Not According To Plan (Preath Fanfiction) (Co-written by @uswntloves1723)

3: Two-Harry Show

She agrees, and so she turns over, and I'm facing her back once again. I keep my eyes open, hoping the darkness will infiltrate them to let all the centers in my brain know that although the first time was a false alarm, it's now truly lights-out.

"Hare... uh, Harry?" Allie's voice echoes off the walls and back.

"Yeah?" I whisper.

"How long have we been in here?"

There's a gap in my memory. Actually, several gaps. I know I've been here longer than Allie, but probably only a number of hours longer. "Let's just call this Night One."

o o o

I wake up with a head full of allergies. Unaware of how long I've been sleeping, I notice the light outside in the hall has gone dark.

Allie's body shakes gently. In case it's a bad dream, I add to the shaking. "Hey," I whisper. "They're gone."

"Huh?" She rattles awake. "Oh, God, this is real, isn't it?"

I've long since accepted the realness of it, but I try to understand Allie's shock. "I know, but now's our time," I say. "We have to tell each other what we remember."

"They fucking drugged me, how am I supposed to remember-" She stopped. "...Okay, I guess if I can remember that I can... try to remember something else. Can you tell me something first? Like, jog my memory?"

If Allie was drugged like I was, I imagine there must be other similarities in our kidnappings, too. As I tell her what I know, she listens carefully - but I can tell by her lack of nodding that she doesn't seem to recognize my story.

"Clearly, this isn't working," I sigh. "Your turn."

"Okay," she adjusts herself. "So Alex and I were at the mall. I came along to grab something for Bati's birthday, but we got kinda sidetracked as usual. It'd been a while and I had to pee really bad—and I mean Mt. Rushmore bad—so we went to find a washroom. I thought Alex was waiting for me outside the door, but the washrooms are deep in the food court, so she and Serv might've gone to get food. When I was washing my hands the hand dryer was still on from the girl before me, so I didn't hear anything." Her face turns downcast.

"Then?" I urge with caution.

"Out of nowhere, this big arm just wraps itself around my torso and the other one bends me into the sink. He reaches for something with the hand that was on my torso but he's got his full weight on me. His palm comes up to my mouth, and I thought he was gagging me so I wouldn't scream, so I stupidly tried to bite him. Then I felt something go down my throat with the sinkwater, and at that moment I knew I was in trouble so I really started struggling. Then he was hitting me, and after that I'm completely blank."

As much as I want to say something comforting, I'm mute. I don't understand how this could happen at a mall, or how a man could enter a woman's washroom without being seen, or how Alex could leave Allie by herself.

"Harry?" Allie says.

"Yes?"

"What if it's someone we know?"

"I..." I stumble over my words. "What makes you think that?"

"Think about it. What idiot goes for anyone somewhat well-known? The police must be all over it. And to think that we didn't ask a bodyguard to come in the stores with us."

Even though we had protective services when travelling in airports and even to drive us places, most of our teammates preferred not to call upon them.

I reach an arm around Allie, and she collapses into it with ugly cries that hurt my heart to hear. I try to consult her and say it's going to be okay but all she keeps saying is that we're going to die. I block out her fatalistic inklings and try to put together what has happened in the past twenty-four hours. Confusion is a complete and total understatement. I just wish someone would tell us why we are here.

I search for the rock that was stuck to my hand earlier. I didn't realize it before, but it's sort of pink, blending in with my palm. Allie watches me stare at it. Feeling that it's a little premature to add another line to the wall, I just reinforce the old one.

"What's that for?" she asks.

"To mark how many days I've been in this room."

"What do you think they want from us?"

Thinking a bit more clearly now, that's the main question on my mind. I'm a pretty quiet person when it comes to posting stuff on social media or even talking to people in general (besides the ones I associate myself with on a daily basis). So maybe Allie was right about it being someone close to us.

The silence is broken by the clobbering of workboots. The light turns on, and through the bars I can see that there are two people. One is wearing loose tortilla-coloured chino pants, and the other has black tights disappearing into her boots. The latter looks like the silhouette I saw under the light last night. The pair stop talking in the centre of our view, then turn toward us, but don't appear to come any closer.

"What are they looking at?" Allie asks.

"I'm guessing us," I reply. I don't know what's so entertaining to watch, but their stalker stares sketch me out. "If they're coming over here, it's probably for both of us. Two of them, two of us."

"Great," Allie slaps her shin. "I guess, Tobin, we're in a Two-Harry Show."