A/N I can't spell check right now - hope it's okay!

Fourteen

There was no going back now. Me and Gerard had done things that would get him fired if it ever came out about us. Hell, he could even be deported back to New Jersey if we weren't careful. He knew this even more than I did, and I knew I was going to have to not breath a single word of it for his sake.

Not that I would brag about something like that anyway, but it was hard not to smile during dinner that night. And trust me when I say that me smiling definitely would've aroused suspicion. I never smiled around my aunt or uncle, in fact they'd probably think I had a fever if I so much as made eye contact with them over the table.

So instead I ate my food in silence, only half listening to what James was saying about his work and some stupid joke his boss had said, and tried to look my normal, miserable self. It must have worked because I was dismissed immediately, and I went straight back up to my room to message Pete, who was surprising still with Patrick and still just as in love as he had been the previous week.

I was planning on just having an early night when Ray surprised me by knocking on my door, guitar in his hand.

"Hey" He smiled "I know it's been a while since you practiced - here" he placed the instrument down onto my bed 'have fun and bring it back when you're done, okay?"

"Thank you" my eyed widened as I picked it up "Seriously Ray, I owe you one for letting me borrow this.' It wasn't even a cheap guitar - it was a real Fender one, and I could just tell it was beyond expensive. he'd probably saved up for ages to be able to afford it.

"It's not a problem" he shrugged.

"Be that as it may, but if you ever need a hand with anything just say okay? I don't like to take charity from people."

"Technically you're not taking, you're just borrowing it for an hour" He shrugged and went to leave, but then stopped short in the doorway and seemed to think to himself for a moment before turning back to face me, a guarded look on his face. "You seem happier than usual."

"I wasn't aware that was a crime" I raised an eyebrow, not giving away the rush of panic i'd felt inside at his comment. I couldn't afford to let anyone get suspicious about what I was up to at the church, not even him.

"No, I know, It's just nice to see you happy, that's all. You're nearly always moping around when you're here. I know things like graffiti and sneaking out make you cheer up, but it's nice to see you have a legal hobby too" he nodded towards the guitar.

"What can I say? It's creative, so I enjoy it" he lingered for a moment more before disappearing off back towards his room, leaving me to start playing the guitar, loosing myself in the various power chords and riffs and even allowing myself to stop thinking about that afternoon, even if only for a short period of time.

I'm walking towards the canteen at lunch the next day when I spot Lynz walking up ahead, her black hair pulled into it's usual bunches being a dead giveaway. That and the Iron Maiden bag that's slung over her shoulder.

"Lynz!" I call out, and she turns, a bright red grin on her face as she waits for her to catch up with her through the gradually thinning crowd.

"Hey Frank" She grins as we turn and start to descend down the stairs.

"You okay? You looked like you were in a bit of a rush back there" It was a good job she heard me and stopped, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to catch up with her fast pace without all out running.

"Oh yeah, I just walk faster when i'm irritated" She shrugged.

"Irritated?"

"Did I not tell you yesterday? My parents got divorced when I was younger, and now my dad's gone and got this girlfriend" she practically spat the word "And it's not that i'm against them seeing other people, it's just that this woman's a total bitch."

"Is she that bad?" I asked, almost skeptically. I mean, I knew that people tended to take it pretty hard when their parents found someone else, so I wasn't sure wether this woman was as bad as Lynz was making her out to be.

"Oh trust me, Angela hates my guts too. As soon as my dad's back was turned she told me that she didn't want to me visiting anymore on weekends. She wants to turn my room round there into a spare room so that if she moves in, there'll be a place for her friends to stay. And when I told her where to shove her ideas, she lied and told my dad i'd been badmouthing her for no reason."

"Did he believe her?"

"Yep, she's got him hook line and sinker. Now he's angry at me for apparently insulting her, and she's playing the wounded victim in the whole thing. Honestly, I just want to punch her in the face and set her fucking house on fire." She balled her fists and huffed as she spoke, the rage practically emitting from her as she stomped along beside me.

"Why don't you?"

"What? Punch her in the face? I doubt that would really do anything but prove that she was the victim. It's tempting though."

"Okay, maybe not punch her. But you are talking to someone who's pretty good at vandalising and then getting away with it" I didn't add about the times when I had been caught, ending in me getting sent there in the first place. "Is she at work right now?"

"Well yes..." She glanced over at the smirk forming on my face "Do you seriously want to bunk off our classes so we can go and graffiti her house?" She sounded nervous, but I could also hear the temptation in her voice.

"Why not? As long as we're careful, they'll never be able to prove it was us. Nothing major, just a bit of tagging - we'll keep it just the two of us because it'll be easier that way. What do you say? up for some revenge?" She just smirked, glanced from side to side to check no one was watching us, and then grabbed me by the arm, towing me towards the fire escape door.

"Come on there Iero" She grinned "Let's go show her exactly who she's messing with."

Sneaking off campus was easy - as we were now in the sixth form they let us go wherever in our lunch break, which meant no one cared when we walked out of the main gates. No one realised we didn't intend on coming back afterwards. No one heard the clink that the spray cans made in my bag as the two of us got in Lynz's car.

We weren't dumb - we parked the car a good few streets away from this Angela chick's house and walked the rest, not wanting anyone to take down the registration plate and have it linked back to Lynz.

"To be honest, i've wanted an excuse to go tagging with you again anyway" She admitted as we walked down the alleyway that ran along the back of the houses "Last time was great - the rush and the final result... I loved it."

"You share my love for it" I nodded "and you're good too. Just don't get caught, and it's plain sailing."

"I don't intend on it" She rolled her eyes "We've gotta do something big and totally offensive. Something that'll make her blood boil. She can't know it was me. Sure, she can have her suspicions, but they can't be any more than that. Nothing that means the police have an excuse to come question me."

"Sure, don't worry, I know how it works" No one knew exactly how the police treated this stuff better than I did "Just make sure if you draw or write anything, that it's public knowledge about her. Nothing only you know, okay?" She nodded.

"Right. This is it" She stopped by one gate "Stand back." I did as she said and watched her bring her leg up and kick the gate right off it's hinges with a satisfying bang, revealing a pristine garden. "Man, that felt good to do."

"That's just the start" I stepped into the garden, seeing that there were neat flowers beds with roses and tulips growing in neat little lines "Don't leave fingerprints anywhere."

"I do know the basics Frank" she gave an eye roll as she walked in behind me "now, where shall we start?"

"Did you want to trash it a bit first or go straight for the artwork?" I eyed up the tulips with a glint in my eye. She followed my gaze and smirked, walking over to the roses.

"Oh let's trash it" and with that she started to stomp on all the flowers. I just watched her with an amused smile as she kicked them all over, before shoving over a plant pot and watching it smash. She continued to do this until all the plant pots were in shattered pieces and the one neat flowers were all crumpled.

I almost felt sorry for the woman, but then I remembered how she had insulted my friend and then turned her own dad against her, and it filled me with enough spite that I picked up a garden chair and broke off the legs.

"What next?" I asked Lynz as she stood there, panting from all the jumping with a slightly wild look in her eye.

"Let's make a pile up of all this furniture" she gestured to the various tables and chairs and I nodded, the two of us snapping and breaking off pieces wherever possible as we worked, making what was fast appearing to look like a bonfire in front of us.

"As much as I know you want to light this, I've had some bad experiences with fire and arson so I'd rather we just left it at this" I explained when we were finished.

"But-"

"Seriously Lynz. The smoke will attract attention we don't want. Leave it" I spoke firmly, making sure she knew that I wasn't going to back down on the issue. Eventually she just nodded and looked down at the bag at my feet.

"Okay then. Let's start tagging" she cracked her knuckles as I opened the bag and picked up the black spray can.

"Colour?"

"Red" she decided without hesitating. I handed her the right can and the two of us made out way to the side of the house, where there was a perfect wall for our tagging. There were hardly any widows to work around and it was concealed space, giving us enough privacy that we didn't have to worry.

I started by spraying a magpie onto the wall, taking extra time to add detail to it's glinting eyes. Then I drew a nest that it was perched upon, within it were the outlines of men tied up, and then I surrounded them with jewels, money and I even added a lipstick in there too.

"I'm gunna need the red back" I turned to see that the red can was actually already discarded at her feet - she'd moved on to using the black now. She'd drawn a woman, who I presumed was Angela, but with troll-like features, red eyes and claws extending out of her hands. It looked like she was reaching for something, but Lynz had only just started drawing that bit so I couldn't tell what yet.

"Take it" she kicked it over to me and I quickly grabbed it, starting to spray a message of my own around my picture. I was going to write "wreck the home wreker" but I only got to the word "home" when I heard a cry of "shit!" Come from Lynz.

"What is it?" I hissed, spinning around and seeing her standing frozen, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, the spray can still grasped tightly in her hand.

"I heard something" she muttered back "Frank I heard voices I'm sure of it."

"I thought you said she wasn't due back from work yet?"

"She's not, but I don't know about her neighbours" she bit her lip and tugged at her hair in frustration "oh crap, what if it's them? What if they heard us?"

"Quick" I shoved the can back in my bag and raced over to where she was standing, grabbing her by the hand "we've got to get out of here NOW."

She nodded, seeming almost numb with panic and shock, and we both started to charge down the garden path.

"Wait" she stopped in her tracks "the blue can..." We both turned to see the item we'd forgotten to grab gleaming in the afternoon sun, it seemed to almost taunt us with the way she aluminium rolled ever so slightly back and forth it the breeze.

Lynz wasn't stupid. She knew that the can had her fingerprints on, and no doubt mine too, and that to leave it would be a fatal mistake for the both of us. So she ran back, feet pounding along the ground, whilst I stood at the end of the garden, waiting.

Part of me wanted to just run and let her catch up, but the more logical and humane part reminded me that it was my spray can, it had been my idea, but most of all that my prints would be on it too, so it was in my best interest to help her retrieve the damn thing.

She ran back towards me, wiping the thing on her sleeve as she did so.

"Go!" She cried, and the two of us fled down the alleyway, practically flying down the narrow path with her leading the way. I could hear should from the garden we had left, but they seemed insignificant now that we were nearly at the end - there was no way whoever was back there could have caught up with us at the pace we were going at, let alone get around to the mouth of the alley before us.

At first I was confused when Lynz stopped dead in her tracks at the end, but when I reached her side and saw over her shoulder exactly what we'd stopped for, I knew I would've done the same.

A policeman who looked nowhere near as lenient as McManor and what appeared to be a local resident were waiting for us, their arms crossed and the police car just visible around the corner.

Shit.

I turned to look at Lynz, and by the look on her face it was clear that she too could see that we weren't getting out of this one. Not when we could hear the other police officer walking down the lane behind us, his footsteps overly confident as he ambled along. He knew it too.

"Just go along with everything I say" I hissed to her before they came within ear shot.

"What do you mean?"

"I've been through this enough to know what you should and shouldn't say if we want to get off as lightly as possible. Don't say anything unless you're backing up what I've already said." She nodded and gulped a little too. I could tell this was her first time being arrested or even caught in general by the police, so I was going to have to look out for her and make sure she didn't make any mistakes or slip up and admit to more than they knew about.

Luckily I knew Lynz was a strong and confident character, so would cope with the ordeal. Unlike poor little Patrick back home in New Jersey, who wouldn't have lasted five minutes in a police station before he was bawling out every last detail of what he's been doing in an attempt to win them around.

"That's them" the elder resident glared from me to Lynz and then back to me. Obviously they would have me down as the leader out of the pair, simply because Lynz was a girl - a pretty one at that - and so she would be placed as being easily mislead by me, the teenage boy with an awful scowl and black skinny jeans.

Stereotypes sure did suck.

I mean yes, technically I was the leader out of us. After all, it had been my idea to come and tag the place. But Lynz was not some easily lead girl. She was full of spite and knew exactly what she was letting herself in for, and yet I knew that she would get off lighter than me simply because she was easy to look at. She probably cared a damn sight more than me about it all though, so I decided to just go along with the assumptions that would be made.

"Right" the police officer behind us said. He looked down at the two of us with a tired expression "now are you two going to get in the car peacefully or am I going to have to handcuff you both?"

"It's ok, we'll be good" I tried to withhold some of the sarcasm that threatened to drop off my lips as I spoke, although a little bit still slipped through.

"Come on then" he placed a hand on each of our shoulder and steered us towards the car, whilst the other officer continued to talk to the resident, who was babbling on about how he knew we were trouble the moment he saw us out in the lane. Obviously he had been the one to spot us and call the cops whilst we were busy causing damage.

Me and Lynz slid into the back of the car, both of us hearing the distinct sound of the child locks going down so that we wouldn't be able to open the doors or attempt to make a break for it ourselves. Not that it would even be worth trying anyway - they'd easily track you down, especially with a record as colourful as mine.

Neither of us said anything as the officers climbed in the front and the car pulled away. Lynz was probably too busy trying to think of how she was going to win around her dad once he found out what she'd done, whilst I was trying to piece together a story that would get us in the least amount of shit possible.

________________________

Hey guys! I'm not sure exactly how long this is as I wrote it on my phone (I'm away atm and where I am there's literally no 3G or wifi I'm lucky when I get phone signal jfc.)

Being away from the internet isn't good for my mental health you know.

At least I can still write on my phone though huh?

Anyways hope you enjoyed and I'll try and get another update up as soon as possible!