Chapter 1
Charlie’s P.O.V
My name is Charlie Bennit. My Best friend Ashley Thorne - who my aunt and uncle adopted eleven years ago – and I have just moved to central London. Our new high school is called Moorgate High. Ash and I live with my aunt and uncle. We are at our new house now. My room is more me than my last room because it is more mature and sophisticated. It is much larger than our previous house. Technically I should be perfectly happy, living with my best friend, in the hustle and bustle of Central London, financially secure and the owner of a new car. This, in my mind however, seems to count for nothing. I am incomplete.
Ashley’s P.O.V
We have a big house now; you can see the street outside the window. I stare out of the open window, mesmerised by the busy street, as I gaze out I see a group of rough looking boys, about sixteen, running down the street as though being pursued. The boys turned suddenly and hastened down the alleyway almost in line with our house. I am intrigued by what they were doing but now I have more important things on my mind. I hardly slept last night. How could I, when I start at Moorgate high today?
* * *
This dreaded morning I drove Charlie to the school because she forgot to put diesel in her mustang. My stomach clenched ferociously as we drove into the parking lot. As we stepped out of the car I noticed a group of almost salivating boys staring. Not at me or Charlie. The car. Just because it was a Maserati in sleek black. We stepped cautiously out of the car, as though into a snake pit. And there they were. A gang. The gang. They all stared at the car. Except one. I felt something flutter inside me … his black hair was straight and flicked to the side out of his ice blue eyes and had a pale complexion. I looked at him but he looked away, and assumed the gormless expression of the rest. This made me feel hollow, as if something had been torn away from me. ‘It’s just a car ‘I muttered under my breath to Charlie.
* * *
This happened again and again. The connection was still there but he chose to ignore it. I felt as though we were drifting apart despite the fact that we never met.
* * *
It carried on like this for three or four weeks, I didn’t really understand, I had never felt like this before about anyone.
I felt like something was eating me from inside out, leaving only the awareness of him left, I didn’t even know his name or indeed anything about him at all.
I was walking to our first lesson, maths, and there was a poster on the door saying that our class was ‘ms3’.
‘Where’s that? Charlie asked, bewildered,
‘No idea, never heard of it ‘I said back, just as confused as her. Two people were walking down the corridor towards us.
It was a science teacher and him. Charlie hurried up to the teacher and asked if she knew where ms3 was and she answered something and pushed the boy forwards. ‘He’ll show you where it is’ the teacher said heading off in the opposite direction at a brisk pace.
The boy looked at us and our eyes met for the smallest second before he muttered ‘this way’ turning and walking outside towards the back of the school building, we followed. Charlie and I defiantly wouldn’t have known where this was I thought as we entered a block with 3 classroom doors.
On the first was ms3, the second ms1 and the third ms2. ‘There’ he said, turning for the door, ‘Thanks’ I called after him and a cold draught swirled into the room as the heavy wooden door shut with a bang behind him.
Charlie and I knocked and went in; apologizing for our lateness as we sat down. On one side of me was Charlie and on the other a girl with wavy brown hair in a short-ish style. Her hazel eyes were glowing with curiosity at the ‘new kids’. We were obviously a novelty. The teacher started to call out the register. When my name was announced I called out a casual ‘Yeah’ , not wanting to draw even more attention to us. It turned out the girl that had been staring at us was called Ellen Morrish. There was another girl sitting on Ellen’s other side, she was called Charlotte, Charlotte Walker. She had darker brown hair than Ellen and had pale blue eyes.
