Icarus | Z.M.

57 | Angel

Zayn Malik

Four hours.

Four hours since I had seen or heard from Victoria.

Four hours of me waiting to know if she was okay.

And I was scared.

I was scared to know what her father was going to do to her.

I didn't want to believe he could be so cruel to his own daughter, his little girl. She told me on the way there that he was going to kill her and I had dismissed her countless times because I refused to believe it.

I sat in the car outside her father's building for an hour, waiting for her to walk out the door safe and unharmed. But she never showed up, and I was forced to leave by some of the security.

I texted Harry and told him to bring her to mine as soon as he could. No matter what happened, I didn't want her to go back home, not tonight at least. I didn't trust any of them to keep her safe and not hurt her. He wouldn't hurt her. He couldn't. I'd seen him hit her, smack her like it was the easiest thing in the world. I didn't want to know how extreme he could take it and what else he would do to punish her. Beat her?

She'd told me he did something to Louis as a punishment, and that he was still affected to this day by it. I'd always wondered why he always seemed completely out of it, why he was always drunk and high and using. But he was escaping. He was escaping the life he was forced to live by his father. He was escaping the punishment and the torture his own father put him through. And now Victoria was going to have to go through that same punishment that permanently scarred her brother and destroyed his life.

I shouldn't have left. I should have just fucking shot and killed her father as soon as he had brought up the video. I shouldn't have left when he told me to because I knew I was leaving Victoria behind to be punished.

And Harry. What the fuck was he going to do to Harry? And why the fuck did Harry confess that it was him in the video when it was a fucking lie? I couldn't think of one single valid fucking reason why Harry would lie. And I didn't want to say anything, I didn't want to tell her father that he was lying and it was actually me in that video because I was too scared to make it all worse for her. I don't need her getting hurt any more than she already would be.

I'd just been sitting on the couch, staring at the wall ahead of me with my leg bouncing, a drink on the table to try and calm the anxiety within me at least a little bit. It wasn't helping.

Just as I reached for the small glass of whisky on the table in front of me to take the finishing sip, there were three sharp knocks on my front door.

I was off the couch in a second, feeling a sickness in the back of my throat for what I was going to see when I opened up my door. I'd told Harry to come straight here with her and had given him my address. Only him and Vic knew where I lived.

My hand was near trembling when I swung open the door to see the figure in front of me.

And it was neither Harry nor Victoria.

"Hey, Z." It was Ez, or Ezra, the bartender from upstairs, a friend. He looked a little frantic, eyes wide, "I know it's late—" he looked my face once over, "You alright, mate?"

"M'fine." I nodded, he had never just shown up at my door before, and judging by the look on his face, something was wrong. I really tried to play myself off as completely fine incase this was completely unrelated to what I was stressed about. "What's up?"

He looked nervous, shifted on his feet a bit before meeting my gaze, "There's someone here that's after you,"

I was already racing to the cabinet beside the door and grabbing one of my guns I knew would be loaded. Nobody knew where I lived, I hadn't told anyone. But I knew I could be easily found, it wasn't the most secret and definitely wasn't the most secure place in the world.