Wow.

Newsflash, Chloe. We can't read your mind. You never told me any of that, you were always encouraging, always supportive.

Way to make me feel like a horrible friend. All I did was try to make things right for you. But what was right for you was holding me back.

You were always the one there for me Chloe. The one I could fall back on unconditionally. But I needed more than that, Chloe. I love you, like a sister. But that doesn't mean I have to sacrifice my life to check up on you all of the time. I can have other people in my life.

Still, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for sheltering you from making other friends, and I'm sorry for encasing you in your comfort zone.

Love,

Mon.

My breathing hitched as I stepped out of the door, the sight in front of me still out of my realms of comprehension.

"You changed your mind," I said, my voice sounding oddly faint in the quiet night air.

He raised his lips in a humorless half-grin and crossed his arms over his chest wordlessly. I didn't need the hint. I pursed my lips shut and headed to the car where he gestured, hoisting the duffel bag of tools over my shoulder and climbing into the passenger seat.

"Why?" I asked into the silence that ensued in the cab. My voice was croaky from the restless few hours of sleep I'd managed, and I still wasn't quite sure if this was a dream.

"Because I couldn't live with myself if you went by yourself and something happened," he said. "I'm still not happy, Chloe. I think you're acting recklessly and impulsively and taking this risk is unjustified. But I also know you're smart, and I believe you can do this and that's what scares me."

"You want to be on my good side when all of this goes down?" I asked jokingly. All of a sudden I felt the need to ease the tension slowly developing.

He sighed, and I could tell by the way his knuckles whitened that I couldn't push him. He was here, after all, despite what I'd put him through. Even with how detrimental this could be for him if we were caught.

"Thank you," I said. "I know this is a huge risk for you, with everything going on..."

"Which is why we can't get caught," he said, clearly not wanting to consider the consequences.

I swallowed. "I just don't want you risking everything because you feel bad, or for me, or for any other reason. I know I asked you to in the first place, but if something did go wrong, you're already suspended for school. If you get arrested or—"

"We won't." His frown was set deep, and I could tell even if he was quick to dismiss me, he was worried about it too. "Do you want coffee? I brought coffee."

The idea of caffeine had my mouth watering, and Will nodded to where a thermos sat in the cup holder. I opened the metal lid and took a sip, before screwing up my face and passing it to him. "Black? Really?"

"Hey, you dragged me out of bed at three in the morning," he pointed out before taking a mouthful. His features were tired, just like mine. "That being said, I wasn't getting much sleep."

"Neither was I."

William pulled onto the road and started making the trip towards Mike's home. The streets were empty, and our journey was so quick that it had me bundled with nerves. I didn't realize how much I was starting to dread my mission.

"Whose car is this?" I asked as we rounded the corner onto Mike's street. Instead of his usual flashy car he was driving a smaller black one, which, although still luxurious, was a lot less conspicuous.

"My sister's. She'd kill me if she knew I took it, but she won't find out," he said.

"You don't talk about her much," I said, desperate to fill the space between us with chatter. Something about Will reaching out like this, by going against everything he'd said before – even when I was attacking him out of fear – had created an atmosphere that was hard to ignore. He cared about me, and he was showing it with more than just words.

And, meanwhile, all I kept doing was deceiving him and shoving him to the side for a best friend I didn't want to admit wasn't here. I kept choosing her, even if it meant I was left alone.

"My sister?" he asked, oblivious to what was brewing in my mind. "We're not really that close anymore since she left for college."

"I always wanted a sibling," I blurted, my brain reverting to babble as he pulled up under a tree behind a large truck. Conveniently, it was parked in a position that let us blend in with the parked cars on the street without obstructing our view.

"I used to try and convince her to run away from home so I'd be an only sibling," he mused, a fond smile playing across his lips.

"That's awful."

"Not when she used to cut my hair in my sleep – or when she threw my pet lizard into the garden, never to be seen again. And once she ran over my new bike and blamed it on the fact that she was learning to drive."

I laughed. "A pet lizard, really?"

"It was cool to have one at the time."

I pursed my lips and tried to see through the darkness to the unit closest to the street. I hadn't catered for the fact that there were no streetlights providing clear illumination onto the building. "I used to think Monica and I were supposed to be sisters in another life."

Will hesitated. "She'd have been lucky to have you as one."

We were silent for a little while. "You probably think I'm obsessed with her."

"Not obsessed," Will said. "Just very protective. But yeah, I think you might be holding onto her too tightly."

Maybe I was. "I just want you to understand that justice for her is what's most important to me. After everything they did to her, and how they just walked away from it... it makes my blood burn. It makes me furious, and it reminds me that I need to do this. I can't just back out because it's getting too complicated."

"I understand that," he said. "There was a reason I agreed, Chloe. I know what they did and I know it wasn't fair. What we did. And if revenge was as clear as black and white and wouldn't subject you to risks like this then I'd still be all for it."

"You're here for me, not for Monica," I translated. You don't agree with me, but you're still here.

He was quiet, his expression thoughtful as he pressed the backs of his fingers to his lips, leaning his elbow against the window.

I returned my focus to the house. Fear was starting to nibble at my mind. What if his neighbors thought we were suspicious and called the cops? What if one of the housemates stayed home sick today and we couldn't get in? What about that test I had in just over seven hours?

"If you could go back," William began after a few moments of cascading worries circling through by brain. "Would you do it all again?"

"What?" I asked. "Set out to take down level one?"

"Yeah."

I thought about that. Sure, everything had become a lot more complex and difficult than I'd imagined, but where would I be if I didn't? I'd be alone. I'd be blending in with Jack whilst he meddled with them, letting Monica go without justice.

"I would," I said. "What about you? If you could replay the night I came to you with blackmail, would you still go through with it?"

"Well, I know now that you wouldn't use it," he said. "I don't know. I'd try and help you, knowing it was for Monica. But I wouldn't get you into our circle. I wouldn't let you sit there with us, or go to the parties, or be pressured into shit. I'd get whatever you needed myself instead."

"I'd still have used the fraud," I said, feeling a little annoyed at his answer. But I knew he was probably more wanting to protect me than believing me to be incapable.

"No, you wouldn't," he scoffed. "Not now. Not after all we've been through together."

I sighed. "If you believed that then you wouldn't have done this in the first place."

"Maybe you just keep me curious enough to stick around," he said with a chuckle. "But I was going to ask you about that document."

"What about it?"

"I want it. A copy of it."

I frowned. "You can't show your dad – it would make it too easy to trace and—"

"I don't want to show him," he said quietly. "I want to use it against him."

My jaw dropped open as I did a double take. "What?"

"Maybe I've been spending too much time with you. Adopted your methods of reasoning," he mused. "But I want it. I need a safeguard in case he tries to control me further. I need a backup plan in case he really does send me to Europe."

Only the sounds of our breathing were audible as I thought it over. I looked at him, trying to convey as much assurance as I could, but I just ended up feeling lost as his emerald eyes captured mine. "It's there if you need it."

"Thank you."

We were quiet again until his laugh broke the silence which had grown from awkward to comfortable as we slowly became entrapped in our own thoughts.

"What's funny?" I asked.

He gestured to the space between us. "This. It's what, four-thirty in the morning? And we're stalking some guy's house."

Now that he said it, my tired mind also found it funny. Hilarious, in fact. I laughed with him. "If you'd told me six months ago that I would be sitting in a car alone with you at four-thirty in the morning, I would have thought you were crazy."

"Really? I'm curious," he said, leaning in a little. "What did you think of me before all of this mess?"

I narrowed my eyes. "I thought you were just another level one guy who had slept with at least half the females in the student cohort."

He laughed again. "Really? My reputation is impressive."

"I don't know if that's a good thing," I pointed out.

"And what do you think of me now?"

What did I think of Will? Right now, he was all that was holding me together. I was sure that if I was alone right now the silence would eat me alive. It would amplify that little voice in my head that loved to remind me of all my insecurities, chanting them until she was screaming.

"I think you're a good guy," I said honestly, averting my gaze away from his. "I think you're too good to be on level one."

When he didn't reply I assumed he'd dismissed my words, but when I looked towards him his expression told me he was instead silenced with thought.

"That means a lot that you said that. When you found out about me and Lola I thought for sure you'd hate me," he said.

Bringing up the image of Will and Lola made me turn from sentimental to slightly repulsed again, but I shook it off.

"You weren't in a good place earlier," he pointed out. "When you came to my house. I know you were stressed, but it was also like you were losing it, Chlo."

"I felt like I was," I admitted, recalling my breakdown in the kitchen. "After everything that happened with Maddy – I'm sure you got that picture too – and then Jack... I was overwhelmed. And then there's..."

My voice trailed off and I screwed my eyes shut before continuing.

"Just being in this position, trying to put on this costume to be someone else; this intimidating, skinny, and rich Chloe who fits in with them – it just stresses me out all the time. It's just taken away every piece of me. Everything I do is for the revenge, and the more I obsess over it the more it drives me crazy."

"I think you have more of yourself than you think," he murmured. "I still see a girl who is everything those girls could never be. You underestimate yourself, Chloe."

Maybe if it wasn't for the early hour in the morning, or the anxiety weighing on my chest, I wouldn't have spoken to him about my insecurities, and he wouldn't say things so nice it made my chest squeeze. Maybe his eyes wouldn't burn into mine in a way that made me question every one of my doubts.

But they did.

My breath was coming shallow when his fingertips grazed my cheek, gently trapping the wisps of hair that had fallen from my braids and brushing them behind my ear. All I could think of were his lips, and the way he'd pressed them so urgently to mine. How exhilarating it had felt. For a moment it felt like both of us were frozen, each one of us unsure what our next move would be.

But then a light flickered on through a window across the street.

"Someone's awake," he said, a little too quickly.

"It's Brad. He should be waking up to get ready for work now," I said, my tone just as rushed as I checked my watch. "The others should be up soon too."

"You really have done your research."

My heart was hammering in my ears.

Minutes past where we didn't say anything. We watched anxiously as the sky turned from an inky black to a murky grey. More lights popped on, both in the unit and in the ones surrounding it. My stomach was turning into knots at the idea that we'd soon be entering that house.

I was becoming acutely aware of the rise and fall of William's chest beside me, and I had to stop the subconscious urge to reach out and touch him in some way. To feel his heated skin burn against mine.

Hormonal teenage girl, I reminded myself.

This wasn't a good time for weaknesses.

The first car left the garage, followed by a second just before seven in the morning. Our conversation had died, possibly because each of us had hit a boundary that we were too scared to cross.

The small space in the car was quickly becoming unbearable.

At seven fifty, just as I sensed William start to doze off beside me, the roller door opened and a truck pulled out. I could identify Mike's profile as the driver in the dull light of the freshly risen sun.

I took a deep breath, the movement enough to stir Will beside me. It was time.

AN: Thank you to everyone for submitting some amazing covers! Just a reminder that you can continue to submit them until the 21st of August 2016. Also, HSHL is currently #24 in teen fiction! THANK YOU! to support it further, don't forget to vote! HSHL is in the wattys, so this would really show your support.

Question: up until this moment, what has been the most shocking turn/revelation this story has taken?

Thanks so much for reading, love you all - ann 💕