Hero » l.p. au

Chapter 29

Everyone likes the bands I mentioned in the last chapter and that makes me feel all giggly on the inside

I love every single one of you

*******

"Hi, um..." I tapped my fingers against the tall table as I caught the woman's attention, "I'm Sally. You asked me to pick up Liam."

A pleased – almost relieving smile appeared on her face as the words left my mouth. "Yes, follow me." She stood up from her chair and we started walking through a hallway, until we got to another door. I almost threw up when she opened it, as the first thing I saw were bars, and people behind it. What have you gotten yourself into?, I thought, but I wasn't sure whether I was asking Liam, or myself.

"He's right here." To my relief, she pointed to a row of benches that were on the opposite of the cells, where a surprising amount of people were sitting. Some were even talking to the people in the cells, while others were lying across a bench.

Including Liam.

I almost felt bad for walking over to him and having to wake him up; even though he looked like an absolute mess, with his left arm and leg hanging off the bench as he drooled over the sleeve of his infamous leather jacket, he looked comfortable. He looked like he didn't want to be bothered. He looked like he would bite my hand off if I touched him.

"Liam?" I gently kicked his foot with my own, "Come on. Wake up."

I knew I wasn't going to get a response from him right away, but even so, I was getting a little impatient. "How long's he been like this?" I turned to the woman that brought me there, and noticed she was trying to hide the worried look on her face.

"Uh, about half an hour. After we checked his ID, I started making phone calls."

I nodded at the information, "And no one picked up?"

"No, no one called back either."

I nodded again, and turned back to Liam, who hasn't even flinched yet. "Liam?" I bent down and shook his arm; he squeezed his eyes tight for a second and let out a long sigh, which was enough to make my heart beat faster. In my defense, it had almost been a week since I'd last seen him, much less made any physical contact with him.

"Liam, come on. We have to go." I'd put a lot of effort into not looking away from him when he finally opened his eyes, and kept them on mine for a long minute. Too long of a minute, that was.

"Sally?" He frowned as he said my name, and slowly began sitting up. "What- what the..."

I stood up straight and took a step back; he just sat there, looking around, with seemingly no intention of getting up at all. After a few seconds of just turning his head from right to left and vice versa, his eyes met mine. And I almost fell on the muddy floor.

As if being able to tell how I felt, he looked away at the woman, scanning her uniform to make sure she wasn't another felon. "Why did you call her?" He pointed to me with his head, "I thought I told you to call Zayn."

"He wasn't picking up," The woman told him, and even though I was just a tiny bit hurt by what he'd said, I continued listening to her. "Nor your parents, nor anyone else in your phonebook, except her." Then she turned to me, "Now if you could get him out of here somehow, that'd be great. We're almost out of space for new customers."

I gulped and nodded a few quick times, "Of course," I smiled at her, but when I turned to Liam I figured it would be a little difficult to get him to leave. So far I was sure he wouldn't want to go anywhere with me sober, now I could only imagine his reaction to that when he was drunk.