40 Shots - One Direction

Four

“Mary bring out your umbrella - 

The sun shines down on this fine, fine day

But the ashes raining down forever

Are going to turn your hair to grey.

Mary keep your oars a-steady

Sail away on the rising flood

Keep your candle at the ready,

Red tides can't be told from blood."

- Lauren Oliver, Delirium

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Unknown Number

Received 11:47am, Tuesday 25th Feb: 

kidnapping of the first is close. louis w/ 2 others will be @ starbucks 1:35. try to get closer to him before the aftermath. delete this text after reading.

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The vibrating of the phone in the pocket of last night's jeans startles me awake, and I fall out of the bed when it does, hitting the floor with a loud thump. Jacks pokes his head through the door at the noise, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. 

"Whasgobinon?" He mumbles.

"Nothing," I mutter, waving away his curiousity and opening the text. "Fuck."

"Wha?"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Jack moves so he's leaning over my shoulder, reading it quickly. "Oh." He says quietly, looking up at me. "Oh." He says again.

"What time is it?" I ask as I desperately pull on a clean t-shirt, printed with an American flag or something stupid like that, opting for keeping last night's black ripped jeans on and hoping there's no bloodstains. 

"Um." He pulls out the toothbrush, swiping at my phone so he can check. "1:27?" 

"Shit."

I stumble into the bathroom blearily, rubbing at my eyes. The wound on my head has re-opened during the night, blood seeping through the hastily made bandage. Coupled with the bags under my eyes, I look - well, I look like a fucking mess. The rain has made my hair curl, dark tangled ringlets that fall limply down my back - and it needs cutting as well, fuck. I wince, brushing my fringe out of my eyes, combing it through with my fingers.

"Your head thing is bleeding everywhere again," Jack yells from my room, lobbing another pack of bandages through the doorway.

"I realised," I yell back as I rinse the blood off. 

"Where did you get that, anyway?"

"Doesn't matter," I reply, winding the bandage round my head hastily and pulling a grey beanie over my hair so it covers it. "Do I look like I've murdered people in the last twenty four hours?" I ask Jack, tugging on some socks and yanking my jacket over my arms. 

He smiles. "You look like a typical uni student who's stayed up all night writing the paper that's due in today. No murdering."

I smile hastily at him, catching the set of keys that he tosses me. "Thanks."

"Be careful," He calls as I'm heading out through the door, and that alone nearly makes me turn around, because what. Jack has never, not once, in all the time I have known him, said good luck, or take care, or be careful. He just doesn't say things like that. And it's starting to become worrying, because me and Jack have always had one of those relationships where we work and live together, but we're not exactly friends, y'know? Sure, I'd be pretty beat up if something happened to him, yet it wouldn't be awful, like. People die in this job all the time. I'd get over it.