Picture above
Left - Lexi Underwood as Sotiria
Right - Amandla Stenberg as Satira
They're 2 of Darius' daughters. He has 3.
(But they will appear later on in this chapter)

"You got expelled?" From Josiah.

Savannah nodded, shamefully.

Her, Reminisce, Kaiden and Josiah were in Kaiden's room at the moment because it was the largest, plus no one had really been there before anyway.

Savannah had finally decided to tell the group what was going on in her life and why she hadn't said hi to the boys when they had said hi to her earlier on today.

Josiah and Kaiden would have never guessed that someone like Savannah would have been expelled. She was the last person to do this sort of thing.

Out of everyone in the group, she was the most well behaved person. Not just that, she had caused the least drama.

Maybe because she was an only child, but it could have also been since she was a quiet and introverted girl.

"When did you get expelled?" Kaiden wanted to know, with Savannah replying that she had gotten expelled three days ago almost straight away.

"Thankfully, it's just for Darius' class for the time being. I talked to the vice principal about this and he said that he'd talk to the head principal." Savannah had continued, sitting down on the chair Kaiden had used for studying. "I'm telling you guys, Darius has been on my case since I've been here. And Reminisce, you can bear me witness."

Reminisce had nodded, leaving out the fact that sometimes Darius had been on Savannah's case because she had misbehaved in class.

Savannah had mentioned all of the nasty things Darius had done against her even when she didn't deserve it.

She had put emphasis on the latest one though, the one that had gotten her expelled. Darius had deliberately under-marked the girl in a test.

"Darius sounds like a real pain in the derrière," Kaiden had commented, after Savannah and Reminisce had told the boys everything. "I'm glad that he's not my teacher."

"Yeah, for him not to like you without any good reason, that's kind of cold," Josiah added.

There actually was a reason.

And Savannah seriously wanted to look into it, hence why she had planned an entire group meeting in the first place.

Darius was Lilibet's ex husband, having divorced each other before Savannah was born, due to Darius killing what would have been Savannah's brother.

But why though?

"You would have had a brother?" Kaiden had repeated, at the same time that Josiah and Reminisce was alarmed at the fact that Darius was a teacher and he had a criminal record.

Did they not know that or something?

"There's a lot of things I don't know," Savannah had informed them. "And I want to find it out. With you guys. Why Darius killed my brother and how he knows me long after him and my mum divorced."

Reminisce, Josiah and Kaiden had looked at one another, then at Savannah again, blankly.

Savannah had taken this as them not wanting to help her, or they were unsure.

"What's wrong, you guys? Don't you want to help me or something?"

"We do, but can't you just ask your mum?" Reminisce realised. "We unanimously feel as though that would be easier."

To be honest, Savannah could have actually asked her mum what had happened, but there were four reasons why she wasn't going to do that.

1) First of all. It was a long time ago, she probably wouldn't have remembered everything.

2) Second of all - she had normally twisted the truth around in stories concerning her when she had done something wrong. Goodness knew, she could have done something wrong leading to this divorce. Maybe it wasn't just on Darius.

Though Savannah wasn't taking sides.

3) Lilibet was kind of crazily busy anyway. Savannah knew that she was working right now so therefore she didn't want to disturb her. And by the time work was over, Savannah wouldn't have wanted to hear the story anymore.

4) And lastly. She was just the last person that Savannah wanted to speak to right now for not telling her any of this before. End of story.

She didn't need telling twice.

"Are those good enough reasons for y'all?"

The three of them didn't speak to each other for some time, thinking about it.

"I suppose, however if you're unsure about anything, ask your mum," Josiah suggested, with Savannah agreeing.

They weren't going to be doing this by themselves though. There were only 4 of them.

So what was Savannah implying?

"I'm implying," Savannah had paused before saying anything else. "We get the original team back. Khalifa and Tatiana. They'd be good for this."

Tatiana was fine. No problem there.

But Khalifa?

Khalifa?

She was joking.

He hated them more than they hated him. And he had every reason to hate them. They had wrongfully messed with his relationship not once but twice.

Fool me once, you're a fool. Fool me twice, that's just uncool.

Was what Khalifa had said to Reminisce the other day when they had coincidentally crossed paths. Reminisce wanted to make amends with her brother however Khalifa would have rather done anything but.

"Why can't there just be five of us?" Josiah deadpanned.

"Because the more, the merrier. Just not too much."

Plus it would have been nice to reunite You're So High Maintenance back anyway.

They weren't changing their group name. They had actually loved it. Besides, it had suited them all very well since they were all high maintenance in one way or the other.

"Didn't you say when you said you got expelled that Khalifa made fun of you for it?" Josiah had brought to remembrance.

"Whether he did or not, he's good at these kind of things." Reminisce had chirped in. "He loves mysteries. We just have to convince him to join us."

After that was sorted, even though Kaiden was secretly against it, they needed to sort out who was going where.

It was originally Josiah and Savannah to go talk with Khalifa with Kaiden and Reminisce talking to Tatiana instead, and Kaiden complained.

"If I don't go with you, Josiah, I always go with Reminisce. I've never been with Savannah," he whined, Josiah rolling his eyes in the process. "No offence, Reminisce."

Kaiden had started developing feelings for Savannah shortly before she had told them that she had gotten expelled.

They had so much in common. If anything, this could have been a match made from Heaven.

"None taken," she grimaced. "Also no disrespect but Josiah, you're the reason Khalifa is mad at us. All of us. So what makes you think he'd be happy to see you?"

"Reminisce, he won't be happy to see any of us." Josiah had reminded her. "And I need to make things right. You can convince him the most."

Tatiana was at these auditions right now for this Valentine's Day talent show coming up, and she was leading the auditions with four of her other friends.

Khalifa?

They didn't know where he was, but they could have found out.

Either way, he was most likely with Stefani.

**********

As YSHM were looking for Khalifa and Tatiana respectively, Darius in the meantime was at home, in his sitting room:

He wasn't teaching anything today for a couple of hours, and since his house was a five minutes walk away from the school, he had therefore decided to go home.

He was kind of lamenting over expelling Savannah for a while, realising that that was the wrong thing to do.

Not just because she didn't have any reason to be expelled. Her grades were excellent, even if Darius didn't really like to admit it.

His eldest daughter Satira had gone down the stairs, seeing him in a seemingly troubled state. Darius and his wife Kesiena had three daughters: Satira, Sotiria and Zipporah - in that order.

"Dad, I'm going to go over to my friend's house. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine," he answered emotionlessly. "You told me and your mum this before. No worries."

Darius' wife Kesiena didn't know anything about Lilibet because he didn't tell her that he had been married previously when she had asked him.

Not just that. His daughters didn't know that Savannah was technically their sister. Which they were just about to find out.

Just as Satira was about to leave, after she had put on her leather jacket, she had looked at Darius for a long time.

"You okay, dad?"

No, he wasn't.

He had screwed up so bad.

"Yeah."

"You don't look it."

"I'm fine!" He cheered a little bit too happily, even though that wasn't true and he knew it. "Just go and enjoy yourself at your friend's house."

She had looked at him sceptically, before kissing him on the cheek.

"Okay, but if you need anything, you can always text me or call me, you understand?"

Even as the eldest child, Darius didn't want to tell Satira what had happened.

After she had gone, that was when Sotiria had come downstairs, asking Darius if Satira had gone.

"Yeah, she just left. Why?"

"She has been on my case all day!" She complained. "I forgot to do one chore yesterday and she's acting like I committed a crime!"

Darius almost shivered when he had heard the word crime, remembering that he had murdered his son Jackson 21 years ago.

It wasn't really a murder though, however he was going to explain everything properly later.

"Are you okay, dad? You seem kinda distraught about something."

"I'm fine."

Sotiria didn't say anything and perhaps if Satira could have stayed longer, she would have realised that Darius was lying when he had told her that he was 'fine'.

"No you're not. You're really not," she had disagreed, sitting down next to him. "Dad, I've known you for 18 years. I know when you're lying about something. So what's up? You know you can tell me anything."

Anything...

Aside from this!

Speechless, Darius didn't know whether to tell Sotiria what had happened or not.

Sighing, as he had remembered that she was going to find out soon anyway, he had explained everything.

"Nothing big," he lied. "I just regret expelling this girl from my course three days ago. Her name is Savannah Parker. That's all."

"Why did you expel her?"

Because of Lilibet.

Darius didn't answer, thinking of whether to continue or not.

"Due to past experiences. She didn't really do anything though. More so her mum."

He had muttered the last bit under his breath, hoping that Sotiria wouldn't have heard him. She did.

"What do you mean, 'more so her mum'?"

"Don't worry."

"Dad, you know I hate it when you and mum keep things away from me," she had sighed. "I'm 18. Not eight. I'm not forcing you, albeit you can't just drop a bomb like that and stop halfway. You understand what I mean?"

Darius shouldn't have told her anything. Even if she was right.

"Her mum..." a dramatic pause, then: "was my ex wife. So technically this girl I expelled would be your sister, I guess it just wasn't meant to be."

He had left it there, for Sotiria to figure out.

He genuinely wanted to leave as he knew that after he had told her that would have been a series of shouts.

Which was exactly what had happened.

"What... what do you mean she was your ex wife?" Sotiria demanded, standing up. "I thought you told mum that you never married before you met her. So you lied?"

"More so to protect myself..."

Sotiria was infuriated, with Darius realising this.

"Look, Sotiria. It's not what you think. I can explain."

"You lied to mum and now you expect me to ever trust you again-"

"Sotiria, listen, I can explain."

"Get out of the house."

Darius had kept saying her name but Sotiria didn't want to hear it.

"You haven't been honest to her about anything! So what, mum is just a side piece now?!"

"I said she was my ex wife!"

"And why's that?"

Silence.

Darius definitely couldn't have explained to her why they had divorced. That was worse than him lying about not having a wife previously.

Full stop.

"You know what? I don't even want to hear it. Mum deserves so much better than you! I hate you!"

She was just about to storm upstairs, which just so happened to be when Kesiena had come in the sitting room to know why Sotiria was shouting.

She had to take a phone call - and the truth spilt.

Sotiria spilt everything.