Rewinding Time (Narry)

Chapter Thirty

You guys are seriously the sweetest and funniest bunch of people ever. I wonder if you guys ever get sick of my "thank you for reading and supporting" notes, but too freaking bad because I seriously can't thank you guys enough haha!

⌛ ⌛ ⌛

❝HARRY❞

I couldn't sleep. How could I? Knowing that Niall was out there, all alone, was absolutely terrifying. Every time that I tried to close my eyes, all I could see was Niall and all of the horrible things that could have possibly happened to him. The worse part of all was the knowledge that I was the one who was at fault for his disappearance.

What frustrated me the most about the whole situation was the fact that Father was being completely insensitive and had dragged me home from the Malik mansion; even after hearing the situation from Zayn, he had refused to allow me to stay any longer.

I found it quite absurd that he was treating me in such a manner; from the very beginning, he had pushed me so hard to accept Niall and to become comfortable with him. Now that I actually cared about his well-being, Father ridiculed me for being too attached to somebody who he deemed could easily be replaced. Quite hypocritical of him; if his own personal butler were to disappear out of the blue, all hell would break loose until said butler was found.

Then again, perhaps Father had other thoughts in mind with what I could be doing outside of the walls of the mansion. Regardless, I still couldn't believe he had such little faith in me to the extent where he had to say such horrible things. Despite all of the banters I had with Father, in my mind, he was still always a righteous man; I'm starting to think that the only way he knows how to get to me is by angering me.

Crawling out of my bed, I shivered as my foot touched the cold wooden floors. Each step that I took produced an age-old groan from the floorboards as I slowly wandered over towards the window. My fingers cautiously brushed against the brass handle before I finally pulled the window open just a little; I closed my eyes as a cool breeze hit my face.

Resting my head against the windowsill, I gazed out at the distant forest. The trees were thick and dark yet their tops still shone a bit underneath the light of the moon. A shiver ran down my spine as I tried hard not to imagine Niall being mauled by a wild beast.

Perhaps I was being too paranoid; he had promised to never leave me, and I really took his words to heart. The thing is I never trusted anybody; I never relied on anyone for anything. No matter how lonely I got, I never really needed anybody by my side. But Niall, I needed him.  

I didn't want to think about a life without him; I couldn't think of a life without him.

❝ZAYN❞

"Will Sir Harry be joining us today?" one of the men asked as we began entering the forest.

"Sir Des had ordered Harry to return home to attend his lessons so he shall not be partaking in our search mission," I replied, securely strapping a survival pack onto my back; in case of an accident, each man carried a pack of his own.

I knelt down onto one knee and held Niall's coat out for the search hounds to sniff; despite their ferocious nature, the beasts were relatively tame and had been raised quite well by the servants of the house.

With their noses stuck in the air, they turned their heads back and forth to seek for the scent of the missing butler. One of the hounds suddenly howled and began to race into the forest; we all followed suit and kept our eyes peeled for landmarks as we ran deeper and deeper into the forest.