This chapter is un-betaed, so don't sue me for mistakes.

WARNING: Attempted suicide, self-harm

Chapter 2 – Hung in Suspense

How long does it take to settle in? To know where everything is, where everything goes?

In Kendall's opinion, too long.

After being in the godforsaken rabbit-warren masquerading as an education institution for two weeks – he expected to be able to find his way to his own locker.

Clearly not.

And to make matters increasingly worse – Mizzy had been acting extra weird for the past three days.

Whenever he asked her if she was okay – she would blank him and make a loud comment on the pointlessness of geometry – "I know the difference between a circle and an oval – can I leave now?"

"Mizzy – why are you ignoring me?"

Mizzy looked at him, appalled. "Ignoring you?" She smiled mildly, before picking her folder up and turning to leave. "Wouldn't dream of it,"

~BTR~

It was almost the end of lunch break when Kendall realised he had not seen Mizzy since second period.

He was not concerned – he was pretty sure she would waltz in with an espresso from the coffee shop on the corner. Technically, students were not allowed out of the grounds at lunch, but the last time Mizzy had been reminded of this, she had laughed. And when the detention slip appeared on her desk the next morning, she burnt it and scattered the ashes on her head of year's desk. Having a lighter in school was another rule Mizzy may have overlooked.

Kendall wandered aimlessly down the corridor, wondering where a rebellious 14 year old girl would spend her lunch. Detention? No, Mizzy proudly told him that even when she actually bothered to turn up for detention, she was soon asked to leave by a weary teacher who wanted to save themselves from cold coffee being poured liberally down their shirt.

He pondered if she had gone to take a nap somewhere – her usual morning nap in Biology had been rudely interrupted by Mr Waite reminding the class that they had an experiment, and yes, that meant work, and yes, it was compulsory. So Kendall had been very good and not complained when Mizzy nodded off on his shoulder in World Civ., leaving an inconspicuous smear of eyeshadow on his shirt. However, she was only asleep for about 5 minutes, as the teacher was showing them a movie, and Mizzy woke up because she could 'smell violence'.

As he passed the locker room, he was reminded of what Mizzy had said one lunch – "The locker room's my place to crash. No-one's ever in there. Got my own key and everything. Janitor really shouldn't leave his stuff lying around..."

He looked back at the door, suspicious. There was a strange wheezing noise.

"Mizzy?" he called in warning. More wheezing. ' Oh god, maybe she's asthmatic or something – no can't be something like that, she's probably, I dunno, smoking, no wait, she said cigarettes were like devil spit in a roll-up...oh god, I don't know..." Kendall was panicking slightly. "Mizz?" You in there? You okay?" Kendall was really starting to worry now. "Mizz, I'm coming in, okay?" He pulled at the handle, not surprised when he found it to be jammed. Kendall had, by now, gone into full blown hyper-panic mode and kicked at the door, until it gave in with a splintering of cheap MDF and a squeak of un-oiled hinges.

"Mizz ... Mizzy?" His shout turned into a horrified gasp. "No..."

Her thick, woolly scarf was knotted round her neck, tying her to a pipe in the ceiling, suspended maybe four inches off the ground. One of her shoes had fallen off, her toes brushing it as she swayed in a non-existent breeze. His lips mouthed her name, but only a weird squeak came out as he crashed across the room. His long fingers fumbled with the tight knot as he struggled to free her, catching her awkwardly when the bonds came loose. Slowly, he knelt to the floor, bringing Mizzy down with him, and she coughed and gasped for air in his arms, clutching weakly at the thin material of his shirt.

"It's okay, you're safe now, it's okay," despite being meant to comfort Mizzy, those words were repeated in his head like a mantra; a attempt to stop his heart beating uncontrollably in his chest. With shaking hands, he brushed a fluffy curl off Mizzy's cheek, surprised when she didn't flinch and tell him to get the hell off, instead, just coughed, still struggling to find her breath. Kendall whispered, voice cracking, "Mizzy? Can you hear me? Please?" Instead of a reply, Mizzy shifted a little in his arms, sighing lightly, putting her head against his chest. After a pause, she hiccupped and murmured "Why...why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

She peered at him blearily. "Get me down?"

"Because you could have died!"

"Oh...yeah..." She coughed again, subconsciously nuzzling against him, eyes fluttering as if she would sleep.

"Stay awake, Mizzy," Kendall warned, shaking her gently. She shifted again, using his arms as an obviously quite comfy pillow.

He reached out, hands still shaking, fingers ghosting over the red marks lashed around her neck from where the scarf had dug in. "Get off," she moaned, batting his hands away, struggling to sit up. Kendall propped her against the bench, keeping a protective arm around her shoulder.

"Why did you do it , Mizzy?"

She sighed heavily and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Because I thought it was the only way out. It was so, so stupid...the second I started choking," Kendall winced at this, "I regretted it – but...I couldn't even scream..." She cut off, burying her face in his shoulder. He shook her off, standing up, pacing away from her. "Did you really think that was the only way out? That's so selfish! Did you really think about what you'd leave behind? How we would feel? Did you think about that?" Mizzy blinked at him in shock and Kendall paused, raking a hand through his hair. "Promise me you'll never do something like that again,"

Mizzy stood slowly, using the bench for support, and limped toward him, standing oddly with one high heeled shoe on and the other off. She looked at him with dark eyes, before grabbing his arm and yanking up the sleeve of his shirt.

Thick, angry red scars tracked from wrist to elbow, where biting steel had sliced through pale skin, again and again. "If you promise you'll never do something like that again,"

Kendall pulled her into a rough awkward hug, and they stood there for several minutes, until Mizzy broke away, collecting her shoe and unwrapping her scarf from the pipe. She fixed her make-up in the small, slightly cracked mirror, wiping away smudged mascara and re-applying lipstick. "C'mon, we don't want to be late for homeroom,"

Kendall slipped his hand around hers, and they walked over to the door when Mizzy stopped and raised an eyebrow in amused surprise. "Dude, you kicked the lock in." Kendall shrugged sheepishly, taking note of the splintered wood round the door handle. "That's skill,"

"Yeah, ninja skills,"

"Hmm, my Knight in shining armour with ninja skills," She shrugged and smirked, surprisingly good-naturedly. "I suppose I could get used to that painful cliché – but I think the ninja skills help that one along a bit,"

~BTR~

Mizzy was probably one of the few people to sit at the back of a History lesson and eat soup from a carton – and even more surprisingly, go the entire lesson without reprimand.

"I thought you liked History?" Kendall whispered, as the teacher turned away for another slurp of cold coffee.

"I do. But I like soup better. Besides," she shrugged with well-practiced nonchalance, " I have absolutely no interest in American Presidents. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, some had beards, one had a bad taste in hats, one would probably be better suited for being President of the apes...and Obama hasn't blown up the world yet." She took another sip of soup.

"You really don't care about politics, do you?"

"Nope,"

"Understandable," As Kendall said this, Mizzy's eyebrows reached monumental heights, shooting up as fast as Carlos running to the lunch hall on Fish Stick Friday – the one good thing about school lunches.

Before she could reply with any kind of snide comment, the bell rang, and they succumbed to the instinctive reaction of packing their things and escaping the classroom before any homework could be set.

"What do you have next?"

"Uh," Mizzy scrunched up her forehead. "Gym class. You?"

"English lit.,"

"Nice. See you la..." Mizzy was cut off when a short dark haired kid barrelled into her, knocking her against the wall. "Oi!" she hollered, hands clenching. Seconds later, Milligan and his meatheads barged past, earning a snarl and a few well-chosen swear words.

The dark haired kid was in the lead, but not by enough, Milligan leapt at him and they both went crashing to the floor. One of Milligan's cronies held the kid down, while Milligan punched him in the stomach.

"Thought you could get away? Stupid!" Milligan spat on his victim's face. "No-one's gonna help you, you know why? You're worthless. No-one cares about you." As these words were hissed, something flickered in Kendall's eyes, and a mask of fury settled across his face. He marched down the corridor, yanked Milligan round to face him, and punched him in the head. Milligan stumbled back, but Kendall was murderous, his fist flying through the air, crunching into the bully's nose, blood spraying across both of them in a fine mist. By now, the threat had finally registered with the others, and they tried to pull Kendall off Milligan, but to little avail; the blonde yelled and struggled in their grips, kicking and swearing.

Mizzy had run (well, tottered over – running in four inch heels was a skill she was yet to acquire) and was helping the dark haired boy up, as the bullies' attention was no longer on him.

"Woah, everybody calm down," Mizzy was rarely a peacemaker, but this was a desperate situation, and she did not appreciate the idea of spending the afternoon in A&E.

Milligan threw her mutinous look, but backed away, motioning his friends to let go of Kendall. Before he left, he spat in the blonde's face. "See you around, psychopath,"

"Well," muttered Mizzy dryly, handing Kendall a tissue, "That was interesting."

"Uh, thanks," The dark haired kid piped up. "You kinda saved my butt there,"

"No problem..." Kendall raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Oh right, Logan Mitchell,"

"Cool, I'm Kendall and this is Mizz..."

"Oh yeah, I know Mizzy," Logan glanced at them both a little fearfully, before Mizzy huffed loudly in annoyance, "For Christ's sake Logan, you're my Math tutor. I'm not gonna hurt you! If I broke your face, then who would teach me trigonometry?"

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