A Flash of Red

Chapter Eighteen

Harry

"I'd like to know where the fuck you've been staying."

"How did you get food?"

"That sweatshirt isn't yours. Where did you get it from?"

"Where were you staying?"

"Alright! Calm down! I said I'd tell you guys so I don't know why you're jumping on me." I groaned. I should've known the boys would be frantic. I had been missing for over a month so naturally they'd have questions.

"Start from the beginning, Harry." Zayn said from his spot on his bunk. He gave me a light smile and nodded his head, acting as the only calm one.

"Right, okay. I left the bunker early. Nobody was awake."

"No shit, Sherlock." Louis mumbled. Liam slapped him upside the head and he shut up.

"Anyway, I got outside and I just wanted to stretch my legs and feel the sun and breathe in some fresh air. I jogged into the city but eventually got lost. I retraced my steps and wound up back at the bunker but the door was locked."

"Why didn't you knock?" Niall asked.

"There were Containers coming up the road and I knew they'd hear the banging and find the bunker. We'd all be goners." There was silence for a few seconds.

"You risked your lives for ours?" Niall questioned. I nodded.

"You're my brothers. I couldn't live with myself knowing I put you in danger." Niall's chin wobbled and he lunged across the room, tackling me in a hug.

"You're a fucking moron, H." He mumbled into my shoulder. I hugged him back, patting his back.

"I know you would've done the same for me, Ni." He laughed.

"I wouldn't have been smart enough to think about that actually." The boys laughed and Niall returned to his seat. "Continue." He gestured.

"Right. So, I saw them coming and I ran back down the hill and across the street which got their attention. They started chasing me and yelling in Russian. I was weaving in and out of the intersections and around corners trying to lose them but I couldn't. I thought I was going to die." I swallowed. "I gave up. I stood in the middle of a square and I was going to let them take me." The boys looked at me, engrossed in the story.

"But you got away?" Liam asked.

"Obviously he got away, Liam. He's sitting in front of us." Louis exclaimed.

"Settle down, boys. Let him finish." Rick warned.

"Yes, I got away. But not on my own." The boys stared blankly, waiting for me to continue.

"A girl ran up from behind me and grabbed my wrist. She told me to follow her if I wanted to live and I wanted to live so I followed."

"You trusted her just like that? What if she was one of them?!" Liam spluttered.

"Liam, leave him be. Go on, Harry." Zayn said.

"She dragged me down into the subway and we jumped the metal turnstile." I smiled at the memory of Tara's sarcasm. "We hid behind a pillar and they almost found us, but they ran down the tunnel to see if we had kept running. We got out from behind the pillar and hopped onto the tracks and started walking. They came back and we hid under an overhang. She heard that they would look for us up and downtown so we climbed back onto the platform when they had left and head towards midtown." I took a breath, the room still silent.

"We walked until we found an abandoned bunker and went down to grab supplies. The Containers had raided it before us and had left a body of a guy out age down there with a bullet in his head." I took a shuddering breath. "His name was Keith. She knew him. We did what we had to and kept moving." I didn't want to go into detail about the event and the boys didn't push it.