Icarus | Z.M.

74 | Hands

(1/2 of the double update!)

Victoria Tomlinson

One moment, we were talking. I was listening to everything my brother was telling me as he sat there tied up in a chair in front of me, and the next second, I was on the ground. Zayn was completely on top of me, his arms around the back of my head and my waist to break my fall, tucking me right into his chest as he took us both down to the floor. His fingers had closed around his gun not even a moment later and there were bullets going off all around us. It took me a second, or maybe a few seconds to silence the ringing in my ears. The next thing I heard was Zayn yelling, frantically with his face barely hovering over mine. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't even think about it. It was hot, I could feel a rushing flame entering this small room from what seemed to be some sort of explosive, a grenade, I had no idea. As soon as the ringing in my ears had calmed down from that then the deafening sound of a round of bullets being fired sounded out in the room instead.

Zayn tucked me beneath his chin, his entire body covering mine to the point I couldn't move. He was holding me so tight, his hand firmly placed on the back of my head to keep me close to him, using himself as a human shield for me.

"Zayn. What—?" I breathed, gripping onto the front of his shirt.

"Are you hurt?" He shouted over the sound of bullets, momentarily raising his head so he could point and shoot at whatever was going on behind him. I couldn't see anything. It felt like there was something on fire, I could hear the movement of people, shooting, bodies falling to the ground. I didn't want to see what was going on.

"No— no I don't think so." I shook my head, letting out a surprised yelp when Zayn suddenly pulled me up to my feet. I stumbled from the force of it, then was again tucked right into his chest, my forehead between his collarbones, his palm on the back of my head. I knew he didn't want me to see what was going on.

"Keep your head down." he was near yelling, dragging me somewhere, I could only see our feet. I kept my head down, tucked into his chest like he wanted. I had no idea what the fuck was going on or what to do so I was going to listen and do everything he said. I didn't want to trip so I watched where I was standing when he began to basically run with me. I had to step over a body. "C'mon, Vic."

When he moved me to stand beside him so that we could both run, I glanced behind me, my curiosity getting the better of me, I wanted to know what was going on. The door we had just left from had been knocked down, there were a few small flames but it seemed like the biggest ones had gone down. There was thick black smoke coming from that room, the legs of a dead body sticking out the door frame. On the stairs leading from the door to the bar, I could see someone running down.

"Shit!" Zayn cursed when he spotted the man running down the stairs towards us. We headed for Zayn's apartment, it was the only other palace we could go to since I could only assume there were men in the bar, entering from outside to come down here. They had to be here for Louis, to kill us, to get him out. I had no idea how they found him or knew to come down here.

"Harry." I blurted, almost scraping my heels along the concrete floor. The body in the door wasn't his, I knew that, but he had been in that room and I heard the blast and the round of bullets that had been fired. I didn't hear him get hurt, but that didn't mean he wasn't. Louis could still be in there too, not that I was at all worried about him currently. "Where's Harry?" Zayn said nothing and only turned around, firing his gun a few times until the person who was running down the stairs eventually collapsed and fell down the last few. "Zayn—"

"Go." he shoved me inside his front door but didn't follow me inside his apartment when I stumbled forward at the force I had been pushed. His hand was on the door handle, and I realised quickly that he was about to leave me alone in here. His eyes searched frantically across my face and my body, double checking that I wasn't hurt. "Vic. Please. I need you to hide, please."