d dish out.

Whatever happened in the night was a blur. Maybe she’d had too much vodka and stumbled out after taking her medicine. It’s possible she could have gone downstairs and somehow reached the kitchen. Maybe she touched the cooker with all ten fingers. She shook her head and hit it with the flat of her hand. ‘Stupid brain, remember!’ However hard she tried to recall what had happened, nothing was coming back. She had no recollection of how the burns had appeared on her fingertips. She remembered waking in the night and pouring vodka on the wounds. How did the vodka get there? She’d drunk the last of it to try and numb the pain and somehow she had woken on the floor.

A large spindly-legged spider dangled from the ceiling. She batted it away with her wrist. Heart pounding, she hoped it wouldn’t come back. She needed to clean her room. A vacuum would be most welcome but she’d never been given a vacuum. Crumbs littered the carpet and dustballs collected all along the edge of the room. Everything was dirty and every inch of space was slowly being taken over by insects or spiders. At first, she’d freaked out when they’d invaded her space, but now they just startled her when they came close. Now she could cope. It was an old house after all. She staggered over to the door. It was locked. She kneeled and tried to focus through the keyhole. The top of the stairs was void of any activity. No breakfast had been left. With jittery hands, she leaned on the door as she willed the dizziness to subside. Water, she needed water and her stomach was rumbling. She didn’t know if it was screaming for food or screaming with upset. It had become hard to tell. She looked down at her ankles and winced. Her legs had become so thin, almost looking like they might snap. They were scratched and blotchy from the spots and her habit of tearing shreds out of them.

Jackie’s screaming got louder and she heard a muffled shout, followed by a whacking noise. She flinched. Jackie was such a poorly woman with no one to love her. She could be difficult but it wasn’t her fault. Huntington’s disease they’d called it. She had a disease and Miley was her carer. The person in there with her didn’t care. Without Miley, Jackie would probably die. She banged on the wall. ‘Please leave her alone. Let me out. I’ll look after her. Please. She needs me.’

She listened as footsteps crossed the room and continued out of the bedroom door. The other boss unlocked the bedroom door, grabbed her scrawny arm and dragged her across the landing, flinging her into Jackie’s bedroom. Without thinking, Miley protected her face with her hands and landed on her side, elbow first onto a threadbare rug, narrowly missing a clump of spilled porridge. Yelling in pain, she listened as the other boss yelled and stomped down the stairs, locking the door at the bottom.

It was just her and Jackie, like it always was and how it should be. She couldn’t afford to be wasted that badly again. If she was wasted and the other boss came to care for her, Jackie paid. It was her fault Jackie had been hurt. Crying out, she held her burning fingers up. Jackie was sitting on the bed, wetness pooling underneath her. Angry red welts covered Jackie’s face and her swollen left eyelid began to cover her eye. Miley wanted to sit on the floor and cry all day but that wasn’t an option. She needed to tend to her friend’s sores before her face inflamed even more.

The bottom door unlocked once again and her oppressor stomped back up the stairs. ‘Do what you’re paid to do or else you’ll be out, and not out for a walk either.’

Out, as in out of work? Maybe she could go home and tell social services that Jackie wasn’t getting the care she needed. Her money had been saved for her. She must have earned a few hundred pounds by now, maybe a thousand. She could take the money and leave. ‘How much money have I got saved?’ she muttered.

‘Young lady, you owe me. You know full well that I have to deduct the cost of your medicine from what we pay you. You’ll be working it off for a long time. When you’ve paid your debt, you’re welcome to walk. You don’t deserve what you do get. You’re useless.’

She scraped her arm across her eyes, trying to catch the tears. All this work and she had ended up in debt. Going without her medicine was not an option. She needed it to function. She was sure she’d die without it. She’d only had it once to ease her nerves and now, she couldn’t live without it. Her boss had joked about it to begin with, telling her it made the job more bearable, that it was a beautiful thing that would ease the loneliness. Apparently, it was just a mild anti-anxiety solution that was injected once every day or two. She had been assured it was safe. And it had been beautiful. So beautiful, she’d wanted more until she developed a need for it. ‘How much debt am I in?’

‘Just two months’ worth. Work hard and you could be out of here before you know it. Work. Hard. Those are the key words. She needs you. You are her carer and you signed a contract of employment, so do your job.’

Two months. She could put a little more effort in for a couple of months. ‘Can I just go in the garden one day, please?’

‘No. Your work is here. We agreed and you knew what you were agreeing to.’

Her boss was right. She’d agreed to give her all to the job. ‘What happened to my fingers?’

The other boss grinned and headed back down the stairs, once again locking the door. ‘Why do you always lock me in?’ she yelled.

The answer had always been that Jackie was being locked in for her own safety. She couldn’t understand it. Jackie wasn’t going anywhere quick. In fact, it would be good for Jackie to be able to sit in the garden, air a little in the sunshine rather than spending the whole day in a dingy room that stunk of urine.

Using the flat of her hand to avoid aggravating her half-bandaged fingertips, she struggled to stand. Jackie needed her. She needed to be cleaned and fed the rest of her food. Maybe they could share the rest of the porridge that was left, after all, she’d missed breakfast again. It was her fault, she’d been asleep. She only had herself to blame.

She leaned forward and hugged Jackie. It didn’t matter that she didn’t recognise her or show any emotion, she was human and Miley really needed a hug. ‘Come on, my lovely friend, let’s clean you up and I’ll think of a story to tell you. We can pick up where we left off. The girl trapped in a bad place managed to escape and find the most amazing friend ever. Her name was Jackie. She and Jackie told each other everything. It’s a happy ending, I promise.’

The woman began to rock and murmur incoherently. Miley cried into her thin hair, wishing Jackie would hug her back. The woman placed a hand on her back and she cried more.

‘I know you care, Jackie. I know you love me and I’m your best friend in the whole world,’ she said as she sobbed. ‘We are going to get out of here together, I promise.’