Laced

Laced - Chapter 59 (Packing and Planning)

I just shrug my shoulders, and ignore him.

"Seriously, Zayn. What's wrong with you? You're pissing me off."

I ignore him again, and set down the phone onto the table. What I really wanted to do was throw the phone against the wall, and then punch the shit out of Caleb. But I already broke one phone when I threw it against the wall after Caleb's call before the New Years' party, and the my last phone got ruined when we fell into the river at the Riverwalk.

Shit, I was going through phones faster than I thought I was.

And then I'd beat up Caleb...but he'd probably get away before I had the chance to get my hands on him.

"Zeus, whatever you fucked up with Abigail, you need to fix. It's gotten you all worked up all week long."

I clench my fists, closing my eyes. "Stop calling me that, dumbass. And her name is Abby."

"Then go fucking talk to her! For fuck's sake, you owning a shitload of slaves, you'd think that you wouldn't be such a coward."

I can feel myself shake with anger, and I don't know how much longer it will be before I seriously give him a black eye. Or two. "Shut the fuck up, Caleb."

"Coward." Caleb glares at me again, and stands up. "You're a coward, and you know it."

"Shut up." I growl, standing up. If I ended up hitting him, I won't even care. He was asking for it.

"Coward." He challenged me again, a stupid fucking smirk on his face.

I blink once, and the phone that I had set the table goes flying across the room, hitting the wall and breaking to pieces to the floor.

I stormed out of the fucking room, away from the shit that was my brother, my breath coming out quick and shallow.

Fuck, I thought. There goes another phone.

As I headed upstairs so that I could go out on the balcony undisturbed, there was only one word repeating in my head, over and over again, in Caleb's voice.

Coward.

~~

Amber's POV

"Here, Abby." I said, passing her the dishes I'd already scrubbed down. All she had to do was rinse them, and then eventually dry and put them away.

She took them from me silently, as if she was somewhere in another world, consumed by her own thoughts. We didn't talk much as we worked, but it didn't bother me, because it gave me time to think.

Niall.

Niall.

I've been trying to subdue the panic that was slowly rising because of Niall's behavior recently, but it was slowly rising up to where I could no longer ignore it. It was there, lurking in the shadows, and no matter how hard I tried to push it away and to ignore it, it hung over me like a dark cloud.

There was something wrong with Niall, but he wouldn't tell me.

As I picked up a dirty saucepan from one of the counters and brought it back to the sink to scrub, I tried to recount the events leading up to his abnormal behavior.

Everything was fine right before the New Years' party. Everyone was busy with getting prepared - myself included. Once my makeup team and dress up crew left my room, Niall stopped by.

He seemed a bit nervous then, but I had dismissed it as pre-competition nerves or whatever. He was probably feeling a bit anxious before competing.