Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020

I'm awoken by my parents shouting. It drifts in through my closed door, growing in intensity.

I check the time on my phone to find that it's almost eight in the morning. I'd been asleep since noon yesterday. I guess my exhaustion was bound to catch up with me.

I rub my tired eyes, stepping out of bed and padding out of my room towards the kitchen. My mum was doing most of the yelling at this point, her voice high pitched and raw, like she'd been crying.

"How? How is this possible? We were so careful," mum quivers.

"I don't know, Luce. I don't know."

I enter the kitchen and their conversation ceases. They both look at me, tired and worried.

"Honey," mum breathes. "You've been asleep for a while. I saw you sleeping last night, so I didn't want to disturb you for dinner."

"What's going on?" I ask, walking towards them.

Mum was trying to distract me, talking aimlessly about things that didn't matter. Dad sighs, scrubbing his face. He's holding something in his hand. A newspaper.

"What is it?" I whisper, panicked.

He throws it down against the counter. The front page gives everything away.

TEEN KILLER'S FAMILY HIDING IN BAKLEY

By Laurel Bishop

"Of course," I waver. "Of course this would happen."

I tried not to let it hurt me that Laurel had written this article too. But it was hard knowing that Kennedy had probably told her.

"Did you know about this?" dad jabs, leaning against the counter, his arms crossed.

This picture of Nix wasn't his school photo for once. It was him in his footy uniform, the picture of him scowling at the camera with a bruised eye. It had been a rough game that day. His best friend had taken the photo.

It was perfect for the front page. He looked even more like the monster everyone knew him as.

"No— I mean, I didn't think the media would be alerted."

"So you did know? You knew that someone had found out? God, Lonnie, we asked you for one thing! Anonymity!" dad shouts.

"I'm sorry," I cower, tears gathering in my eyes. "But I promise I didn't tell anyone at school. It was this girl, Aubrey Steinfeld. Do you remember her? Nix killed her brother."

They're both silent as they wait for me to explain. As they wait for me to ruin everything.

"She moved to Bakley after we arrived. She threatened me when she remembered who I was. She— she stuck up all these posted yesterday at school. Posters of Nix, telling people that I was his sister," I whisper, staring at the ground.

"Oh god," mum gasps. She covers her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she cries.

"Why didn't you tell us?" dad snaps. "We could have prevented the media from all this. We could have stopped them from printing your name in this article."

His words gain my attention. "My name?"

"You're eighteen now, London," mum mutters.

"But I was a minor when it happened!" I shout, tears welling in my eyes.

"They don't care," dad growls. "Once the media have their story, they don't care what lives they destroy."

I grab for the paper, accidentally ripping the front page in half as I harshly search for the article.

It has been six months since troubled youth, Phoenix McLaren, took the lives of fifteen innocent school students at Winterville Prep in small-town, Winterville. McLaren was well known in Bakely for taking the life of former resident, Liam Coleman, a family member of the Coleman's.

In light of this horrific massacre, we have now learnt that McLaren's family are inhabiting this very town. Not only that but from the beginning of this school year, London McLaren, who many may know as Lonnie Hall, has been unmasked as the sister of Phoenix. She has been walking amongst our children and it seems that—

I can't read anymore. Everything was shattered. Everyone would know. And why? What was the point of this article? People would come after me now, I was sure.

This whole time, I thought I could outrun Nix, but really, I was only running from the inevitable. People would always know me as his sister. They would always hate me because of it.

I'd met Laurel. I'd liked her. But she'd completely shattered me. Did Kennedy know about this? Did she hate me this much, too?

"What do we do now?" I ask, hoarsely. My fingers are shaking as I put the newspaper back down on the counter.

"I don't know," dad sighs, rubbing his face.

"I'm really sorry, guys," I sniff, my lip quiver. "I never meant for this to happen."

"It isn't your fault," mum whispers. She walks over to me, brushing my hair. "You listened to us. You didn't tell people. We just never prepared ourselves for the idea of someone from the past resurfacing."

I wrap my arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. She holds on tightly, rubbing my back.

"We're sorry if we haven't been here for you, Lonnie. We should have seen that something was wrong."

"I should have just been more open," I whimper. "I should have told you the truth."

"We're your parents," mum says, sternly. "We should have seen that you weren't yourself."

"I haven't been myself for a long time, mum. Not since— not since Nix."

"None of us have," dad sighs, placing a hand on my shoulder.

Mum pulls away and I stare at my parents. They smile solemnly.

"Promise me you won't keep anything like this from us again, alright? We're a family. We need to stick together, Lonnie. Especially now."

"I promise," I reassure them both.

Dad nods solemnly. "We have a lot to work out. But for now, I think we act as normal as possible. Make people think that it hasn't affected us."

"Okay," I whisper, wiping my eyes.

"Don't go to school today, though," dad says, pointing a finger at me.

"Wasn't planning on it," I mumble.

He gives me a brief hug, kissing my hair. "We're a family and we'll get through this all together. We've had enough tragedy for a lifetime and we've faced things a lot worse than some article."

Mum reaches for dad's hand. He kisses it. "I agree with your dad, Lon. We've all been through a lot lately. Don't let this article upset you."

"It's hard not to. The women who wrote it was Kennedy's mother," I sigh.

"Laurel Bishop is Kennedy's mother? That bitch," mum mutters, glaring at the paper. "She thinks it's alright to ruin children's lives? Especially her own daughter's friend? What—"

"It's not worth getting angry over," I reassure her, holding her hand. "She's a journalist. It's her job to report things."

She cups my cheek, rubbing her thumb softly against it. "When did you get so grown up, huh?"

Right now, I didn't feel very grown-up. I felt like a child who wanted to fall asleep in her mother's bed after a bad nightmare. But I had to be strong. Because being able to stay strong was all I had left before I truly broke.

"We will get through this, London. We will."

I wrap my arms around both my parents. I pull them close, resting my head between both their shoulders.

"Oh, and do think we haven't noticed your tattoo," dad says. "But I think that should be a discussion for another time."

I smile weakly, resting my head against his shoulder.

I wasn't sure how, but I believed that somehow, someday, we'd all be okay again.