Dedicated to christomlinson91 for her amazing idea! I like used some of it word for word. Thank you so much :)
I hope this is ok. Sorry for the long author's note at the end.
~~~~~~
Ali's POV: (2029)
"Whoa, mate, I was just-"
"I don't give a damn about what you were just going to do, get away from her before-"
"Calm down, gosh." the man stood up, facing Nick this time instead of me. "I was only conforting herr..." he trailed off staring at Nick's face.
Like inspecting Nick's face.
Ok, creepy.
You can't judge a book by it's cover but you can sure judge it by its actions.
"A-Are you...-"
"Get away and leave us alone" Nick snarled before pushing the man out of the way and heading for me. "You ok? Did he hurt you?"
I shook my head.
"N-No, I-I was just crying and-"
"You were crying? Why??" Nick whipped his head towards the Liam, sizing him up.
Though Liam was about the same height as Dad, Liam was like a stick compared to the latter.
"B-Because..." I whispered, feeling super shy and embarrassed with having two sets of eyes on me. "I was-you know what? It doesn't matter."
"It does, now, if this man had anything to do with it-"
"I didn't do anything!-"
"He didn't, he was just comforting me. No need to go all attack-mode on him, geeze."
All the while, the man just hung on the sides, almost to a point where he was half covered in shadows.
"I--I know I shouldn't be meddling, and boy do I sound like a stalker, but, uh, what's your name?"
Well that's a blunt question kind of.
"Me or-"
"Him."
"Nick...why?"
He seemed to ponder it for a second before he spoke again.
"You sure?"
"Gosh, man, just leave us alone or we'll call the police."
He put his hands up in surrender.
"No, no you don't have to do that, I was just, erm, just saying because you look, um, familiar."
"Oh."
"But I-I guess--nevermind." Liam shook his head, stuttering every so often.
"Ali, let's go" Nick whispered in my ear, gently tugging at my arm.
To where? I wanted to ask but decided against it when I saw the uneasiness in Nick's eyes.
"Oh, ok."
The awkward silence that hung around all of our heads annoyed me so much.
Do we just leave or-
"Where're you two going? It's getting kind of late here." Liam piped up, still glancing at Nick's face.
"It's none of your business." Nick snapped, tugging more harshly now on my arm.
"It kind of is, Kid, I can't just leave knowing you two are wandering the streets or whatever."
"Are you our father? No? Hmm, well then I don't think you need to act like one."
"Kid-Nick, I mean, I am only trying to-"
"No you aren't, you come into this alley while my sister is crying and try to help her? Does that not sound creepy at all to you?"
"Well, now that I think about it-"
"Yeah, so I would appreciate it if you would polietly go away before...before..."
"Before you call the cops?" Liam filled in, crossing his hands over his chest and staring at us. "Say, you two haven't done anything illegal, have you?"
That caught me by surprise.
"Illegal?! Illegal!" Nick shouted. "For your information, we haven't done anything illegal. So there. You got your answer. Now go."
"Then why won't you call the cops? Huh?"
"Because" Nick started, trying to find some smart-mouth response to his question.
"Because we ran away." I whispered, watching my fingers twiddle with some string that I found on the ground.
"For goodness sakes, Ali." Nick breathed, angry I blew our cover.
"You ran away?" Liam repeated, warily watching us. "You sure do look like you ran away." he laughed.
Ok.
Just because I look completely disgusting doesn't mean-oh, it probably does.
Ali, just like stop talking to yourself, Nick will think you are even more crazy than you already are.
"Well thank you for that extremely funny joke, now, for the fifth time, we are going to go now. Have a fun life or something."
"Nick! How incredibly rude." I hissed back.
"Why'd you do it? Run away, I mean."
"None of your business, for heavens sakes, you need to mind your own business, man."
All I could do really was watch the two guys bicker between themselves. It was interesting how the grown man was having these little arguments with a sixteen year old.
Though they were both acting like they were five.
"Do you need help? Is Nick being mean to you?" Liam broke my trance, standing now in front of me.
Nick scowled.
"How dare you insinuate-"
"He's my brother."
"Brother?" Liam asked, searching for familiar features between Nick and myself.
"Yeah."
"Leave her alone, she doesn't need anymore trouble from you." Nick butted in, moving me so that I was behind his back.
"Whose older?" Liam suddenly questioned, looking extremely curious.
"Dude, remember what I said about minding your own business not like two minutes ago?!"
"I was just-"
"Sorry for my rude brother."
"Ali-wait, that's your name, right?" Liam peered around Nick's shoulder, adding me into their conversation.
I nodded in response to his question.
"Do you like living like this?"
I shook my head.
"Then why'd you run away? You know if you're homeless you could go to the police station or something-"
"No, it's-it's not that. It's-um-it's complicated."
"I can help you, if you want."
"Help? The only help you have given us is, hmm, let me think: none." my brother barged in.
"What do you mean 'help?'" I asked, ignoring his bitchy remarks.
"Do you need me to take you to your parent's house? I think they'd want you to come back, they probaby miss you a lot." Liam talked to me like I was seven or something.
I'm sixteen.
I'm just an adult in a teenager's body is what I like to think.
"Uh, no, that won't be needed, but thank you for the offer."
"You sure? I am sure your parents love you very much and want you back home." he stated, choking up a little.
"Are you ok?"
Funny how I was the one asking him that.
"Yeah, yeah, just something caught in my eye is all."
Sure.
"Fine, if you don't want me to take you home then do you need me to take you to the police station? To a grandparent's house?"
"No, we're fine--Ali, c'mon, we're leaving."
"No! Wait. Don't go."
Nick bore daggers at Liam.
"We can do whatever the hell we want for your information mister."
"I'm not leaving you two alone out here. It's a bad neighborhood. Especially at night."
"We don't care."
"I can-I can" Liam looked like he was scrambling for something to say that would keep us from leaving. "How about I bring you back to my hotel and we'll figure it out from there, hm? We can order room serivce or whatever you want."
"We were told not to talk to strangers, which we have already done, and also we were told never to get into a stranger's car."
"I'm not a stranger, I'm Liam."
Nick laughed.
"Yeah, because that makes us feel sooo much better."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Leave us alone."
"Besides that."
"Food does sound nice." I spoke up, tracing figures in the dirt.
Liam lit up, happy that I finally said something.
"You want food? When was the last time you ate? The hotel I'm staying at has amazing-"
"This is the last freaking time I tell you, dude, but we are not going to your hotel!"
"What if...what if we walk? Then would you go with me? Please, I can't leave you two out here at night."
"Walking seems fine."
"Ali! Don't give in, for all you know he could kidnap us when we get there!"
"Fine. You want my phone? Would that make you feel better? Here, I'll but 999 on speeddial or whatever."
"999?"
"Yeah. The police-oh. Shit. What's the police number here?"
"911."
"Oh, right. If you don't already know, I'm not from around here."
"Really? Oh wow" Nick faked surprise.
"Ha ha" Liam replied, waving him off.
"Can I hold the phone?" I asked, still a little nervous around him.
"Sure."
Liam handed me his phone which I took quckly and looked at the time.
It was already seven-thirty at night.
Wow.
"I think the hotel is like five blocks away from here, I'll just tell my driver to meet us there."
His driver?
He must be rich.
Liam turned around and walked over to the front part of the alley, the place where it meets the sidewalk.
Timidly, we followed him.
Wow, he must have a lot of trust in us because we could just run and take his phone with us. We would never do that because, well, I was starving. I think Nick forgot to get me something at Starbucks or where ever he went.
"Ali, don't trust him. We will just go with him and maybe he will buy us food. Then we will leave, 'k?"
"Ok." I answered.
Trusting him would be stupid and naive of us.
"Over here." Liam waved his hand in the opposite direction that we were walking in.
He waited for us while we closed the distance between us.
"I feel so much better knowing that I've got you out of that place. It was filthy. No place to stay. When we get to the hotel I can buy you some new clothes, yours seem kind of..." he trailed off, grimacing as he looked at our dirt encrusted and stained clothes.
We looked horrible.
"That would be very nice of you. Thank you." I polietly replied, nudging Nick in the side.
"Oh, um, sure." he responded back.
Boys, what can I say?
"I think we're almost here." Liam said as we walked up to a huge, and I mean massive huge, hotel lobby.
A crystal chandelier hung outside, that was how fancy this place was.
Holy shit.
We were completely and utterly underdressed to even set foot on the red carpet leading inside.
"T-This is your hotel??" I sputtered.
It had to be a five-star hotel, no doubt about it.
Liam ushered us inside quickly, as if someone were after us or something.
Maybe he is just as paranoid as we are.
~~
Nick's POV (2029)
I have no clue why, but for some reason Liam persuaded us to go back to his hotel room to take a shower and relax before dinner.
Dinner being at like nine-thirty at night.
Nick and I both decided after a minutes meeting between us that this hotel was too fancy for a kidnapper to stay in, so we agreed to go up.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking, 'you guys are crazy!'
Calm yourself.
Yes, thinking back on it, it is extremely stupid to randomly go up to the room, but hey. We wanted a shower really badly.
Let me just summarize something: he is extremely well-off.
Riding in an awkward elevator with Ali and Liam, we assended the thirty floors to the penthouse.
He was staying in like the presidential suite or something.
Whoa.
I still had my doubts about him.
We couldn't trust him at all.
But hey, one shower coulnd't hurt.
Boy, did I know what I was getting into.
~~
After taking a shower and changing into clothes that Liam graciously purchased for us in the hotel store, I sat out in the living room.
Yes, this hotel has mulitple rooms it is that fancy.
Liam went into his room to make a phone call or whatever.
Ali went to take a shower which left me just sitting in quiet.
Every so often I would check to make sure Liam was still in the room, that he hadn't gone out to try and like attack us or whatever.
Hey, I'm paranoid, ok?
Ali took his phone into the bathroom and left it on the counter in there so I had nothing to do but stare at the tv.
I didn't want to turn it on, that could like make it harder to hear if Ali needs help or something I don't really know.
All I know is that once this dinner thingy is over we are leaving.
I found a magazine on the coffee table and flipped through it.
I couldn't care less about these celebrities and gossip and whatever. I didn't need to know some star fell off the stage and it ruined her life or whatever.
Their problems were nothing compared to ours.
I did, however, find a really interesting article about this girl who like was kidnapped and whatever and went to like a mental place then became a motivational speaker or whatever and stuff. The sad thing was, though, she was readmitted for like stress or stuff.
Well maybe her problems are nothing compared to ours.
It is just an endless cycle, though it made me realize there were many people out there in worse situations than us.
Whoa.
"Hey, Liam, when did they say we were supposed to go to dinne-"
A man, probably not much taller than me, stumbled into the room quite loudly, preoccupied by the phone in his hand, playing some sort of game or something.
Until he glanced up and dropped it.
His eyes widened to the size of, well, larger than normal eyes, as he just stared. Right at me.
He then whipped his head around, searching the room for someone else to which he found none.
It was just him.
And me.
Alone.
In Liam's hotel room.
I knew we shouldn't have come here.
I knew it.
A nice shower and new clothes shouldn't have made me leave the comfort of the street...?
Liam could be a crazy psychopath for all we know. Gosh how could I be so naive?
"You-you-you're" he stuttered, raising his hand to point at me.
Yes.
He just stood there, finger outstretched, eyes huge, and a look of panic on his face.
Psychopaths I tell you.
All I did was state back. The logical thing to do when a stranger mutters nonsense at you.
"You're--What? This--I--you-" he rambled on, not making any sense. At all. And that is coming from someone who lives with Ali who rarely makes any sense.
It's rare if she talks two complete sentences in a row.
Slowly, I nodded my head as I inched my way back towards the door.
I need to get out of here. Like right now.
"Here-you-what?" he continued, seeming like he was a broken robot or something.
Seriously? Is it shocking that I am in here? Sure, maybe if I happened to walk into my friends room or whatever and see a different person, yeah I would be shocked, but not this shocked.
"Yeahhh, I think I'm going to-" I awkwardly stated, creeping backwards ever so slightly until I hit a wall.
I paused not because I hit the wall, no. I paused because a heard a familiar voice.
"Nick, where'd ya go?" Ali asked in frustration as she entered the room holding a pair of clothes in her hand. "I've been looking everywhere--oh, hello."
I swear by now this guy was going to pass out. His eyes like exploded and his mouth fell open. I have read stories where they describe a person's jaw dropping, and through sixteen years of life, I have never come across anyone who has actually done that. Until now.
He made a choking sound and griped his hair tightly before furiously rubbing his eyes. All the while he shook his head.
I need to get us out of here. Like immediately. He is crazy. Insane is a better word.
"Nick..." Ali drew out, "what's he doing-"
"Oh my god" the guy finally spoke, uttering his first three complete words.
"Nick-"
"Oh. My. God. Oh my god. Oh. My. Freaking. God" he chanted, his face still showing signs of shock and confusion.
But then it changed.
Rapidly.
"Oh my god!" He cried before running at us.
Call a mental asylum. Now.
I had no time to think, or to even run, before this stranger grabbed Ali.
"Let go of her!!" I shouted, rushing to her aid.
"Oh my god" he kept chanting, hugging her tightly.
I think it was hugging, I don't quite know.
And I didn't want to know.
"LIAM! HELP!" I screamed as I tried to pry this man off my sister.
She seemed terrified.
I was terrified.
Not five seconds later did Liam barrel through the room, toothbrush in hand.
"Wha-" he gargled before catching sight of the scene unfolding.
"Oh my god, you found them! Liam! You found them!!!" The man shouted, tears cascading down his cheek, his smile practically reaching his ears. It looked painful, but I didn't care.
Who does he think he is that he can go and run at my sister?
I took this as my opportunity to grab Ali.
"Don't touch her" I hissed as I threw his arm away from her shaking form. "Liam, help!"
But he didn't. No, instead of helping pry this guy off of Ali, he just stood frightening still, his eyes darting from Ali to me, and then back to her.
For goodness sakes.
"You found them! I can't believe you found them! Liam, you found them!" He, once again repeated.
So this guy either has short term memory that makes him repeate everything or he only knows like ten words.
Those being: you found them.
Found what?
Maybe he doesn't understand English. That is why he couldn't form a complete coherent sentence.
Grabbing Ali, I pushed myself in front of her.
"We have to leave, like right now" I quietly whispered to her.
"You found them!" The guy said, this time running at Liam. The man picked Liam up and twirled him around like parents do to their kids in the park or something.
Creepy.
And bare in mind these are two adult men.
Yeah. Creepy.
Downright weird.
I took this as our time to leave while we still had the chance. The two of them seemed pretty distracted so I don't think they would notice if we happened to sneak out...right?
"Go" I hissed under my breath.
And we ran.
Fast.
We seem to be doing a lot of running recently, haven't we? Gosh, why do we always run into the crazies? Aren't there any more sane people left in LA?
Luckily, we were in the main room of this sprawling hotel room so the door was in this room. (Did I mention it was like a mansion up here?)
Unluckily for us, the door was in this room. With the two guys in front of it.
But it didn't matter, because they were too absorbed in crying out that 'they found them!' that they didn't notice we were slipping out of the room.
Reaching the elevator, I practically killed the down button.
Hurry hurry hurry.
"Come on! This is like the slowest elevator ever!" I snarled.
"Well we are on the top floor, so..." Ali sassed, the first she had spoke since walking into that room of chaos.
Impatiently, I tapped my foot.
Can't this thing come any faster??
Besides my foot harshly hitting the floor, it was silent. Except for the muffled voices shouting about who knows now.
Hopefully it isn't about us escaping.
I knew we both wanted desperately to understand what the hell just happened back there, but we couldn't. We couldn't waste time worrying or wondering about the past. We need to focus on the future. Now do we not only have Matt and Jim on our heels, we have Liam and Crazy.
Finally, after a bazillion years passed, the elevator dinged. Scrambling in, I repeatedly punched the lobby.
Come on, come on.
Can't this door close any faster??
I sighed in relief as the door began to close.
Thank goodnes-
I spoke too soon.
Of course.
Of course in that short second before the two elevator doors smashed together would Liam and Crazy come bolting out of their hotel room.
And of course they saw us.
"DON'T GO! WAIT!" Crazy shouted right as the doors closed shut and we made our descent down like fifty floors.
"Oh my gosh" Ali cried as she braced herself against the wall.
"Don't worry, there's only one elevator. Unless they want to climb down a million stairs I don't think they'll catch us." I managed a smirk (which was difficult under the circumstances) as she understood.
"Really?"
"Yup."
I know. Such a relief.
The ride was quiet. We didn't dare speak. There was no use.
Finally, though, when we arrived at the lobby, I spoke.
"Hurry, we still don't want them to-"
I was cut off by not one, not two, but hundreds of screaming women being held back by a dozen or so police officers, all outside the hotel doors.
Oh. My. Gosh.
What the hell happened??
What did we get ourselves into?
Is this a dream?
Wait, no, a nightmare.
"HARRY!" One of the girls screamed and pointed, causing every single girl to turn the two of us.
Is this real life?
Or another messed up mental dream I conjured up?
"Harry! HARRY! I LOVE YOU!!!" women screamed left and right.
The police were having a harder time now that all the women started screaming and mobbing the doors.
What does someone in our situation do?
We have already run, so now what?
There is no way we can escape through the front door.
We need to get out of here before-
"LIAM! LIAM! THERE'S LIAM!! MARRY ME!"
Liam?
Liam.
I turned around to see a puffy and heavily breathing Liam burst through the hotel stairs.
Shit.
Can this get any worse? Like from being attacked by our so called 'father' and then to living on the streets, and then hearing some crazy guy chant 'you found them' to this?
Give us a break, would ya?
"NIALL! NIALL!! OVER HERE! AHH!!! NIALL!"
Niall?
Niall.
Wait.
Niall??
The man, otherwise known as Crazy, bending over out of breath next to Liam is...Niall?
Wait.
Niall.
I have heard that name before.
Wait.
No.
I haven't heard it.
I have seen it.
Wait.
Wha....?
I turned around to face 'Niall.' We made eye contact amidst the shouting girls outside, banging on the windows.
No, this can't be-no.
That would be too much.
"It's-It's you. H?" I tentatively asked, my eyes not daring leave his as my voice quivered in, well, I don't know. There were too many emotions to pick out which ones I were feeling.
He didn't need to nod because his eyes spoke for him.
They lit up in my recognition and tears actually started to fall freely from his face as he did nodded, still too out of breath to utter a word.
"It's you. It's really you." he muttered eventually, smiling so much it looked like it would tear his whole face in two.
"I can't believe it. We found you."
He needs to learn more words.
"Welcome home"
I should really stop speaking too soon.
~~~~~
Sky's POV (2029)
I was so close.
So super close to being as I so called 'depression sober' for five years.
But then everything came crashing back to me.
The realization that it has already been sixteen years since I had last seen my children really hit me hard. I thought I could do this, like so much. I seriously, genuienly believed that I could get them back.
It's been sixteen freaking years.
Half my lifetime.
And I just cracked.
This was all about a month or so ago, and just the memory of it makes me shiver.
So close. If I had been able to make that five year mark-gosh, I don't know. It was just a stupid little miletone that I was so close to reaching.
So close.
I was seriously so close but stupid me decided to become Debby Downer all over again.
Yes, I know I skipped a couple of years, but hey, there really wasn't much to talk about: I climbed to the top.
Yes.
Like since that day I realized I needed to change, I actually changed.
One month later and my bags were packed and ready to be taken home. To Zayn's home.
Harry?
He spent another year and a half there. I kind of feel bad for him, like he has been taking this wayyyy worse than I did.
Poor boy.
But anyway, back to me. Wow I sound really conceited right there, didn't I?
Back to the point.
People, you noisy people, might want to know about Zayn. And me.
Goodness, just thinking about it makes me blush.
We may have sort of maybe kind of a little bit tiny part maybe sort of been seeing each other.....?
Maybe?
I don't know.
But don't jump to conclusions, this was all recent.
Well, I don't exactly know how we stand after my meltdown, but hey. If I could get through what happened when I was sixteen, I could get through what happens when I'm thirty-two.
Whoa.
Thirty-two.
Time has flown by so super much, I still feel like I kid.
And I wish so much that I was one again. I missed out so much for being all lazy and sad all the time when I could have started my search for the twins sooner, like back when I had time.
Now, the case is as cold as something in the freezer. Yes I am at making similies.
Hooray for passing college.
Hey, did you know I went to college?
Well I did.
Yay...? I seriously feel like so much has gone on in these past few years, though most of it unimportant relating to the twins.
"Sky...? Sky?"
"In here" I called from my position on the floor in the corner of the room.
"Hey, there you are" Zayn happily said, tapping me on the nose before slouching down the wall to sit next to me. "It took me like ten minutes to find you here."
"Congrats." I whispered.
"Hey, stop being so quiet and stuff, you're freaking me out." he joked, though I could hear the worry etched into his voice.
"Don't worry about me, I'm good, just....thinking."
"Thinking? You think too much."
"Well there's nothing else for me to do."
"Don't say that, there's-"
"There's what, Zayn? It's hopeless."
"It is not hopeless, Sky, you're just in your sour mood and-"
"Well I'm not a kid anymore, Zayn, so I guess I realized how stupid I was. Sixteen years, Zayn, sixteen years! They were as old-even older-than I was! What if they are being abused?? What if-" I gasped. "what if they are dead? What if I spent these years trying to find them to have them not even be-"
"Stop that right now." Zayn snapped at me, taking my face in his unusually large hands. "You're speaking too negatively to be in this room. Take a walk or something because I don't want to see you like this."
"If you dare think to call the 'place'" the 'place' being the mental hospital, "then I will leave...or something. I don't want to go back, they can't really help me anymore. I just have to help myself. Plus I am too old."
"Love, you aren't old at all, and if you are, then what am I?" he laughed.
"Grandpa" I smiled when in all honesty it wasn't that funny. "And yes I am. I have two teenage kids somewhere, that qualifies me as old."
"Nonsense."
"Whatever you like to say."
Ok. So by the end of our conversation, we both managed to smile. Which was a pretty big deal for me. Like a major big deal.
"I really missed you, Zayn."
"And I really missed you."
For me when I said I missed him, I missed seeing him.
For him when he said he missed me, he missed seeing the real, happy me.
And I missed the happy me too.
I can get passed this, sure.
Especially now that I have someone who I love-yes I said the l word don't all freak out at once-and who loves me back.
.
.
.
.
.
***Sorry for the crappy Sky POV, I WILL GO INTO MORE DETAIL ABOUT THE PAST FIVE YEARS OR HOWEVER LONG IT WAS. I LITERALLY WROTE THAT IN FIFTEEN MINUTES NONSTOP SO IT SUCKS SORRY. I just wanted to make this chapter a little longer.***
I start school TOMORROW and I really really really need to focus this year {this year is suuuuuuuuuuper important (last year I slacked and focused on Wattpad)} so if you were to see an update it would most likely be on a weekend not weekday.
And, no, I do not have an updating schedule. No I don't know when I'll update.
''''''''''''
FIRST OFF: YOU GUYS ALL NEED TO READ THE BOOK 'THE FAULT IN OUR STARS' IT IS SO AMAZING LIKE I READ IT IN ONE DAY OH MY GOSH.
SECOND OFF: I LOVE WE THE KINGS. OH MY GOSH. CHECK YES JULIET AND SAY YOU LIKE ME. OH MY GOSH.
THIRD OFF: IF YOU KNOW DAN, PHIL, MARCUS, JIM, JOE, CASPAR, OR ALFIE, TEXT ME SO I CAN FANGIRL AND LIKE STUFF ABOUT YOUTUBE.
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