The Other Harry #Wattys2015

Chapter 18

“You want some chips?” Shit face asks when the riot van pulls to a stop.

I blink at him “What?”

“From the burger van.  I’ll stretch to a bacon sarnie if you like.”

Pulling a face, I sort of sneer at him to register my disapproval. The guy has me tied up and terrified and he wants to stop for chips and sandwiches. Is this some idea of a twisted last meal? Or just a picnic stop on the way to wherever it is we’re going? Is it a police station? Or somewhere else entirely? For one moment I dare to dream that maybe I’m being taken to D.A.R.C up in Scotland- that Olivia and Niall and Harry might somehow be able to burst in and save me.

“What? I skipped breakfast to come up here.”

I have to find out where we’re going as I shift a little and try to relax my shoulders.

“Well that’s understandable,” I say. See- I’m being sympathetic. I’m building a rapport with Shit Face. Maybe I should shut my mouth so he can’t see my teeth and push my boobs out like I’m using my feminine allure or something? Probably not, he might just think I need to pee or something. “What is it…two hour’s drive from London and then…two hours back? Or like…five hours on to somewhere else?”

I’ve been more subtle in my life, I suppose. Shit Face raises his eyebrows at me and doesn’t give me any indication, simply standing up and saying with a slight chuckle, “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

He’s joking because obviously I’m not about to go anywhere, chained up in the back of a van- but the minute he shuts the door, I am up and on my feet. First I check the door, turning around to fumble with it impotently with my bound hands but it doesn’t give. There’s nothing inside of it either that I can use as a weapon or that I can use to release myself.

And I’m debating with myself about how smart it is to somehow use the element of surprise by hiding alongside the door and head butting him when he gets back in when I hear the sound of a car door slamming, of footsteps shuffling. And then gun shots.

Blood sprays from between the metal grates separating me from the police officers. Crimson and white fragments of shattered skulls hit the floor, some of it even managing to splash onto my face in the smallest spatter like a light rainfall. Immediately, my head jerks back, whole body tense as if I am frozen to the spot as I watch the police officer’s now slumped bodies shift as they are pulled out of the car.

And all I can think is that I’m next. I hear the click of the handle from outside and I’m going to run. There’s nothing else I can do. Shot in the face, or shot in the back of the head. It’s not like either of them are the best options in the world. But at least with the latter it means I tried.

As the door opens, the first face I’m greeted with is in tatters. It’s the policewoman who cuffed me, one eye open and glassy, the other blown away by the gunshot wound as her blood congeals dark and thick in sticky clots. She slumps instantly onto the floor of the riot van leaving the door open as I see Shit Face turn his head and call out,

“Oi, can one of you creepy bastards give me a hand?”

Before he has a chance to look around, I take my chance and knee him in the face as hard as I can, stepping over the body, and stumbling out of the riot van. We’re on one of those back road country lanes, a small lay by holding a tatty road-side burger truck. I dive towards the hedgerow, ready to crawl through bracken and thorns towards the field on the other side, but my break for freedom is interrupted as a hand curls around my hair and yanks on tightly.

Scalp on fire, I’m forced to turn around as the bottom drops out of my stomach. They’re back.

Two Louis Tomlinsons. The same two, a different two, I have no way of knowing. All I do know is that my pulse is racing and a fire is raging inside of my chest.