Chapter 1 - Alone

The sweet scent of flowers and freshly cut grass filled the air around Winterlake High, a deceptive beauty that masked the daily nightmare within its halls.

My name is Harvey, and I've been a student here for two years now. Two years of being alone. My parents, successful but perpetually absent, moved us here, leaving me to navigate this brutal world on my own. I'd learned to cook, to play music, to do a hundred things just to fill the quiet hours in our new, strangely homey house. Most people, even my parents, didn't know the half of what I was capable of.

They didn't know about the daily beatings, the locker slams, the gut punches. They didn't know about Liam, the handsome, popular senior who led the charge against me. He and his 'goons' made my life a living hell. Today was no different. I was still recovering from the last incident, the one that landed me in the hospital with fractured ribs. But I couldn't skip school again. I couldn't give them another reason.

As I walked down the hall, every whisper felt like a shout, every glance a judgment. I tried to make myself invisible, but it was no use. They saw me. Liam and his friends, smirks plastered on their faces, began to close in. My heart pounded, a familiar tremor starting in my legs. This was it. Another day, another confrontation. Just as I braced myself, a voice, sharp and mocking, cut through the noise.