~*~Zayn~*~
I didn’t even know how long I had been in that place anymore. The days turned into nights, nights into days, but all of it was complete hell to me.
Ed was going to keep me as far away from the basement as possible, or at least that was what it seemed like. He locked me into my room after I gave him a blowjob, and ever since then, he hadn’t let me out unless it was necessary. He brought me food, clothes, and either he or Josh would unlock the door so I could use the bathroom and shower. It wasn’t necessarily torture in itself, but the fact that Niall was downstairs and I couldn’t get to him was tearing me apart.
It came as a surprise to me that Josh would give me updates on Niall. He wouldn’t deliver messages for either of us, but every once in a while he would tell me that Niall missed me or said he loved me. It was really nothing big, and I still didn’t trust Josh in the slightest. Still, part of me couldn’t help but believe him when he said that Niall was fine. He wasn’t being forced to do anything like I was, thank god. That was the best I could ask for.
“What about his ribs?” I suddenly asked. Josh turned around from the doorway to look at me.
“His ribs?”
I nodded quickly. “Ed pushed him down the stairs! He’s not in pain, is he?”
Josh frowned and shrugged at me. He seemed like he was debating something with himself, and then he shook his head, his hand sitting on the doorknob. “Ed wouldn’t do that.” He stated. Just like that, he closed the door and left me alone once again.
Josh was a hard person to understand, and I highly doubted that I would ever be able to share his view on anything. He was extremely protective of Ed. Whenever I brought up anything bad, he would deny it and leave. It may have just been me, but I also had a feeling that he was jealous of me as well. It was like he thought I wanted to get on my knees for him or something.
With a sigh, I leaned back onto the bed and stared out the window. It looked like it was just past noon, and because Ed didn’t have a specific time he came in, I didn’t know what to expect. All I could do was sit there and wait.
Oddly enough, I didn’t have to wait long. Ed entered the room, and as soon as I looked over to see who it was, he tossed some clothes at me. “Shower and get dressed. We’re leaving in an hour.”
My lips curled down in a frown, and I fully sat up, looking over the clothes. They looked like they belonged to Ed, and if that was the case, they would no doubt be big on me. Josh’s would be too small, so I didn’t have much of a selection. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Now get up.”
Groaning a little, I got up and stalked off to the bathroom. Once the shower was on and the water was warming up, I stripped off all my clothes, making sure that the bathroom door was locked first. Ed had done enough to me already, but not once had he actually tried to rape me. I didn’t know if he would try or not, but I was going to take precautions just in case.
The hot water was soothing, but just like everything else seemed to, it reminded me of Niall. All the showers we had taken together, the feeling of his body under my fingertips… shit. I was just making myself more depressed, but I couldn’t help it. I missed him so much. There were nights where I would wake up with tears in my eyes because I needed him by my side. The nightmares had disappeared after I met the Irish boy, and now they were coming back even worse than before. Withdrawal was a knife in my side as well, and with no way to distract me from it, I felt like I was going to die any second.
Before I knew it, my body and hair was completely clean, and it was time for me to turn the water off. I wrapped myself in a towel and dried off, taking longer than even I had expected. It was understandable, honestly; I wanted to know where we were going and why. It was obvious that I didn’t trust Ed, and God only knows what he had planned for us both. As expected, the clothes were a little large, especially now that I was only eating once or twice a day. They would work for now, at least.
For once, Ed or Josh wasn’t standing outside the door and making sure that I wasn’t going to scramble somewhere. On the other hand, I could tell exactly where they were by the yelling and screaming coming from downstairs. Ed’s loud, booming voice echoed off the thin walls, and Josh’s whimpers and sobs hit my ears harder than they should. This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened, but it seemed to be the worst yet.
As quickly and as quietly as I possibly could, I crept down the stairs, making sure that neither of the boys would see me. They were in the living room from the sound of it. I pressed my back against the opposite wall, and even though it was wrong, I knew that I wanted to hear everything that was going on.
Somehow, this could be important to me and Niall’s escape.
“Please! I… I didn’t do what you think! I was just—“
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” Ed screamed. I could hear the sounds of what could only be fists on skin, and when Josh let out another sob, I stiffened. He wasn’t just smacking him around if Josh was making noises like that. He would have had to been hit pretty hard.
“I wouldn’t do that to you! I love you!”
“You’re a lying piece of shit! You think that I don’t notice how you spend extra time down in that basement? You two are trying to work against me, I know it. For God’s sake, Josh, I trust Zayn more than you! How is that supposed to make me feel?”
There was a long pause, and then Josh’s now tiny voice whispered, “I just feel bad for him, is all.”
Ed snorted, and then I could feel the vibrations as he tossed Josh’s body into the wall. There were more hits – punches, slaps, probably even kicks. By the time five minutes had gone by and the thrashing noises had stopped, Josh had gone completely silent. Ed cursed under his breath, and when his footsteps grew closer, I ran back over to the steps to make it look like I had just walked downstairs. He would no doubt be pissed off at me if he realized that I eavesdropped.
Ed passed by me, a limp and unconscious Josh in his arms. He was cradling him, and if I was seeing everything correctly, there were what looked like tears in his eyes. He blinked them away the very second he realized that I was there. I almost believed that I had imagined it all, but something in his stance convinced me otherwise. “Oh, Zayn… you’re ready?”
“Yeah. Whenever you are, I guess…”
He nodded and headed toward the basement. “Give me a minute.” He muttered. I could hear him going down the basement steps, and a few moments later, he came back up and nodded to me again. “Let’s go.”
~
Just as expected, the car ride was awkward and silent, neither of us daring to say a word to the other. Ed was of course staring at the road, but when I snuck a glance over at him every once in a while, I could tell that difficult thoughts were running through his mind. His muscles were tense, especially in his hands when he gripped the wheel.
When we didn’t arrive at our destination in twenty minutes, I decided to at least try to get into Ed’s head a little bit. He wouldn’t speak about where we were going, but maybe he would talk about him and Josh. As odd as it sounded, Ed and I had had some good times together. He had even inked some of my tattoos. There was a real person under there who just liked to kick back and have fun, and if I could get that part out, it would be better for everyone.
“Alright, mate, time to spill it. What’s bothering you?”
Ed looked over at me before once again turning away. “Why do you care?”
“Nobody likes someone who’s pissed off. We might as well make the most of this little kidnapping experience, right?”
Despite how utterly confused and upset he was, I saw the hint of a smile on his lips. It was working so far. “That was probably the last thing that I expected you to say, Zayn. You just can’t seem to stop surprising me.”
“It’s what I do.”
The scenery outside of the window was starting to get familiar. I had walked these same streets many times, and as bad as those memories were, it brought a burst of hope to me. That just increased when we parked right at the back of the club. This was my chance to escape. All I had to do was run the very second Ed had his back turned to me, and I would be able to find someone who would let me use their phone to call the other boys.
“Let me ask you something, Zayn.” Ed started, waving me toward him. I stood beside him and followed his lead as he leaned against the side of the car. He had a fag now, and when he offered one, I took it. Maybe it would help these annoying withdrawal symptoms go away. He lit both of them, and I pressed it to my lips and took a long drag.
“Shoot.”
“How did you get into drugs?”
Out of all things, I couldn’t understand why he had chosen that to ask me. I let out a breath, watching as the smoke went into the air and then disappeared. It had been so long since I smoked that I was surprised I wasn’t coughing all over the place. “It kind of just... happened. I started with the simple stuff before I left home, and then someone on the streets would share something new, and I just got addicted. I found a dealer and stuck with her for years.”
Ed nodded and took another drag, closing his eyes. “And when you woke up from your coma… Niall still wanted you after that? He didn’t care about the drugs?”
“We love each other.” I responded simply. “I wanted to get help, so I was admitted into rehab. Not that I ever got to go, but that’s what I would have been doing right now.”
There was another pause of silence, but this one was filled with unanswered questions between us. I wanted to know about why he was asking, and with the expression plastered on his face, there had to be something else that he was wondering about. He just didn’t seem to know how to say it.
“I’ve been thinking, Zayn.” He finally stated. He had finished the fag, and he threw it on the ground and stepped on it, only to start up on another one. I finished mine as well, but I declined the next one offered, already sick of the smell and the taste that it left in my mouth. “You don’t have to take your old job back if you do something for me.”
It couldn’t be this easy… could it? “What do I have to do?”
“Help me fix my relationship with Josh.”
~*~Niall~*~
“Josh?” I asked. I shook his shoulder a little, but just like the other hundreds of times I had done it, he didn’t make any response. I was starting to think that the lad was seriously injured. I adjusted the pillow under his head and pressed two fingers against his pulse point. It was weak, but it was still there.
Ed hadn’t told me what had happened when he set Josh down against the wall. All he had said was, “Make sure he’s okay.” He had left right after that, leaving me gaping at my unconscious ex-boyfriend. I sprung into action immediately, trying to do all that I could to help him. There obviously wasn’t much that I knew, but I tried my best. I set him on the mattress that I had been sleeping on the past few nights, making sure that his head was comfortable. It looked the worst, though his body was pretty banged up as well. He looked as bad as Zayn used to with all of the bruises littered over his skin.
“Come on, Josh…” I whispered. I lightly slapped his cheek, hoping that would help, but it ended up doing completely nothing. “Wake up, damn it!”
My voice must have been just the thing to trigger something in his mind. He whimpered, and before he even opened his eyes, he sat up and scooted back until his back was against the wall. “Don’t hurt me anymore! I-I didn’t do it, I l-love you!”
“Josh!” I squeaked, moving toward him and grabbing his hands, making sure that he wouldn’t be able to push me away. “It’s okay, Josh, it’s only me. Ed’s gone.”
Letting out one small, barely audible whimper, his eyes finally opened and connected with mine. They scanned the room as well, but they landed back on me, and he gave a slight shake of his head. “Niall?”
I nodded and sat crosslegged in front of him. His body visibly grew more relaxed, but he still looked on edge, like he was waiting for the slightest thing to happen so he could get up and run. Now that he was sitting up, I could see the split in his lip and the slight blood that had come out of it. Other than that, there were only bruises, and he didn’t seem in pain enough to have internal bleeding. He would be fine from what I could see.
“Why would Ed do this to you?” I whispered, licking my lips, which suddenly felt drier than they ever had before.
Josh’s face fell. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but at the last second he buried his face in his hands. “He didn’t do it!”
“Who else would have? Zayn is the only other one there, and even you know he wouldn’t have put you down here with me, of all places.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Josh—“
“He didn’t do it!” He yelled. Sobs started to wrack his body, and he kept his face covered so I couldn’t see his tears. I didn’t understand how someone could be in this kind of denial. Even if he did love Ed, which he obviously did, he couldn’t keep risking his life like this. He was going to end up broken or dead. Nobody would know how he died but Zayn and I, and I doubted that we would have a chance to call the police in that time.
I decided that I needed to try a different approach if I was going to get him to believe that what had happened was real. He was in a delicate state of mind, and I didn’t want to make the situation worse. “Listen to me. Are you hurt?
“N-No.”
That didn’t seem like it was going to work either. I touched an especially bad bruise on his arm, and he let out a cry and put his hand over it. “That hurt, didn’t it?”
He scowled and made a face at me. “Fine, it did. What’s your point?”
“That Ed physically hurt you. That’s abuse, Josh. I’ve heard the yelling from upstairs. Is he mentally abusing you too?”
“It isn’t abuse!”
“Then what is it?”
I didn’t have to say anything else. Josh started sobbing again, this time letting his whole body shake. All that I could do was sit next to him and bring him into my arms, hugging him tightly and rubbing his back. It only helped so much, but it was better than nothing. He needed comfort and a shoulder to cry on – two things that he had obviously missed out on with such a fucked up person as a boyfriend. He had been isolated, and I felt like I was the only one who could bring him back to reality.
I had never seen him so needy until right now. Not even when one of his closest cousins died when we were dating was he this vulnerable. He cried into my shoulder, and I whispered soothing words into his ear as he let it all out.
“Niall, I-I love him…”
I gave him an apologetic look and bit my lip. “I know you do.”
“Why would he do something like this? He said he loved me too!”
That was something that I didn’t have an answer to. There was no reason to hurt someone that you loved, and if you let your anger get the better of you, you couldn’t care about them that much. Fights and disagreements were normal, but not degrading your other half.
“Josh…” I said slowly, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me. “You know that this is wrong. You’re hurting Zayn and I for someone that doesn’t even love you.”
He sniffled and turned his head away again, staring at the basement floor. “I would do anything for him.”
“Even after he could have killed you?”
He put his hands over his face and brought his knees up to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Niall. I… I didn’t want to do any of this, but I…” He trailed off, body quivering even worse than before.
“I forgive you.”
The look Josh gave me would have been hilarious if he hadn’t been crying. His eyes were wide and surprised, his mouth gaped open. “You do?”
I nodded and patted his shoulder. “I understand where you’re coming from. I would do anything for Zayn too… not that he would ask me to help kidnap someone, but still.”
Josh slowly nodded his head and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry… but I’m going to help make it up to you.”
“How?”
“I’m going to get you and Zayn out of here.”
DUN DUN DUNNNN. Are you confused yet? ;) Sorry it took so long for me to update, but I was away all week and didn't have wifi. This story is coming to a close, people... just a few more chapters left. *Sighhh* I love you guys.