"Start talking," Mina slammed her tray of food down on the table opposite me, "now!"

Seeing her half furious and half concerned expression I instantly felt guilty, it was Wednesday morning, my first day back in school after the incident, the boys and my dad had made me take the past two days off school to lie in bed. They'd wanted to keep me out for the whole week but I put my foot down, I wasn't spending another minute uselessly lying in my bed having everyone fuss around me when I was completely fine. In all that time I hadn't contacted Mina though, I'd seen the tons of texts and voicemails she'd sent me but had been too exhausted to explain the tale again and unable to think of ways of avoiding the truth of what actually happened. I just wanted to avoid having to lie to her for as long as possible.

Mina had obviously heard what had happened though, everyone at school had and I'd spent all morning bowing my head to avoid meeting people's intrusive stares and hearing constant whispers trailing behind me as I hurried from class to class. The rumour going round was that there had been a shooting at Kings Bridge but the true facts were very much still private. As rumours usually worked very little of what I'd heard was actually true, I'd even heard a girl in my History class whisper to her friend that she knew 'absolutely for sure' that a boy had gone crazy and shot his maths teacher because he'd set too much homework. I didn't bother to correct her but merely sat staring at the front rolling my eyes in disbelief. I did feel bad that I'd left Mina at the mercy of these rumours though, she must've been going mad wondering what had happened especially as I wasn't in school. I didn't know how I was going to explain the story of my moms killer to her, that would only put her in danger. It was unfair that I couldn't tell Mina the truth for her own safety but by doing that I was pushing her away at the same time.

"I'm sorry I didn't reply to any of your messages," I started with, hoping she could hear the sincerity in my voice, "things have been so insane at Kings Bridge at the moment, with the whole situation you know ...," my voice trailed off as I tired to sort the story I would tell her out in my head.

"No I don't know, I've heard so many crazy theories I don't know what to believe, is it actually true that someone got shot?" Mina blurted out then took a breath to shovel a forkful of food into her mouth, "and is it true that one of the boys was the shooter?"

"Yes to someone getting shot, no to the shooter, it was some crazy guy who came into Kings Bridge, nothing to do with any of the Kings Bridge boys," that at least was completely true, not the whole truth but enough to satisfy her.

"Oh my god," her hand flew to her mouth in horror, "who got shot? Please don't say one of your guys."

"No," my mind pondered over her words 'your guys', "it was my dad actually, he's fine now. They let him out the hospital yesterday and he's resting in bed. He got shot in the side of the chest and they all say the damage was minimal, nothing important got hit. He's going to make a full recovery."

"Jesus Cara," Mina's hand stayed over her mouth and her eyes bulged wide as she tried to comprehend this, "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, I mean it was really scary at the time but he's fine which is all that matters," I nodded trying to convince myself of this fact more than her.

"Still that's your dad Cara, and he got shot," Mina couldn't seem to get over this fact and just shook her head minutely, "wait, you didn't see it did you?" All I needed to do was nod for her to suck in a long dramatic gasp so loud people several tables over glanced our way. "You mean you were in the same room as the gun man?"

"Yes," I found myself lowering my voice to a whisper.

"Cara!" Mina's whole face became a picture of shock, "that's awful. Are you alright?"

"I ..," I began still trying to think of the right thing to say when I was interrupted by a hurricane throwing itself at our table disguised by shiny ginger hair tossed right in my face and glossy pursed lips.

"You poor thing," I felt two arms being tossed around my shoulders and before I could object I was pulled into a vice tight hug with my face pressed into a shoulder that stank so strongly of perfume the back of my throat started to itch.

"Hi Jenny," I mumbled as she realised me with the most melodramatic sympathetic experession on her face. I hadn't spoken to Jenny in weeks but of course as soon as I had something that she could use to her advantage she was all over me like we'd been best friends for years. I caught a glimpse of Mina rolling her eyes from across the table.

"I heard about the shooting I'm so sorry," the last thing Jenny sounded was sorry, she even sounded slightly pleased, "I can't imagine how scary it must have been when one of the students goes psycho like that."

"It wasn't one of the students," I informed her sternly, I wanted to nip that rumour in the bud, "it was a stranger."

"Really," Jenny's eyes glittered at being given this insider information, "I mean, of course no one at the school would ever do that. Is it true that someone died?"

"No," I replied not bothering to keep the blunt edge out of my voice.

"Is it true ..," she started again her eyes glancing around to check that people around were noticing she was with me.

"Sorry we have to go," Mina cut across her sharply, "Cara can't spend too long in crowded places at the moment, it brings back too many memories you know."

"Of course," Jenny jumped up as Mina and I both rose to make our exit, I'd never been so thankful for an excuse to leave. I'd forgotten how insensitive Jenny could be with her need to use others for her own gain rather than actually enjoying spending time with them.

"See you," I mumbled non-comitally, hopefully I wouldn't be seeing her any time soon at all.

"Anything you need Cara I'm always here for you," Jenny called after us as we swifly made our escape. I did feel a little bad for dismissing her so quickly then, at least she'd spoken to me directly rather than gossiping behind my back. Still, I didn't want to spend any longer with her than I had to.

"Can't spend too long in crowded places," I spluttered as soon as we'd left, "why don't you sign me for therapy while your at it?"

"You can thank me later," Mina smirked and I couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

***

"How was school?" I'd barely taken my bag off my shoulder and put it on my bedroom floor before my bedroom door was flung open and all of the Silent Boys were wondering in casually.

"Yes of course you can come in," sarcasm rung from my lips.

"Thanks," Nico smirked, he had such an attractive smirk, I could practically feel my heart thump a little louder when his mouth twisted upwards denting holes in his cheeks and setting a spark alight in his eyes. And it must be the work of some devil that loved to drive me insane that they all looked so good in their uniforms, who knew that white shirts and black trousers could make someone look so appealing. However, they all looked slightly dishevelled from their day, all their shirts were untucked and only Sawyer still had his tie on but it was undone and hung in two strands down his shirt. Mitch was the only one who had his blazer on but took it off promptly after coming in and hung it over the back of my chair as he sat down.

"School was fine, how was your day?" my question was mainly aimed at Grey, today was the first day he'd been permitted to go to lessons as well.

"Boring," Grey groaned flopping backwards onto my bed with his arms thrown up so his shirt rode up and I could see the defined v leading down to his hips. I had to make myself look away so he wouldn't catch me staring.

"Everyone kept asking me what happened today," I added, "there's a rumour going around that it was one of the students who shot someone."

"Seriously?" Sawyer's eyebrows shot up his forehead.

"I know," I sighed perching right on the edge of my bed so none of me was touching Grey, "who makes up this shit?"

"What did you tell them?" Mitch inquired.

"That it was a stranger," I shrugged, "it was so exhausting though."

"Take a nap," in an instant Grey's hand was on my arm knocking it out from where I was using it to prop myslef up so I had no choice but to fall back onto my bed beside him. I was too drained to complain so all I could do was rest my head back on his forearm and relax against his warm body.

"Hey I'm tired too!" Nico complained and I felt him squeeze onto the bed on the other side of me so I could feel his hot breath on the side of my face.

Suddenly my eyelids felt heavy and each time I blinked a little more effort was taken from me and I felt like my mind was being submerged into a thick goo that made every thought take ages to come to the surface and each idea an unbelievable effort.

Sleep was quick to consume me.