The following day, I woke up rolling onto my side and looked at the clock.

9:20 AM.

I shot up in bed, filled with panic. Dad was gonna kill us for oversleeping! I looked around and saw I was in Adam's room, then remembered why I slept here and quickly got up

Before I could go into my bedroom across the hall, Adam came out of the bathroom.

"Ariel." He said as I looked at him. He was standing in the middle of the hallway with just a towel on, his hair dripping wet. Guess he just took a shower.

"Why didn't you wake me up?!?" I snapped at him, "We're late for school!"

"Don't worry, Ariel. I called our school and told them we had an appointment this morning." He said calmly. I looked at him, confused.

"Why?" I questioned.

"Because of you." He answered, staring at me with a straight face, "You needed a lot of rest."

"Dad's gonna know we missed first period," I stated. He would not be happy if he knew we skipped almost two periods.

"Relax. He left early this morning." He replied. I sighed slightly in relief, "You should probably shower and get dress so that we can get going." He said, then walked toward his room. I nodded, and he slipped into his room as I grabbed a towel from the closet, then went to take a shower. I took a quick ten-minute shower, then went into my room and got dressed. I threw on a black tank top, a jean blouse, black jeans, and boots.

It was almost ten when I finished getting ready for school. I grabbed my bag off my bed and went downstairs, meeting Adam in the kitchen.

"You wanna grab a coffee on our way to school?" He asked me as he grabbed his bag off the back of the kitchen chair and onto his shoulder. I nodded, saying yes, and with that answer, we left.

We got to school in the middle of third period. I had Algebra 2, which, luckily, none of the guys were in. I walked into math with my coffee and a note from the main office. I gave the note to my teacher Mr. Hicks before taking my seat and opening my notebook.

The class went by fast, and the following period was lunch. So after class, I went to my locker. I was going to meet up with Julia, but when I went to close my locker, it quickly got slammed by someone making me jump.

I looked up and saw Ricky standing in front of me, staring at me, smirking.

"Hey, Ariel." He said in a creepy low voice that sounded like some scary character from a horror movie.

"What do you want, Ricky?" I snapped. He looked at me, surprised at my sudden outburst.

"Someone's a little bitchy this morning," Ricky commented before shoving me up against the lockers. I glanced up at him, and he shoved me harder into the lockers making my backache. I whimpered in pain, but I didn't cry, "Lost your little bit of bravery already?" He hissed at me.

"Get off me!" I screamed, trying to push him away with all my strength, but he was so much stronger than me.

"Feisty this morning, aren't we?" Ricky teased, making me glare at him for a second as he said, "Well, we'll fix that." Suddenly Ricky grabbed my shirt and started dragging me down the hall toward the back of the school. We went around the corner and toward a close-off part of the old hallway the school never bothered it fix.

This was the dark side of the school.

Literally, if you go down this hallway, you can barely see anything. It was isolated from the rest of the school. The hall was lead to a dead end. It looked very sketchy with the piled paint on the lockers and walls mixed with the flickering two lights that gave it a dim bit of light. Because it was isolated from the rest of the school, Ricky and the guys used it to hang out when they dished class and stuff.

"Look who I found," Ricky said as we came in and pushed me toward everyone. I saw Connor and Trevor leaning against the lockers on the left while Sam and Kian did the same on the right.

"Where were you this morning?" Jc said, coming out of the shadows, "Skipping out on us?"

"I-I had a-um doctor's appointment." I stuttered. He just chuckled, shaking his head.

"You're a fucking liar!" He snapped at me. I glanced down, biting my bottom lip, "Sam told me what you did to Ricky and Trevor yesterday?" He said in a harsh voice. My eyes flickered up at him, then glanced at Sam, who was smirking back at me.

"That was an accident." I lied, looking at Jc again.

"You flipped shit!" Trevor yelled over, making me glance over at him.

That's when Jc came over and shoved me into the lockers in between them, hitting my back painfully against the lockers. I got punched three times by Jc.

twice by Connor and Trevor,

and four times by Ricky and Sam.

Ricky kicked my left side, making me drop to the floor with no hesitation. I whimpered in absolute pain as I pushed myself up and leaned against the lockers.

"Get up, you piece of shit!" Jc yelled at me, but I couldn't. Everything hurt. When I didn't move, he grabbed the back of my hair and pulled me up, making me scream at the top of my lungs, "Shut up!" Jc shouted, slapping me across the face with his free hand. I tried not to cry, not yet, but it was hard not to.

"Hey!" Jc shouted in my face. I glanced at him as he leaned toward me, whispering, "Don't you dare tell anyone about this. Got it?" He asked, shoving me more into the lockers.

"Yes," I replied, nodding. He chuckled, then pushed me into the lockers once more before letting go of me. When he did, I immediately dropped to the ground. I heard him storm off with Ricky, followed by the rest of the guys. I looked over and saw Kian had stopped.

What was he doing?

Hopefully, he wasn't coming back over.

Kian turned his head, looking back, and winked at me before running off to catch up with the guys.

Once I knew they were gone, I slowly pushed myself up off the ground and leaned against the lockers. Tears escaped my eyes and ran down my cheek, and then I just started crying as I sat alone in the dark hallway.