Tempted Hearts (bxb)

Chapter 11 - A Midsummer Nightmare

With more haste than I'd ever seen a car get parked, Lilly stopped hers outside our school. The parking lot was otherwise completely empty, with no other soul to be seen. Darkness shrouded our school. The moon and stars were slowly being covered up by large, opaque clouds in the dead of night as we exited her car. I shut my door gently so as to not make too much noise, as if someone else within close proximity could hear. Lilly, on the other hand, slammed hers, taking her black coat out of the back seat and throwing it on.

"This is so weird, being back here again," I said as we made our way across the car park.

"I didn't want to come back here before I needed to, but here we are," she sighed, walking at a faster pace than usual. It was so weird to see our school at night time. An eerie feeling clung to the whole ordeal, and the stories that the after-school cleaners would tell all came rushing back to me. Tales of the ghosts of children haunting the halls after dark and the keyboard from the music room that once was heard playing by itself.

Attempting to rid my mind of these thoughts, I sparked conversation. "You never told me, Lilly. Why are we here?" I begged, genuinely trying to get the answer out of her. She hadn't said much in the car on the way.

"I know for a fact that I put all my effort into attaining the grades that I was getting. My teachers were so proud of my straight-A record, with the occasional B," she added, "that it was a complete shock to everyone when my grades came out as fails."

Nodding, I followed the story in my head, watching flashbacks in which I stood by her at every significant moment.

"And then, I received that email that should've come on the day that everyone else's did. But it was never sent, until now, shortly followed by a creepy anonymous threat."

"Could it have been a teacher? A student?" I struggled to interpret just who could have it out for her.

Lilly shook her head. "I don't know, Max. All I know is we have to get onto those school files and look online for my grades before it's too late."

I followed her over to the sports centre that was attached to our school. We had a large pool area where parties were often held each year. Elderly people also used it early in the morning.

"How exactly do you plan to pull all this off?" I questioned, not even knowing the extent of her plan.

Lilly smirked, and I knew that one all too well. It was a Jake smirk. She'd already thought about it thoroughly, probably at the moment when she got the email.

"See this?" She pointed to herself.

"A hot mess?" I joked weakly.

She didn't even crack a smile. "Yes. But over that is my coat, the one I wore to school every day," she reminded me.

"The one the teachers always asked you to take off?"

"Yep. And in the inside pocket, I keep my key to the sports centre." Her smirk turned into a grin as she brandished the keys and dangled them in front of me before clasping them with her fingers again.

My jaw fell open a little, having forgotten Lilly's position. "Because you're the female sports captain for our year."

"Yep, the captain who forgot to hand the key back in on her last day." She shrugged, innocently. "Oops."

I giggled as we arrived at the sports centre. The rather ugly grey building had heavy double doors that led directly into the indoor pool area.

"You know we could get arrested for this, right?" Anxiety began flooding in as I thought about the consequences that we could face if we were caught. Being arrested, not being able to go to university, ending up on the streets and making friends with the local squirrel family, that kind of thing.