Chapter 1

The cold morning lacking any sound of nature wasn't exactly the most inviting thing to wake up to. It's been two days since Kate came back to Blackwell after staring Death in the eyes, and the first day when she was supposed to attend class again. Four days since Max kept Kate from jumping. The last four days didn't exactly give Kate more hope: all the people that pushed her onto that roof now filled her days with false apologies and wishes. But Kate now knew that there was a small group of maybe five or six people that would be devastated if she… If she jumped. The very thought now filled her with fear.

She slowly turned in her bed and checked the time on her phone.

"Wait. Seven thirty? That would mean…" she murmured. Before she could finish her sentence, some type of popular music started blasting out of Victoria's room, which was, unfortunately, right next to Kate's.

"Yup. This is still the same dorm" Kate said out loud, partially just to hear her own voice. Kate realized that, while Victoria's music didn't match Kate's music preferences, and the volume might have been a bit excessive, she was just happy to be back.

After a short prayer and having fed Alice, her rabbit, Kate took her shower supplies and went to the door of her room to head out, but just before she left, something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Her violin. As Victoria's music was still just as loud, Kate decided to try to play something, hoping that no one would notice or be disturbed. With Victoria's deafening them, there was probably very few things that would get noticed.

While cleaning her bow (that gathered quite a lot of dust through the last two weeks of not being used), Kate started thinking about what to play. She could play some of the classical pieces that she was actually pretty good at playing, but she didn't really feel like playing sad formal music right now. Instead, she decided to take a go at playing an older song by one of the "hipster-y" bands that she knew Max would listen to while studying. Kate has had the sheet music for it printed for at least a month now, but she only practiced it a few times.

After warming up, Kate started slowly and quietly playing the song's melody, but as she went along, her playing picked up confidence and speed. She remembered why she wanted to play the song in the first place: the melody was quite easy, while still very pleasant to the ear. But after thirty seconds of playing, Kate slowed down again, surprised, because she heard a backing rhythm to the song she was playing. It didn't take her long to recognize the sound.

"Max" Kate thought, with a large smile on her face. "Always there to back me up."

As they went along, their playing got a bit louder and better synchronized. At the end of the song, Kate enjoyed herself so much that she lingered on the last few notes of the melody, hoping to make the moment stay.

Now very happy, Kate put her violin back to its case, and picked up her supplies, hurrying in hope that Max would still be in the corridor. Unfortunately, her friend was already gone, but she left a message on Kate's room slate.

"We have to do that again sometime! Maxoxo"

Max's main goal these days seemed to be to give Kate things to look forward to and to keep her going. Kate definitely didn't mind.

Then, Kate suddenly noticed something.

Victoria's music was now playing at only a low a really low volume. Did she really? Was it possible that Victoria Chase, the queen of Blackwell, lowered the volume of her music to listen to Kate play? Kate decided not to try to figure that one out at the moment.

Kate started to make her way to the showers, but she was stopped yet again, this time by Dana, who was just making her way out of the dorm. Kate decided not to question why Dana would be leaving the dorm that early.

"That was awesome Kate!" Dana shouted from across the corridor with her usual happy and energetic voice. The shy girl that she was, Kate instantly blushed. "I never heard you play that one before! You should play with Max more often!" Dana continued.

"Thanks Dana!" Kate replied with as loud of a voice as her gentle personality would allow her. Dana gave her one more smile, and went back to her room. Finally, after all the disturbance, Kate headed to the showers.