✓ Meanwhile [h.styles]

.three.

"You didn't tell us you had a little lady, Uriah." The man laughs and pulls at her arm like she's a dog.

She doesn't have it in her to say anything, now even more scared than she was when she was in the car worrying about shadows.

Uriah picks himself up from the wall and walks over to her, pushing the foreign hand away. For a second she thinks he's defending her but then she meets his eyes and the hard look he has on her. "I told you to wait in the car."

"I got scared," she drops her voice. Thinks he might understand if she's honest with him but his response is a shake of his head.

He runs his hands over his face and steps closer, blocking her view of everyone else in the room. "You just got yourself in shit you shouldn't be in," he whispers.

"No secrets, boy," one of them scolds from the back. "Why don't you introduce us?"

"This is-"

Uriah is interrupted by something flying right by them. It takes Astraya a moment to realize that a gun's been fired, but when everyone in the room heads for something behind their back, she drops to the floor.

The front door is kicked in and she crawls behind a dusty couch that's close to the wall. Things start to shatter and shake around her and all she hears are curse words and orders. When she peeks over the arm of the couch she sees her brother holding a pistol to his chest. Someone lunges at him and her first reaction is to jump to her feet. She's not given enough time to do anything before something hits her arm just below her shoulder.

"Kill them," someone says. Their voice is deep and authoritative, and Astraya is too caught up in looking at her arm to look up at who it belongs to. "All of them."

All she sees is red. It's running down her arm and soaking her fingers. The corners of her sight die down into a dark film. She wavers on her feet before a hand closes around her wounded arm, making her scream out.

"Styles," the person at her side says.

She leans her weight more toward him, knowing she's slowly losing consciousness.

"That one?" The voice from before asks. It's obvious he's the leader. "Leave her to me." The person steps up but all she sees is his shadow before everything around her slips away.

◦

Astraya wakes up with an ache in her shoulder. She groans and tries to sit up but her body feels too heavy so she just drops back. It's obvious she's on a bed, but nothing alarms her until she begins to remember what happened the last time she was awake.

"Uriah?" She croaks out, hand trailing her arm before a whimper comes out. She's wearing a shirt that doesn't belong to her, one with sleeves that end past her elbows, making it harder for her to examine herself.

She takes the black shirt off and looks down at her arm that's swollen and covered by compress dressings. She remembers seeing blood all over her arm before blacking out, but looking at her arm now, her skin is clean and blood-free. Her stomach turns.

She doesn't notice the door in front of the bed she's on until it opens. Astraya reaches for the shirt and instantly covers herself with it, eyes wide when she recognizes the person standing in the doorway.

Harry is holding a cast only a few feet away. His eyes meet hers and he disinterestedly closes the door behind him, walking forward and taking a seat at the edge of the bed. She thinks he's too close and pulls herself up against the headboard, holding tightly onto her arm until his hand pulls too hard at it.

"That hurts," she whispers out a hiss.

He puts her arm in the cast, adjusting it before tightening it with a neutral expression. "You got shot."