at her and tried to lean down for a lewd kiss. She twisted her head aside as her skirt was pulled down off her legs.
'Get off me! Help! Help me!' she hollered.
Her shouting and squirming only seemed to excite them more. They grabbed her ankles, tugging off her shoes. One with knife scars all down his arm took handfuls of her top and ripped it open down the front. She screamed as they pulled the sleeves off one arm and then the other, ripping it off her.
'That was my best… you've torn my best…' she was crying and kicking, and at the same time couldn't get her breath. Arm-scar struggled to tear her bra apart, but the elastic proved more resilient and wouldn't tear. Eventually he just pulled the clasp apart at the back, pulling it up her arms and off while Ear-stud held her down.
Arm-scar pinched her nipple hard. She spat at him, but he just smiled. 'This is the best bit. I love this bit.' He grabbed her knickers and yanked them down in a single swipe. There was a moment of silence as Alex lay in shocked nakedness.
'You a peach, Babe.' Arm-scar stood, staring down at her, while the other two grabbed her ankles and braced themselves against the mattress, stretching her wide. She watched in stunned fascination as he dropped his pants and pulled a huge erect penis out of his boxers.
'Is it your first time, sweetness? I'll make it good for you.' He grinned, flashing brown-stained teeth. Alex heaved against her captors, but they had her all stretched out. He knelt down between her legs.
'Nooooo!'
Her cry was echoed by a low moan from the structure of the building. Something tinkled to the floor along the gallery. A slow ticking started in the pipes where they criss-crossed the ceiling. Arm-scar glanced up and then back at her.
He shook his head, refusing to be distracted. 'Ain't no one gonna save you now, Peach.'
A sound like popping valves travelled down the gallery towards them. The fire suppression system sprayed out where it ran through the network of pipes across the ceiling. Freezing cold water rained down on them all, to the shouts and calls of the men.
Arm-scar looked up into water raining down on them, and then down at Alex. 'Makes no difference to me. A wet peach is still a peach.'
'You don't understand,' said Alex, through gritted teeth. 'But you will.'
Heads turned as the water started running across the floor towards them. Drops gathered into pools and pools ran into rivulets. It gathered into a wave that swept across the floor and crashed over the mattress.
'What the…?' The man knelt between her legs faltered. He glared down at Alex. 'If it's you doing this I is gonna teach you respect.' He drew back his fist.
Water ran up his legs like quicksilver, streaming up his body, defying gravity. He flicked his fist, trying to shake it off, but it clung to him like a second skin, covering him in a film of moving liquid. Too late, he realised that it was covering all of him.
He shouted, 'What the fuck?' leaping backwards, trying to flick it from him, pushing it away from his face, his nose and mouth.
In seconds he was enveloped in a moving bubble of oily water exactly formed around him. He clamped his mouth shut against it but it ran into his nose and ears, covered his eyes. The others watched in horrified fascination as he floundered about, the water still spraying down from the pipes, adding continually to the liquid invading every orifice. He tried to scream but was choked off as the water rushed down his throat, gulping off his cry in a bubbling hiccough. He flailed his arms and fell, splashing to the floor as the water pooled around him, smothering his cries.
Alex was suddenly released as the others grasped how wet and vulnerable they were. While their friend thrashed and clawed at his throat for air, they scrambled to their feet and backed away from her. Whatever it was they saw in her eyes. It terrified them.
They turned as one to run, but the water was under their feet, making them slide and stumble, grabbing out to each other for support. They crashed, entangling each other, splashing into the water which covered the floor. They clawed each other for purchase, crawling over each other, shouting and swearing, trying to be the one furthest from the liquid sheet flowing towards them across the floor.
Alex pushed herself up from the mattress, unaware of her naked state, eyes filled with a swirling blue fire as she focused her anger on them. Her hair writhed around her head as if seeking something to grasp and choke. As the thrashing from Arm-scar slowed and subsided, the water around the remaining three started to rotate into a slowly whirling pattern.
'You miserable little shits!' she spat. 'You pathetic excuses for humanity.'
'We weren't gonna do nothing,' shouted Ear-stud in panic as he tried to pull his way over the other two. 'It was Naylor was gonna do it.'
Alex glanced at the figure trapped under the faintly heaving bulge of water across the floor.
'Don't worry,' she said. 'He got what he deserved.' She paused for effect. 'And now you're getting the same.'
The water rushed inwards in a spiral vortex, clinging to them where it splashed. They hollered and screamed trying to throw it off. It ran up their legs and arms, coating their skin and covering their clothes while they scrambled over each other to get away from it.
'Enough!'
The voice came from a figure by the stairway. Another figure gestured and a wind whipped down the gallery tearing the sheets from the windows, flooding it with light. In the glare, the water sparkled malevolently. Alex saw that there were three of them, the young woman who had spoken and two males who flanked her. They were standing at the edge of where the water sprayed from the ceiling. She realised they weren't much older than her.
'Who are you to tell me what to do?' said Alex in a low voice that rang with threat and anger. 'You didn't see what these… these… worms, were going to do.'
'But by the look of it, Naylor has paid the price,' the newcomer said. 'Inconvenient, but no doubt necessary.' She was taller than Alex, with spiky black hair and a nosestud. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her motorcycle jacket, and she put her head on one side, affecting disdain.
'You said you'd protect us from the likes of her,' said Buzzcut. 'You said if we kept the place clear you'd see we had it to ourselves.'
Alex looked from Buzz-cut to the newcomer. 'You mean these shits work for you?'
The woman's voice was calm. 'They kept unwanted visitors out in return for small favours. It looks to me like they've seriously overstepped the mark. Is Naylor dead?'
'If he isn't he soon will be,' said Alex, turning back to where Naylor was floating in the unnatural blob of liquid.
'Leave them, Alexandra. They are beneath your notice.'
She turned back. 'How do you know my name?'
The newcomer leaned back and said something quietly to one of the young men beside her. He disappeared upstairs.
'We've met before, though I think you were indisposed and are perhaps unable to recall. We were in a place we both know well and were glad to leave.'
Alex tried to place her. She'd thought she'd remembered everyone, but then there were the gaps between the dreams and reality. She shivered and suddenly became conscious that she was naked and cold. The spray from the ceiling slowed and then stopped, leaving only a sporadic dripping along the gallery. She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. She knew in her head that it was shock. She had almost been raped and now she couldn't stop shaking.
'My clothes…' she said. 'Those bastards, they tore…they ripped my…'
The one who'd gone upstairs returned with a blanket, which he passed to the young woman. She approached Alex as if she might bolt any second. 'Here, put this around you. That's it.' She wrapped the blanket around Alex's shoulders. She guided her as she splashed in bare feet to the stairs. The other two stepped back to allow her through.
'Take her upstairs,' she instructed the one who'd brought the blanket.
Alex was gently ushered upwards. Behind her the unnatural mound of water holding Naylor suddenly
