Karen screamed. "Charlie!" Leaving Bex and Denzil behind, she raced towards the hall, where panic was setting in among the assembled students.

Making her way through the aisle and onto the stage, she stamped her foot on the wooden floor. "All of you, just shut up!"

Silence.

"Ah, good of you to make an appearance." Charlie was on the far side of the stage, one arm around Harry's neck and the other hand gripping a knife. "I was wondering how long it would take you."

"Charlie, let him go."

"Not bloody likely. You can't do this to me, Karen. You don't understand what happened."

"You slept with a bloody prostitute! You left our daughter in that whore house for a year and didn't do anything about it. You let me believe she might be dead when you knew she wasn't!"

There was a series of gasps from the students. At the front, Jess was desperately trying to make eye contact with her brother. She'd pushed her way to the front and almost onto the stage before Chris grabbed hold of her. The last thing he'd wanted was two of Karen's kids getting hurt.

Harry, the unwilling centre of attention, was trembling on stage. He didn't want to die, not in front of his classmates and definitely not in front of his mum. But his dad's madness was not something he wanted to leave to chance; the possibility of him actually carrying out his threat was too high for Harry to risk making the wrong move.

"It wasn't like that!"

"No? Then tell me what it was like."

"We weren't talking. It was on Alan's stag do, anyway, and we'd had a few to drink."

"Oh, and that makes it alright, does it?"

"I didn't know it was her. Jeff was coming out of the room; I walked past and looked in. I didn't know it was Bex, I promise!"

"Dad!"

The crowd turned to see Bex standing at the back of the hall. She raced towards the front, bypassing the teachers who had given up trying to get all the children out and instead now just wanted to prevent them from getting on the stage, and clambered up.

"Dad, please. Let Harry go. He hasn't done anything wrong."

"Your mum needs to know how it feels to lose her family, too. She's chucked me out. I'm not going to be the only one losing out." Charlie moved his knife closer to Harry's neck.

"No!" Bex raced forward and pushed Harry out of the way. He fell to the floor, and Bex collapsed seconds after.

Karen surged forward. Charlie no longer had the knife in his hand, which meant-

"Bex!" Karen could see the blood pouring out of her chest. "Bex, talk to me, baby. Somebody help me, my daughter's been stabbed!"

Tom jumped onto the stage and pressed his suit jacket against Bex's wound. Karen cradled her in her arms, sobbing into her hair. Harry sat up, too stunned to move until Jess too climbed onto the stage, and he grabbed onto her, clinging tightly.

"Is she going to die?"

Jess didn't reply, only hold Harry tighter. She'd thought she was going to lose her brother, but now it was her sister rapidly losing blood instead. A couple of the other male teachers had got Charlie in an arm lock, holding him until the police arrived. An ambulance was on its way, too, but by the time they arrived, it was too late. The paramedic checked for Bex's pulse, but there wasn't one. He shook his head at his colleague.

Karen threw her head back and screamed. "No!"