Naomis POV
I knew that Louis was waiting for me. I sat in my car in his parking garage and watched the minutes tick by. I couldn't move. I couldn't even unbuckle my seat belt. I was petrified.
Louis was probably laughing with his friends. I didn't know much, but based on his texts, Harry had insisted on getting the band back together for his birthday. It was a stark contrast to the Harry that I'd last seen, curled up in the dark but I was willing to accept his turn around as a good thing. I knew Louis missed those days. I was excited for him to see them again.
That happiness only made it harder for me to go up there and ruin it for him. I wanted him to savor the happy and the reminiscences of it all. I wanted to give him the opportunity to feel alive again.
Another minute clicked on the clock. My knuckles were turning white as i clutched the steering wheel. I needed to let go.
I took a deep breath, and then another. I released my fists, first letting my hands drape over the leather of the wheel before withdrawing them into myself. I could do this. It would all be okay.
What had Harry told me? Be bold? I could be bold. I was totally bold. I unbuckled my seat belt.
I recognized the parking garage well. I had spent a lot of time navigating it over the precluding weeks where I'd spent every day at Louis. Still, I walked sluggishly and timid as I made my way up the line of cars to the stairs.
I knew the elevator code and I could easily buzz my way up to Louis flat, but I wanted to take my time. I wasn't in a rush to be bold. I entered the stairwell and began my climb, stopping at each landing to catch my breath. At this rate, maybe Louis friends would be winding down when I arrived.
Harry's POV
They wanted to kill us. That much was obvious. I was an identified problem, and Louis was going to need to be eliminated to keep it all nice and quiet. What a mess I had created.
Jade was still hovering just before me, but Evan and Marcus were closed in on either side primed for what I assumed was the eventual killing. Behind me, I couldn't see him, but I knew Louis was only a few feet back. He was breathing raggedly. Sometimes he would attempt to speak but in his panicked and inebriated thoughts, the words kept getting lost.
I was still tipsy but by the second, I could feel my thoughts sobering. My eyes were flashing from one face to another trying to sort out an exit plan that didn't exist. I had backed the both of us into a corner.
I looked back to Jade. "If you touch Louis, I'll scream. There are other people in this house. They will hear me."
Jade rolled her eyes. "You don't even like him."
I kept my glare on her and pulled out an angrier voice. I wasn't ever intimidating but I could try to be. I'd only ever won a single fight and I didn't like my chances when it was me against multiple bigger men. "Correction. If you touch him again, I'll fucking kill you."
Evan kicked me in the stomach again, causing me to double over in pain with a pathetic moan. Like I said, I wasn't about to win this fight. My palms were sweaty against the floor as I heaved in dramatic breaths trying to fight off the nausea threatening to overtake me.
"I'm very intimidated," Jade assured me with a laugh.
I decided that going it alone was impractical. I took a deep breath and then opened my mouth and attempted to scream. "LIA—"
I never got to finish Liams name because Evan smacked me across the face with the end of something hard. It connected with a crack and I crumpled immediately in intense pain. For a second after being pistol whipped, I was completely disoriented. My vision swam and my brain numbed. Then, all the pain all over my body returned with a flash and I had to hold myself back from releasing a whimper.
When I regained my sense of consciousness, I shoved myself up just in time to watch in horror as Evan, pressed the gun up to Louis quivering head. Louis was staring at me with wide silent eyes. I could see his terror displayed openly in his face.
"Do that again," Jade began. I whipped my eyes back away from Louis to see her leaning over me. "And we'll kill him first."
I felt a sinking feeling in my chest at the moments escalation. This was bad. This was really bad. I had caused this and I didn't see a way out. Louis had a gun pressed to his temple. Regular, law abiding, model citizen Louis. This was his nightmare scenario. This was a scene right out of a horror movie.
"I..." I trailed off, my throat suddenly as dry as sand paper.
"So here's how this is going to go," Jade flashed me a winning smile. "You're going to cooperate. You're going to keep your pretty mouth shut. And we're going to paint a really lovely picture together. How's that sound Baby Spice?"
I kept my mouth shut as instructed.
Marcus shrugged his backpack off and started digging around and retrieving something that looked like a pencil case. He handed it to Jade who opened it and smiled at it contents.
"We're going for a believable accident," she informed me. That's how she'd done it last time someone became a problem too. I wasn't surprised. "I'm thinking murder-suicide."
Behind me, Louis made a sound that resembled a whimper. I glanced back and saw his trembling had worsened.
"This isn't fair to him," I muttered almost inaudible.
"Life isn't fair," Jade smirked. From the bag she produced a syringe. At the sight of it I paled. She emptied the rest of the contents of the bag onto the dresser and started organizing the heroin set up. I recognized all the parts although it had been a long time since I'd seen it. I avoided it like the plague. The black tarry bagged substances brought back a time I spent everyday trying to forget.
This was her believable accident. She was going to make me take a lethal dose and then kill Louis and blame me. And of course it would be believable! I had tried to kill my self like this just a few years ago. I was a mentally unwell addict. I acted dangerously and erratically. From the outside looking in, I could understand the narrative that I'd snap and kill Louis in some sort of drug induced rage. It was preposterous. I would never do such a thing to him, but I wouldn't blame the police for believing it.
"You can't," I said numbly. Every one of my nerves were screaming. She couldn't do this. I couldn't go through that pain again. I couldn't relive that nightmare. And even if I was to die that night, my last moments couldn't be that. My life couldn't amount to that again. My mum couldn't be allowed to believe that I had died in a drug overdose on my birthday.
"I'm really into poetic endings," Jade mused. Her lifeless eyes met mine.
"Don't make me do this," I could hear the pathetic pleading in my quiet voice. The words practically trembled out of me.
She gestured for Marcus to take over her preparation efforts and crouched down on the floor in front of me. Behind her, Marcus was heating up a large serving spoon.
"Sweetheart," she wiped a solitary tear off my cheek. "I don't have a choice here. You didn't give me a choice."
"We were friends..." I whispered.
"More like acquaintances." She smiled. "You were one of my favorites though. I'll definitely miss those dimples." The tapped my cheek with a mock pouty face.
I flinched away.
Marcus finished his task and approached her with the loaded syringe in his hand. The dark liquid inside stared at me menacingly. I felt my shoulders shaking. I glanced back at Louis and found he had clamped his eyes shut. His mouth was moving silently and I wondered if he was praying. It looked like praying although neither of us were religious. Maybe I should have been praying too.
"Which arm?" Jade asked me casually.
I met her eyes. I thought about yelling again but the gun against Louis temple was definitely a deterrent. My sluggish mind was reeling for a way out and nothing was surfacing. "Left," I answered with a cold numbness.
Jade grabbed my right arm and jerked the sleeve up roughly. I flinched as she stared at my forearm. I had said left for a reason. My forearm was patterned with the words "isn't she lovely" in big curly font. Those words were laid atop a bed of scars from previous wounds. Worse so, we're the fresh slashes that wound their way over the word lovely. Sobriety had not done well for me. I had found myself with a blade to my skin for the first time in years these past few weeks and it was evident.
"Louis," I said in a shaky voice. "Keep your eyes closed."
I glanced back at him to find him in defiance, with his eyes opened and fixed on me. There were tears in his eyes now. He was searching my entire form with a curious expression, like he was trying to put all of the pieces of the hidden story together with very little success. I cringed looking away.
"It looks like I'm doing you a favor," Jade said wrapping a strap around my upper arm. I watched my veins pop slowly on my forearm as she pressed the syringe into my hand.
It felt like it weighed a million kilos in my palm. I wanted to scream. Every signal in my brain told me to scream and to throw it at the wall. If I could just scream once without them hurting Louis, the boys would hear us. We'd been gone a long time. They had to be getting suspicious. I was just supposed to be getting a lighter. They should have come looking for me a while ago, even if Louis was busy with Naomi or whatever they thought was happening. At the very least, they had to be concerned. Maybe if I just held out for a few seconds they would notice.
I looked down at the syringe. It was warm in my palm and full. It looked just as full as the last time I'd overdosed. It would probably burn just as bad. My hands were shaking too bad for me to accurately read the measurement.
"I can't," I muttered.
"Do it or Louis dies first." Jade stayed crouched in front of me, staring into my face as if wanting to burn my dimples into her memory.
"You're going to kill him anyways," I said weakly. I had meant to sound angry, but I didn't have it in me to fight like I needed.
"Evan," Jade said. "Shoot him."
"Wait," I shot to my feet for the first time since getting hit last and shoved Louis backwards where he landed with a thud on my bed. Evans gun ended up pointed straight at my forehead, where I stood in Louis place. The syringe was still warm in my hand weighing me down, but I faced Jade. "I'll do whatever you want and then you're going to leave and Louis is going to stay here and report me as having OD'd and that will be the end."
"Harry—" Louis started to protest.
"Louis shut the fuck up and just listen!" I snapped with rising hysteria. I felt pretty bold for a guy with a gun 4 inches from my forehead. "When this is all over you're going to move back to your mums and forget about me okay?"
He shook his head frantically but I ignored him, looking back at Jade. Louis would be fine, I decided. Louis would be so much better off without me. Louis would be able to get his life back. He would take a while to get over it obviously, but he was a mentally healthy guy and he had so much I was holding him back from. He deserved to be free from me. I deserved something different. I'd dug myself this hole and I deserved to lay down and die in it.
"You really are a couple of love birds," Jade taunted. She seemed amused by my heroics.
"I assure you, he loathes me right now." I cocked my head to the side. "That's the only deal I'm offering."
Jade looked deep in thought. She looked from my ragged self to Louis half collapsed on the bed. "He doesn't look like much of a threat," she admitted. "And he's got pretty eyes. I suppose I could let him go on account of those blues."
I nodded. She was lying, I could tell. She was going to wait for me to be taken off the table and then she would turn on him immediately. I had to hope that I had bought him time. I had to hope that the longer I drew this out, the better chance Louis had.
"Now," Jade commanded gesturing to the syringe in my hand. "Do it now."
Her face had grown serious. I was making her impatient. Marcus held a similar face. I sighed realizing the gun at my forehead now meant I didn't have anymore time to stall. On my forearm, my veins were popping clear and easy to access. This was going to be the scary part.
Evan tapped my forehead with the gun lightly. "Now," he commanded.
I swallowed hard. She shaking in my hands didn't subside as I attempted to line the needle up against my skin. I didn't inject drugs. I had always found the process too medical and the idea made me uncomfortable, especially after it had almost killed me. I wasn't skilled in this area, but I knew how to do it. "Lou look away," I cringed, breathing heavily. I was shocked at how high my voice sounded. I glanced up and met his terrified blue eyes. "Please."
"Don't." He croaked.
I shook my head. "Close your eyes Louis."
We made a long moment of eye contact before he exhaled sadly and closed his eyes tight again. I hoped he could see how sorry I was. I had always made an effort not to use right in front of him. I never wanted him to see me that way. I couldn't handle that disappointed face he would make. This was a different situation than previously, I knew. Louis had to know this wasn't going a direction I wanted it to go. He had to know that I wouldn't ever do this to him on purpose.
With Louis looking away I slid the needle into my arm with precision, ignoring the stabbing pain it caused, and started to slowly release the contents of the syringe. My brain was screaming at me to stop. It burned immediately. Tears pricked my eyes. My arm felt like it was on fire. Jade was smiling at me, grotesquely pleased by what would be my demise. The gun pressed to my head remained, egging me on.
I stopped halfway, as my brain started to feel light and woozy. My fingertips had grown numb though I didn't know if that was a result of the substance or my hyperventilating breaths. Jade approached me, placing her hand over mine on the syringe as if to hold my hand. She closed her hand into a fist, squeezing my own and plunging the rest of the poison into my blood at top speed. I opened my mouth and made a sound that resembled something between a gasp and a wheeze as she pulled the syringe out.
I blinked several times before becoming very aware that the world had just turned slow motion. I looked at Jade, who seemed to be inspecting me. She made a funny expression before smiling again.
Behind her, I caught a flash of something moving through the cracked doorway. A face, only briefly stared back at me. I made eye contact for a second so short, I was sure I'd imagined it before it was gone again.
My knees slammed onto the carpeted floor unexpectedly, catching me off guard as I found myself suddenly unable to stand. My brain stopped remembering to breath after a moment and I had to start reminding myself every few seconds to inhale.
"Focus," I muttered to myself. There were still things happening in the room around me. Jade was talking to me but I felt like I was under water. I could only see her lips moving. I stopped being able to keep up with the conversation. I tried to think of words and found myself unable to formulate sounds. I stared into the room feeling quite incapable of registering anything concrete. Behind me, I could feel the unmissable hum of Louis voice but I couldn't quite formulate what he was saying. In the back of my mind, despite the horror of my surroundings, a familiar calm and eery giddiness was dancing. My brain didn't know that the happiness was a product of poison. I felt a soft smile play on my lips in response.
This was all too familiar. I realized, with a jolt, that I was in the process of dying.
I didn't feel particularly panicked or deathly. I hadn't felt that way last time either. It had been calm at first, as my body failed to realize the imminent danger. If it wasn't for the fiery burn tracking it's away up my arm and into my chest, I would have thought I'd just taken it a little too far in chasing a high. It would get worse. My senses would go from foggy to darkness and false pleasure would be replaced with pain. This was it, just like last time. Every day for weeks I had been fighting off suicidal urges and now, I was right back where everything had ended the first time. Jade had been right. It was poetic.