Winter
The silence that followed after hearing a gunshot echo through Harry's flat felt like it lasted forever. I heard no shouting, no moving about, no follow-up gunshot. It was then I began to wonder whether or not I had actually heard a gunshot, or if it was just another loud crash that sounded similar. There was not one valid reason I could think of for anyone besides me to have the desire to shoot Harry.
"Harry?" I tried to listen to see if he would respond, which he did not. "For fuck sake." I huffed, resting my cheek on the arm that was still hanging by the bedpost. "If he dies and I'm still in these fucking handcuffs."
After another thirty seconds of silence in the flat, I heard the sound of footsteps, the same sound as I'd heard when Harry was walking up to the room when I first woken up.
"Harry what the fuck just happened?" I questioned when I heard his footsteps get to the door. The handle of the door twisted and began to open.
And it was in fact not Harry that opened up the door.
In the doorway stood a man, dressed in full black tactical gear with a gun in his hand, confirming that I had heard a gun earlier, despite me trying to convince myself I hadn't. The only part of him that wasn't covered by thick, black, padded gear was his face, and his thinning grey hair that sat sparsely around his head, but not on the top. He was older, definitely older than Harry by a good twenty years or so, and the creepy and disgusting look on his face told me that he wasn't invited over for some early afternoon tea, and did have other significantly worse intentions. When he smiled, I got a glimpse of his teeth that looked like they'd never been brushed. I wondered if Harry was dead. That would solve a lot of my problems, although I would be kinda sad that I wouldn't have anybody to annoy the absolute shit out of anymore.
"Well, well, well... " he clicked his tongue, taking some steps into the room, after shutting the door tight behind him, closing the two of us in here. Big mistake for him. An entertained grin was plastered across his expression when he approached the end of the bed. "What do we have here?"
A small noise of fear escaped me, and I pulled myself up the bed, dragging my legs away from him, curling up onto myself. I had one hand free, the other still chained up. I was chained to a bed, wearing next to nothing with last night's makeup definitely smudged all across my face. I could see all the thoughts going through his mind when he stared at me, mostly at my very on-show body.
While he was staring at my body, I reached to the bedside table and grabbed a ballpoint pen that happened to be sitting there.
"Styles got himself a little slut?" his head coked to the side, and he made a point to lick his lips exaggeratedly. "Is that what you are? Are you his pretty little slave?"
"Wh—what's going on?" I stuttered in my terrified and vulnerable state, such a scared, helpless little girl. Exactly what he wanted me to be.
He pouted out his lip, making his way up the edge of the bed towards the pillows where I was still cowering like a scared little deer. This old creep only seemed to enjoy the performance I was putting on for him. "Aw you sweet little thing."
I glanced up at him through my eyelashes to stare at him nervously once he was standing right beside me. "Where's Harry?"
"I'm afraid Harry can't come and help you." the man reached down, placing his hand on my cheek, his skin was cold, rough. "But what a shame it would be to put your services to waste." he pinched the skin on my cheek. "Are you a whore? Is that what you are? Styles' personal sex slave." a menacing grin spread across his face when his eyes dipped down to my chest. He leaned down, close enough that his nose nearly brushed mine. "Hmm, I don't blame him. That tight little fucking body of yours—"
I moved faster than he could process. I gripped the ballpoint pen in my fist as tightly as I could, and using all of the strength I had in me, I shoved the top of the pen right into the side of his throat, so violently that it came out the other side.
Poor thing.
The man began to choke immediately, both of his hands shooting to his throat while he stood up so he could try to figure out why he could no longer breathe and was beginning to taste blood in his throat. He stumbled backwards, his eyes bulging out of his head as blood shot from his throat and sprayed from his mouth, dribbling down his chin.
"Sorry?" I cocked my head to the side, pouting out my bottom lip. "What were you saying?" I questioned, blinking a few times innocently, "You have to speak up, I can't hear you."
I yanked on my wrist, not realising that there was a red mark and some faint cuts from the sharp steel. With my free hand, I reached up to my locked wrist so I could free myself. I grunted in pain and my teeth sank down hard into my bottom lip when I shoved hard against my thumb, dislocating the joint so that my hand could slip through the restraint.
"Aww you sweet little thing." I stood up from the bed, watching as the man writhed and twitched, trying to preserve the last of his life in front of me. His body slid down the wall, completely limp, his breaths were nothing but wheezes now. I squatted down in front of him, cupping his cheek like he did with me, and then I gave him a little pinch. "Mummy not hold you enough as a baby, no?"
I grabbed back onto the pen that was buried into the side of his throat, and with a harsh tug I pulled it back out, allowing more blood to spill from the wounds on his neck. His eyes stayed open, but his entire body fell limp after he took his last pathetic breath.
"Pity." I stood up and stared at the lifeless body in front of me.
I grabbed the knife from my boots that were by the door before I left the bedroom and closed the door behind me again. There were stairs beside me leading down to the kitchen and living room, where I assumed Harry had gone too. I wondered if he was still alive, if the bullet I'd heard had been for him and he had been shot dead.
But, from downstairs I could hear some sort of commotion, more voices, muffled but loud enough to know there was shouting. He had to be alive, and maybe there were more creepy ass old men that had broken into his flat.
Just before I could go downstairs to see what was going on, a little ball of dark brown fluff appeared beside me, circling at my ankles. Bean, Harry's little fluffy sausage dog was jumping up my legs, her tail wagging in what seemed like excitement.
"Hey Bean." I crouched down, picking her up off the ground in my hand, wiping the blood from the dead man off onto my thigh first. "Are there more bad guys downstairs?" I asked her, she was just trying to jump at me and lick my face. I sighed, "I swear if Harrys dead, I'll fucking kill him."
I took her to where I knew Harry's bedroom was, unsure what was happening so knew it was best if she was kept away until it was definitely safe. I remember what his room looked like since I had snooped before I left when we first met. But I didn't have time to ponder over those memories, and instead just opened up Harry's bathroom door and ushered the little dog inside.
"You go in there." I told her, and she went inside like she was asked, but seemed like she was about to sprint back out when she realised I was leaving her inside by herself. I put my foot in the way so she couldn't run out of the bathroom and looked around Harry's room. "Does he have weapons anywhere?"
I closed Bean inside the bathroom and locked it from the outside, using a hair clip to twist the lock around, so it would be more of an effort if there was anybody in the flat to get inside the bathroom.
When I heard the sound of another gunshot coming from downstairs, Bean started barking, and I rolled my eyes, knowing there were more people to kill. I had my knife and that would do.
Before going down, I rummaged through Harry's drawers where I remembered he had grabbed me a shirt from, and pulled out a plain black oversized shirt, throwing it over the little clothing I was wearing. I had absolutely no faith in this top staying in place or on my body if I had to fight someone.
The noise of whatever commotion was happening still sounded out from downstairs, letting me know there was a fight still happening and they hadn't killed each other yet. I wasn't sure what I was walking into, so I took quiet small steps through the flat until I got to the door of the kitchen, my knife clenched tightly in my first, ready to attack whoever I needed to.
When I peered into the room, the first thing I saw was two people, and splatters of blood all across the floor and up the sides of the counter. There was one man on the ground, and Harry was on top of him, currently beating the absolute life out of him.
Harrys first drove into the other man's face, over and over again, he had been beaten fully to a pulp and was surely dead already, but that didn't seem to stop Harry. Blood was splattering all over his face, his firsts and lower arms were stained dark red, almost dripping with the amount of blood he was covered in. Sharp grunts escaped him through his teeth, his jaw set and tight each time he drove his knuckles into the mess on the floor that was once someone's face.
I must have been distracted by the sight in front of me, because I didn't hear the other man in the flat until he was behind me. I tried to run around as soon as I heard him, but I was just a second too late. At the same time I spun round, the guy pulled out his own knife and went to attack. My lips parted and I grunted in pain when there was suddenly a hot stinging feeling dragging from my back to my hip.
"Fuck!" I cursed, my vision blurred for a moment when my body went into shock. I could feel the blood dripping down my back. I wasn't usually slow when it came to reacting to attacks, bad it been any other day this guy would have had his throat slit by now. But today, I was so horribly hungover, that my head began to spin just from turning around.
My back hit the floor, and it took me a second to realise he had just shoved me so hard that I had fallen backwards into the kitchen landing on my back. A sharp fiery pain shot through my body again since he had slashed my back with a knife then thrown me down. He was stalking over to me quickly, and I could tell by his body language that he was going to kick me while I was down.
But finally the adrenaline took over the hangover, at least for a second, and I was up on my feet and attacking. He ducked out of the way but not quick enough, my knife dragged across his face, slitting open his cheek along his cheekbone, bursting his lip. Blood began to gush from the wound, but all he did was wipe his face with his forehead, and then look one hundred times more pissed off.
"You're going to fucking pay for that one, bitch." he seethed, managing to shove me hard again, this time I crashed into the kitchen counter behind me, almost feeling like I was about to throw up because of the pain on my back now.
His hands were around my throat, locked there, his fingers intertwined around my throat to squeeze as hard as he could. I watched as he gritted his teeth, grunting as he tried with all of his strength to strangle me.
Instead of trying to get him off me with my hands, knowing I had no luck with that since his strength would overpower my mind, blindly, since my eyes rapidly blurred and my ears started to ring, I grabbed the nearest object to me. I wasn't sure what it was, but using all of my strength I smashed the object—a mug that was filled with a boiling hot liquid across the side of his face. The mug shattered into hundreds of little pieces, cutting up his face, pulling out freshly boiled tea right into all of the little cuts that had just been made.
The man shrieked, letting go of me in reflex, allowing me to gasp in a breath. I was coughing, my hand shooting up to my throat. Blindly, the man grabbed me by my arms and threw me down to the ground at his feet. Another small noise of pain escaped me when I landed on the ground on a few little pieces of the broken dish.
He was down beside me, grabbing the collar of the shirt in his hand so he could lift me up off the ground. His face was covered in blood, so much that I couldn't see any of his skin anymore, spreading and pouring especially now since there was hot liquid all over him too. He was seething breaths through his teeth, his eyes red with pure rage.
The hangover was not helping my reflexes in any way, because I didn't manage to block it or even process it before he was driving his fist into the side of my face, punching me so hard that blood spat from my mouth, and my vision went dark for a second or two.
But when I could see again, there were two faces above me.
The man whose face was covered in blood, crouched down so he could punch me while I was on the ground. And behind him, Harry was standing, his chest heaving, also covered in blood, his eyes were so dark and filled with rage it looked like his pupils had dilated enough to take away any of the colour in his eyes.
The next thing I knew, Harry was reaching down. He grabbed onto the man's face and twisted his head. The cracking sound of the man's neck breaking was both satisfying and a little gross, it was one of those noises that always caused a shiver to run down my spine.
The man's body collapsed on top of mine, Harry had just broken his neck.
Harry only stared for a second, there were either a million thoughts going through his head or none at all, I couldn't really tell. But either way, there was blood splattered up the side of his face. His eyes were wild and wide, full of so much rage it looked like he was about to snap. His nostrils flared when his jaw clenched even sharper, and then he turned and walked away.
I grunted and pushed the heavy dead body off me since he had collapsed right down on top of me when Harry snapped his neck. It took me a second to wriggle out from beneath him, but once I did, I was up on my feet. The pain spread through my body and it was hard not to show it in my face. The shirt that I had borrowed was black, so the blood I knew was covering my entire body wasn't as visible. There was blood trailing down my arms, some splatters on my thighs and probably some on my face from when I'd been punched.
Harry looked pretty much the same, splatters of blood up the side of his face, his knuckles were red raw from beating one of the lifeless men to a pulp on the ground. Harry was just standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, one hand up so he could pinch his bottom lip. He was staring ahead at nothing. The white shirt he had on was no longer white at all, it looked like it was almost dropping with the thick crimson liquid, a mix of his and the other mans. There was one darker stain where the blood seemed to be coming from, he had been shot, or injured.
"Harry." I broke the silence.
He didn't hear me, he wasn't listening. I didn't know how common it was for him to be in situations like this, so it wouldn't be crazy to assume he was in some kind of shock too.
"Harry." I took a step forward, leaning most of my wright on one foot since my back and hip were agony on the other side. He still didn't acknowledge me, so this time, I shouted, yelling his name in his direction. "Harry!"
He glanced at me.
"What the fuck was that?" I raised my brows, crossing my arms over my chest. Every part of me was hurting, I needed to go home and have a drink, or multiple drinks.
His brows furrowed, and suddenly he looked even angrier. He stood up from where he had been leaning against the wall and began to make his way over to me, even the way he walked was angry. "You think I fucking know—?" He was suddenly right in front of me, staring down at me. But his expression was quick to change, from one of uncontrollable rage, to fear. "Bean. Where's Bean?"
"Upstairs in your bathroom. Locked from the outside."
He eyed me carefully, not believing me.
"What?" I said flatly.
Harry grabbed onto my shoulders, his blunt fingernails gripped onto my shoulders and he began to haul me out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. With a small shove, he let me go when we got to the stairs. I could have punched him just for that if I had the strength for it. He was acting like this was all my fault, like two of the three men hadn't just tried to kill me.
He was ahead of me going up the stairs, but clearly wanted me to follow him so I could prove that what I'd said was true. Yes, maybe I'd threatened his dog before when I was trying to get him to delete the evidence of me from his laptop, but I hadn't actually done anything bad.
He inhaled a sharp breath when we got to the top of the stairs, placing his hand on the wall to steady himself for a moment. He was losing a lot of blood from the wound beneath his shirt.
"Harry." I said his name, catching up to him at the top of the stairs. "Are you alright?"
He shot me a glare, almost storming away from me when he realised I'd caught up to him. "And you care?"
I rolled my eyes. "I didn't say I cared, I was just asking." I huffed a breath, following him into his bedroom. "You're bleeding a lot."
He didn't say anything but just stared at the bathroom door, and then at me. It was still locked like I'd left it, and even though he was more than capable of unlocking it himself, he waited for me to do it instead.
I winced when I reached into my hair again, my thumb still throbbing since I was yet to put it back into place after escaping the handcuffs, and I grabbed a hairpin. It fit into the lock and I twisted it so the door opened.
The little dog came bouncing out towards me, trying to jump up and say hello. Harry reached down to grab her and hold her in his arms. He was just staring down at me, the blood was drying into his skin. He didn't seem to have any damage done to his face, the man he had beaten to death hadn't managed to get a hit in. But he was still getting paler, more exhausted looking with every minute that passed.
"Is that one of my shirts?"
For a second, I wondered if he had actually just asked me that. After everything, that was the question he found himself wanting the answer to. I just gave him a flat look. "Did you see what I had on? Forgive me for borrowing a shirt." I rolled my eyes at him again, thinking of the last time we were in this room, where he had been significantly nicer and had been more than willing to let me borrow his clothes. "You didn't have a problem with me taking one before."
It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes at me.
He placed Bean down on the bed and pushed past me to enter his bathroom. I stood leaning the doorway, watching as he pulled the blood-soaked white t-shirt off his head in one smooth move, and tossed it to land in the bathtub.
Christ. I forgot about those fucking fern tattoos. Through the mirror, I took a second to look at his tattoos, the large butterfly on his stomach, the birds on his collarbones. I was so distracted by the tattoos, the thin layer of sweat covering his body which seemed to enhance the shape of his abs under these bright lights, that I almost didn't notice the gunshot wound just above his hip. The fern on one side was covered in smears of blood.
And then I realised that I was staring.
He was already looking at me standing behind him in the reflection. Our eyes met briefly in the reflection of the mirror, and he smirked.
The tap in front of him turned on, and he was washing his hands. The stream of water quickly turned dark red while he cleaned the evidence of the violence off his skin.
"What the fuck just happened?" He asked me, his voice a mumble but it was still somehow both harsh and angry.
"Sorry... if I'm not mistaken, I woke up handcuffed to your bed." I defended, taken back by the way I could tell he thought this was somehow my fault. "How in the hell would this have anything to do with me?"
"Well I really can't think of any other reason." He took in an agitated breath through his nose. "I'm sure someone was looking for you."
"Yeah. My friends were looking for me, so they somehow found my location, called me a fucking whore and a sex slave and then tried to kill me multiple times." I snapped back, my tone bitter and cold. I rolled my eyes, which I seemed to be doing a lot when I was around him. "Fuck off what that blaming me shit."
Harry said nothing but I watched his jaw tighten again. Once he was done washing the blood from his hands, arms and face, he met my eyes through the mirror once more. He was still bleeding from the wound on his stomach but it seemed to be calming down slightly. He'd probably been shot before, he was handling it well and probably knew how to clean himself up, or was waiting for me to go so he could go to a hospital.
"I'm leaving." I announced, standing up from the doorway to go back into the bedroom. His dog was asleep on his bed, like she was completely unaware of everything that just happened. "Next time, just leave me on the street."
"I'll be sure to." He grumbled from the bathroom.
I could hear him walking a little bit behind me when I was making my way back down the stairs. But not even a second later, I heard his footsteps stop. When I turned around, I saw that he had opened the guest bedroom door and was looking inside. He was looking inside at the bloody scene I'd left behind when I'd stabbed someone in the neck with a ballpoint pen.
Harry sighed, and closed the door.
I said nothing about it and only continued my way downstairs so that I could leave and go home. I didn't know how much longer I could stand being around him. Yes, I understood people broke in and tried to kill him, but Jesus the fucking attitude he had with me still seemed unnecessary.
"Jesus...fuck." Harry cursed from behind me as we entered the kitchen where there were pools of blood still spilling, mess everywhere with broken dishes, red splattered and two very dead and mangled looking bodies. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with three dead bodies in my flat?"
The concept of it was strange to me, I glanced at him over my shoulder. He was running his hands down his face in stress when I asked him. "You've never disposed of a body?"
He gave me a look, one that asked me 'what the fuck do you think?' With a flat tone, he muttered, "Take a guess."
"Can't you just like...call your secret service friends and get them to do it?" I shrugged, remembering that just because it was pretty much a daily task for me to have to think about, didn't mean it was entirely normal for everyone. But also, given his job, he had to have at least some ideas or inspiration. "Otherwise, I know a guy."
"Course you fucking do." he huffed, watching me as I sat down on his couch wincing again as I did, so that I could start to out my boots back on. I realised when he was staring at me that his brows were raised and his eyes were wide, like he was shocked or surprised by something. I was about to ask what he was staring at, but he answered my question before I could answer it. "Are you seriously gonna leave like that?"
I frowned, reaching for my other boot. I knew I still had one of his shirts from when we fucked, but I really didn't think another one, a boring plain black one, would really be that big of a deal. "You want your shirt back that badly?"
"No, Winter." he tipped his head back in frustration, coming to stand at the back of the couch so he was behind me, his hand on either side of my shoulders. "Keep the fucking shirt." A shiver ran down my spine when I felt his fingers brush against the back of my neck. And then his hand slid around to grasp my chin, tilting my head back so that I was looking at him towering above me from behind, "I mean, you're covered in blood and look like you've been beaten half to death." he pointed out, raising an accusing brow, "You just gonna walk across town in the middle of the day like that?"
I shoved his hand off my chin, taking off my boot. I stood up from the couch and turned around to face him, the furniture separating us. Harry looked me up and down, and he was right. I was completely covered in blood, and from what I could feel on my back, I was still actively bleeding. "Can I use your shower then?"
"That's gonna hurt like fuck." he told me as if I wouldn't know that, flipping around the folded towel he had pressed to his body so that he could press the clean side to his gunshot wound.
I glanced down at the large butterfly on his body, it was almost amusing how it looked like the wings were fluttering every time he took a deep breath. I looked up to meet his eyes, and again he had a faint smirk on his face when he knew I'd been looking at his body. He was standing in front of me shirtless, what did he expect?
"Just a yes or a no will be fine."
"Sure. Yes." he said, waving a hand to the exit of the room. He was turning around to grab a bottle of red wine from his countertop. He unscrewed the lid with his teeth, spat out the lid and then took a large swig of the wine. "Use my shower."
"Hmm you're such a good host." I said, not hiding the sarcasm in my tone at all. He was taking another drink of wine when I was heading for the stairs again, "So sweet of you."
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