Snared

Lennox Ritchie, 15 years old, wakes up on the day before his birthday to discover his addict mother has up and left. In order to survive he falls in with a gang on the Duhbrae estate and soon finds himself in more trouble than he ever imagined. Will he escape and find the life he's always wished for? Or is this the end of the road?

Lennox 'Nox' Ritchie wakes up the day before his fifteenth birthday to find six ten pound notes and a farewell letter in an envelope taped to his bedroom door. Underage, under-financed, and alone on the notorious Dubhbrae estate, Nox's chances don't look good. His mother absconded on her debts and it's not long before Nox finds himself trying to avoid the estate's loansharks and drug dealers. His neighbour, and best friend, Kenzie, introduces him as a computer genius to Cal, her gang-leader boyfriend. Cal's big ambitions and unchecked ego make him dangerous. What he lacks in intelligence, Cal makes up for with violence. Against his will, Nox finds himself attempting to please Cal who, in turn, keeps the loansharks away. Dragged further and further into Cal's increasingly dark schemes, both on the Darknet and in the real world, Nox reaches out for help. But everybody he encounters has their own agendas. If he wants to survive the crazed, drug-fuelled and increasing violent world of Cal and the other youths on the Dubhbrae estate, he's going to need less of a plan and more of a miracle. But just when he thinks he has a way out, the shadow of his mother turns up once again, in the most unexpected and unhelpful of ways. Nox has to face the realisation that not everyone gets out of Dubhbrae Estate alive, and that might include him.