Death By A Thousand Cuts [Zianourry]

Chapter 6

Harry slowly woke up with pressure on his side. He blinked his eyes open, the sun blistering through the curtains. As he squinted his eyes open, he looked down and saw dark tufts of hair against his shoulder.

He smiled as he took in Zayn's position. He was curled up close against Harry's side. His face was blushed with sleep, his cheek squished against Harry's arm, which was wrapped around the boy's tiny body.

Harry looked to the side to find Niall splayed on his stomach, snoring softly. Louis and Liam were nowhere to be found.

"Harry." A soft voice spoke for next to him. Harry looked at Zayn, who had awoken and was looking at him with wide eyes. Harry smiled at him.

"Hey, Zee. Sleep well?" Zayn nodded as he sat up and stretched lightly, his sleep-blushed face scrunched up in the bright daylight. He looked at Niall before looking back at Harry. "You want to get some breakfast?"

Zayn nodded and he and Harry made their way into the kitchen, where Louis and Liam were having what seems to be a serious conversation at the table.

"Hey boys." Harry greeted as he moved over towards the fridge and grabbed some eggs and butter.

"Hey Haz." Louis greeted before smiling at Zayn. "Hi, Zayn."

"Harry, we need to come up with a plan. How are we going to help Zayn?" Liam asked openly, trying to see what the other boys (minus Niall) had to say.

"I was thinking we check out what Zayn's tattoo means. Try and find some stuff. Then look around where I found him." Harry suggested and both Liam and Louis shrugged.

"Sounds good." Louis agreed before he pulled out his phone and they began researching the M!M tattooed on the back of Zayn's neck.

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Niall eventually woke up when Harry finished breakfast and they continued research. Niall tried to teach Zayn how to play 'Go fish' and a few other card games but Zayn never really understood the instructions so they ended up sitting at the table with the other boys as they explored the internet. They had discovered that Zayn's tattoo was the logo for a company called Modest! and what really surprised all of them was that there was barely any information on them. All they could dig up was that they did government-funded projects.

Liam pulled up a picture of a man, he had short brown hair and circular glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. "Simon Cowell is one of the top guys for the company, he was accused of kidnapping back in 2005 by Trisha Malik. It ended up being a dead case."

Liam flipped his phone to show the picture of Simon to Harry, Zayn, and Niall. Zayn's eyes widened as he tensed and his breathing picked up. "Papa." He muttered under his breath. His breathing grew progressively faster the longer he stared at the picture.

"Zayn?" Harry asked, all 4 other lads looking at him with concern. "Do you know him?"

He nodded rapidly. "Papa." He muttered again, his eyes flooding with tears.

Louis shared a concerned look with the boys. "W-was he the one who hurt you?"

Zayn seemed frozen before he slowly nodded. "Bad."

Harry felt as though a hundred rocks were sitting in his stomach.

What the hell did this man do to this kid?

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The boys decided to go look around where Harry found Zayn to try and look for anything that might help them. Harry had fished out some of his old shoes for Zayn to wear. Now they were driving down the road that Harry had driven down only 2 days ago.