Hearing someone hammering on the door early the next morning, Aria groaned as she climbed out of bed and padded out of her room to answer it. Running a hand over her face, she opened the door expecting to see one of her brothers and was surprised to find herself face to face with Charlie Buckton.

"Sergeant Buckton, what brings you here at such an ungodly hour?"

"Hi Aria, is Heath in?"

"I'm going to take a guess and say that he's probably sleeping, what do you need him for?"

"I just need to ask him about his whereabouts last night around midnight."

"That's easy, he came home from Bianca's at about ten, watched a coupled of movies with me and then went to bed," Aria told her, "That can all be verified by Bianca, Brax, Casey and Kyle."

"What movies did you watch?" one of the officer's asked.

"Lord of the Rings and The Last Song," Aria replied, chuckling when the officer looked at her with disbelief written all over his face, "Trust me, I don't know how I managed to get him to watch it either, but it is still in the DVD player and I'm sure he could tell you all about it if you're really that interested."

"Who's at the door, nugget?" came Heath's gruff voice from behind her, drawing her attention away from the door and over towards where her older brother was approaching her.

"Oh, just our friendly law enforcement officers," Aria informed him with a smile, "They want to know where you were last night at midnight."

"Here, watching movies with you," Heath stated as he came to stand beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and greeting Charlie with a nod.

"What movies?" the officer from before repeated.

"He asked me too."

"Lord of the Rings and some chick flick, The Last Song or something like that," Heath replied, "Had a bunch of hatching turtles in it at some point and the dad was ill… is there anything else?"

"Not right now, but we may need to speak to you again," Charlie warned, before motioning for the other officers to leave and following them as Heath closed the door.

Having the police turn up wasn't exactly something new at the Braxton house, but this time Aria knew that Heath hadn't done anything wrong and it got her thinking about what he had been accused of. Her brothers were far from angels and Heath had always tended to act without thinking things through, but everything had been getting better since he started dating Bianca.

Knowing that trying to get back to sleep was pointless, Aria made herself some breakfast and got comfortable on the sofa as she switched on the television. She had been flicking through the channels for nearly half an hour, when Kyle jumped into the spot next to her and snatched the remote from her hand.

"Hey," Aria protested, "I was watching that."

"You weren't watching anything, you were flicking and it's annoying," Kyle argued, "Besides, you have to go get ready for school."

"I hate you sometimes," Aria mumbled, punching him in the arm as she stood up and took her dirty bowl to the sink.

Grabbing a quick shower, she got changed into her school uniform and threw her hair up in a messy bun as she returned to the living room. Checking that she had all her books, she walked into the kitchen where Brax was now making coffee and kissed his cheek before heading out the door with a quick goodbye over her shoulder.

Putting one of her earplugs in, she pressed play on her Ipod and started the slow walk to school. Concentrating on the text message that she was sending Xavier, Aria soon found herself colliding with something solid and looked up to find a guy smirking down at her.

Hearing movement, she spun around and only then did she realize that she was surrounded. Everything from that point seemed to happen in slow motion as she watched them all raise paintball guns in her direction, causing her to drop her phone and cover her face as they opened fire.

It seemed to end as quickly as it had begun, leaving Aria frozen to the spot and uncovering her face as the sound of running footsteps was heard moving away from her. Taking a few deep breaths, she continued the rest of the way to school and was quickly taken to the principal's office.

"What happened?" Bianca inquired as she closed the door to her office, handing Aria a glass of water and taking a seat opposite her, "Aria?"

"These guys came out of nowhere and surrounded me," Aria explained, her voice quiet and unsure, "They just started shooting."

"Did you recognise them?"

"No."

"Okay, I've phoned Heath and Brax is going to come pick you up."

"You didn't need to do that, I just need some clean clothes to wear and I'll be good to go," Aria insisted, although the mere thought of sticking around and listening to the rumours that she knew had already started made her stomach turn.

"I'd rather you go get checked out by Nate."

"I'm not some fragile princess, they were just paintballs and I'm totally fine."

"It's school policy that all major injuries be accessed by a medical professional," Bianca told her, opening the door as someone knocked and thanking whoever was on the other side, "Brax is here."

Picking up her bag, Aria got to her feet and followed Bianca towards the office. Even though the corridors were all empty, she still found herself scanning her surroundings as they walked and flinched slightly as a locker slammed somewhere in the distance.

"Are you okay?" Brax asked, noticing the way Aria kept a good distance between them and turning his attention to Bianca," Thank you for phoning, I wouldn't have found out about it otherwise or at least not until later."

"Takes after her brothers like that."

"I'm not sure that that's a good thing," Brax added, thanking Bianca and heading out to his Ute with Aria in tow.

Authors Notes: Just a quick note to say thank you for reading and that this story doesn't follow the shows timeline, so you will find characters interacting that you wouldn't have seen on screen (such as Charlie and Kyle)