Kate's POV

I had never seen this side of Lily before. She was always someone who would never hurt a soul, no matter who it was. I didn't expect her to turn into this as soon as she likes someone. I had never expected this from her. All I could do was sit there, wide-eyed and not being able to move. The look on her face was just deadly, like if you stared at it too long it would turn you to dust, and it was directed straight at Charlotte.

However, Charlotte was too focused on Liam to notice that Lily was even there. Humphrey noticed though, and he had a similar look that I did. He looked around and noticed I was standing at my locker. He smiled and walked over to me.

"Hey, Kate," He said, giving me a hug, me returning it, "I take you noticed Lily?"

"Yeah, it's surprising. I never thought Lily would do that when she likes someone," I said, and a shocked face grew on Humphrey's face.

"Wait, what? Lily likes Liam?" He asked, the shocked face sticking as he turned and looked at her, and turning back.

"Yeah, you haven't noticed?" I said.

"No I didn't notice, but I know Charlotte is going on a date with Liam on Wednesday..." He said, his face slowly becoming worried, "She told me when she got home yesterday."

"Liam has a lot of trouble ahead of him. He's gotta deal with Garth, who will no doubt want to kill him, and now he has Charlotte and Lily after him. Good luck with that," I said, chuckling.

"Can't say I expected that from Liam," He said, looking at Liam, who happened to be talking Jake from the football team now, along with Charlotte holding his hand and Lily still giving Charlotte a death glare, "We'll just have to see how this plays out. Now come on, I don't want to waste these 25 minutes we have to relax," He said, me shutting my locker and him taking my hand, leading me out to the front of the school.

Liam's POV

"...so yeah, I was just wondering which receiver you'd want me to be," Jake said, smiling. He was quite a chilled out guy.

"With your skill-set and the fact that you're like 6'4", you'll probably be good in the slot, but I'm not sure at the moment. You'll be best to talk to coach about that one," I said, with Charlotte gripping my hand. I didn't really mind to be honest; I find that kind of stuff relaxing.

"Okay, sure thing. I'll see you at practice tomorrow," He said, walking away and waving.

"See ya then!" I said, waving back, then turning to Charlotte and Lily, "Now, I'm just gonna head out to the front and chill out for the next, 15 or so minutes that's left, if you want to come?"

"Sure! I just want to stop off at my locker on the way there. I need to get my History book," Charlotte said, still holding my hand.

"Yeah, sure, no problem," I said, looking down at Lily, who looked rather unhappy, "You alright, Lily?"

"I'm fine," She snapped out, surprising me.

"I know you aren't," I said, a little worried I'd upset her, "Did I say something?"

"No, I'll tell you later, okay?" She said, looking up at me, looking quite upset.

"Okay, I'm just making sure," I said, looking back up and arriving at Charlotte's locker.

Time Skip to 3:24pm

3:24pm. 6 more minutes. Today went by extraordinarily slow. It felt like we did nothing all day, and now I'm just sitting in Music, just waiting for something to happen. We were doing music theory today which I didn't overly enjoy but it wasn't terrible. It was bearable, however it can be incredibly boring sometimes, especially the fact I was going over something I learnt last year.

Then something hit me; I never found out what Humphrey played, or Kate, or Charlotte. It never came to me to ask.

"Alright guys, I'll go around and collect the sheets and just talk amongst yourselves," Mr Nickson said, walking around and collecting papers off the students.

"Hey Humphrey?" I said, turning to him, causing him to look up from his paper, "What instruments do you play?"

"Oh I do drums. I've been playing drums since I was like 8. Charlotte hates them, constantly says they're 'too loud,'" He said, mocking her in that last sentence, getting a chuckle out of me.

"Well, what about you Charlotte? You too Kate?" I asked, turning to them.

"I play piano. Our parents kinda made us learn instruments when we were younger," Charlotte said, smiling.

"Yeah, I just do vocals," Kate said, "I had a look at learning piano, but just never got into it. I'll have to look at it again at some point." I just nodded my head, and went back to staring over my sheet. Soon after, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was Mr Nickson, holding out his hand for the sheet, me handing it to him.

I decided to go and grab a guitar and just play a little bit, except this time, not bothering to go out to one of the rooms, and just staying in the main room. I sat down and strummed it, surely enough, out of tune. I sighed and tuned it quickly to an Open E tuning and decided to just play a bit of She Talks to Angels by The Black Crowes. I'm not a massive fan of The Black Crowes but that song in particular is quite nice to be honest. However, with the dull, old strings of the cheap guitar, it didn't sound overly great, but I still played it right.

I finished and I wasn't overly happy with how bad the guitar sounded but I was happy I played it right, considering I rarely ever played it right. I looked up to see Charlotte smiling at me.

"That sounded beautiful," she said, still smiling, "What song is that?"

"It's 'She Talks to Angels' by The Black Crowes. It's a nice song, it's a shame this guitar sounds so shitty," I said, chuckling a bit.

"Why don't you bring your own guitar to school then?" She asked, tilting her head to the left.

"Wait, you can? I wasn't allowed to do that back home," I said, a little surprised. My school back home didn't allow us to bring our own instruments in due to too many of people's things being broken.

"Yeah, you can. A lot of people do, actually," She said, "You have a guitar, don't you?"

"Yeah, I've got three. My acoustic and two electrics. The acoustic and one of the electrics is mine. The other one was my dad's one..." I said, remembering what had happened on that night of the fire; a frown growing on my face, and me looking down.

"Why do you have your dad's one?" Kate asked, oblivious to what I was on about.

"I would much rather not speak about it," I said, sighing and running my face through my hands. She nodded and went back down to her phone. I looked back up and was greeted by a smile from Charlotte, putting a smile on mine. I got up and put the guitar back on the rack, walking back and sitting back down, to immediately be met with the bell blaring it's annoying noises to tell us we could leave.

"Have a good rest of your day guys!" Mr Nickson shouted from his desk, "Liam, do you mind if I speak to you for a second?"

"Sure thing," I said, turning to Charlotte and Humphrey, "You guys still want a ride home?" Charlotte nodded but Humphrey shook his head.

"I'm gonna head around to Kate's this afternoon," He said, gaining a smile from Kate.

"Okay, just don't have too much fun, or Eve will make sure you end up in the morgue," Charlotte said, snickering, and causing the two to blush, Humphrey also rolling his eyes. Humphrey and Kate left, along with the massive cluster-fuck of people leaving the room, while Charlotte and I walked up to Mr Nickson's desk.

"Take a seat," He said, Charlotte and I grabbing a seat from the nearby table, "I was listening to what you were playing there, She Talks to Angels isn't it?" I nodded, "Well, you did a pretty good job of it, especially since you played it on probably the worst guitar we have here," He continued, chuckling a bit at the last sentence.

"Yeah, my dad taught me the song when I was like 14. Could barely ever get it completely right," I said, chuckling a bit, trying not to bring up my emotions.

"Well, I was wondering, I know you've only been here for a small amount of time, so I don't mind if you say no," He said, pausing to take a drink from his water bottle, "But I was wondering if you would be interested in performing a song at a lunch-time concert I have planned next week."

"I haven't performed in a while. Last time I did was a couple years ago," I said, thinking for a bit, "But sure, I'll give it a go. Haven't played for a crowd in a long time."

"Awesome. It's Friday next week. You can either bring your own gear, or you can just use the gear we have here, it doesn't faze me," He said, shrugging his shoulders a bit, "I'll make sure you get the two periods before it off so you can run through your song a bit if you need to."

"I'm sure I'll only need one but I'm not complaining, because I have Social Studies and English on those two periods," I said, chuckling a bit, Mr Nickson smiling.

"Cool, I'll see you tomorrow, Liam. See ya later Charlotte," He said, waving to us as we left the room, me waving back and Charlotte smiling to him. I shut the door behind me, catching up with Charlotte and falling into step next to her.

There weren't many people left wandering the halls, as people had either left for sports practices or had left for home, aside from a few people here and there.

"I need to stop off at my locker before we leave," I said to Charlotte, "I left my History book there." She just nodded and smiled as we continued to walk down the halls. We arrived at my locker, and as I was putting my key in for it, I was grabbed and slammed against the wall of lockers. 'Oh boy, here we go,' I thought to myself, knowing it was Garth, however he had his mouth wired shut, so he was having trouble speaking.

"So, you think you can just show up here and take my place like it's nothing?" He said, it being very muffled and difficult to hear due to the fact he couldn't really talk. I just stared at him with a blank face that suggested I truly didn't care. He threw a hard punch, hitting me in the gut and leaving me winded.

"Garth! You fucking prick, leave him alone!" Charlotte shouted from the side, trying to push him off me, causing nothing but Garth to shove her. She fell to the ground and that's when I lost my cool.

"Okay, it's one thing to hurt me, but hurting my friends is too far," I said, preparing myself for what was to come.

"What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" Garth said, still muffled. I just shrugged my shoulders, then throwing a quick, but still powerful punch to his gut, aimed at his liver, him letting go of me upon impact and groaning from the well placed liver-shot, me landing back on the ground. I immediately got my balance and got into stance. He got back up, recovering from the punch, a couple of his gang members crowding around me.

"You sure you wanna do this?" I said, my hands up in a passive stance.

"I'd be more than happy to," He said, moving towards me.