Authors Note: I finally wrote again! I'm sorry that it took me so long. My writer's block is always horrible. I think I only wrote one time over the summer. But, since I finally hit 50K reads, I knew that I HAD to write! :) Warning: It's a really short chapter so I'm really sorry, but I have lots of ideas for the next couple chapters so I promise that they'll be coming soon.
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Harry and I were closer than ever. And yet, he was gone nearly every night and would get back well into the morning. One particular morning, I had spent the night at his house and I was still laying in his bed when he got there- so it must have been pretty early in the morning. At least, in respects to when he had recently been getting home.. He climbed into bed and planted a particularly sloppy kiss on my cheek. I propped my head up with my hand and stared at the beautiful boy who couldn't stop grinning like a child at me. "Can I ask you something?" I asked, lazily running my fingers through his hair.
"You can ask me absolutely anything, angel." he said, closing his eyes. One might perceive him to be drunk out of his mind, but he always gets this way when he's hysterically tired.
"Have you ever thought about just getting out of this? Leaving gang life? We could run."
"I can't do that." he said, almost stiffly, a vast contrast from before.
"But why ca-"
"You don't understand-" he started, but I cut him off.
"Then tell me! I'll never understand if you don't tell me. I want to understand. Let me."
"You can't just quit like it's some sort of game. It's just the way is for me- for us. If you try to just stop, you get killed. And I don't mean by any of the guys. I got lucky in that we're actually friends. Most gangs aren't. But if I just quit, I'll die. You'll die. They'll die. You don't get to make the choice to just stop. Marcus will kill us. Matt will kill us. There's no happy ending in this. You just have to make the most of what we already have, angel. Because, it's not going to get any better any time soon." he explained. It made tears come to my eyes but I looked away so he wouldn't see. Somehow, he knew anyway. He put his hand on my cheek, forcing me to look at him again. "I don't want to do this to you..." he spoke softly. "But there's no other way. That's why I'd never blame you for not loving me." That only made me cry more.
"I'll always love you. I don't care about that. It's ok. I was just asking. It's perfect anyway. It's perfect just to be here, doing all this with you. It's fine." I said, resting my head on his chest.
"It's not... It's not fine. I wish there was something I could do. You do deserve better. I just can't give it to you right now. I wish I could. One day, I swear to you that I will."
"All I need is everything that you are." I mumbled, trying to stop crying. The weight on my chest got lighter, but somehow, it only made me cry more. "I wish we could just run. Move really far away or something." I said so quietly, into his chest that it was mostly to myself.
"Maybe, angel. Maybe." he whispered, pulling me closer and rubbing my back.
Harry's POV
I woke up at nearly three in the damn morning to my phone vibrating. I looked at the number and didn't recognize it. I looked over at Charlotte, who was still fast asleep, facing away from me. I answered the phone and walked into the bathroom so that I wouldn't bother Charlotte. "Hello?"
"Is this Harry Styles?"
"That depends. Who's this?"
"This is the West ValleySprings police department, Chief Harris speaking." My heart nearly dropped right out of my chest. How did they get my number and what did they find out about? The worst part about living the kind of life that I do is never knowing which crime is the one you're getting in trouble. It's even harder to find out without revealing other crimes that the police weren't even already aware of.
"How can I help you, Chief Harris? It's rather early in the morning." I asked, trying to act as casually as possible given the situation.
"And for that, we do apologize, Mr. Styles. It just couldn't wait. We were told that you might know something about Mr. Barker and tax fraud violations?" It felt like a thousand pound weight had been lifted off my chest. It was still extremely bad that they knew that I was at all involved or associated with Roger Barker, but this was better than them knowing that I almost murdered Alexander Andrews a few weeks ago. I realized how long it had been and I still hadn't responded.
"Oh. Uh- yeah... Yeah, I do know OF that."
"We're not interested in any of your personal info or whereabouts, Mr. Styles. Right now, we'd just like to know a few things about Mr. Barker. I know that it's really early in the morning, but we'd really appreciate it if you could come down to the station for a bit." I let out a deep breath and looked in the mirror to notice that I was getting dark circles from always being out at night. I thought that this could be one of the few nights that I'd actually get a decent amount of sleep. I was definitely wrong.
"Ok... I'll be there in about a half hour." I grumbled, hanging up while he thanked me. I turned the light off in the bathroom and put my jacket on. I was going to pull the covers a little further over Charlotte before I left because I could tell that she was cold, but then I noticed that she wasn't even asleep. She was awake. With tears in her eyes. This was starting to happen too often and I knew that it was my fault. "Charlotte..."
"I'm sorry." she whispered.
"For what, Charlotte? Don't be sorry."
"Because I miss you. I know it's your job, though. That's why you're doing it. I'm ok with it. It's just that i know it's gotten a lot worse lately because you've been gone for longer and you're coming back with worse cuts and bruises than before. So I know it's getting worse. I just worry about you. I want you to come home alive. But you go. Sorry..." she stuttered.
"Hey, it's ok." I said, climbing under the blanket for just a minute, to hold her before I left. "That's not what this is about. I'm not going to go get beaten up right now. I know that's usually the case but that's not what's happening right now. You don't need to worry, princess. The chief of the police department just called. I think you met Mr. Barker when you were coming to find me with Michael?" she nodded. "They just want to know about his tax fraud violations and everything. It's going to be ok." I smiled at her reassuringly. "I'll be back as soon as possible." She smiled at this news.
"I'm glad that you're not going to get beaten up. Hurry back. I'll miss you." she said, kissing my cheek.
"I'll miss you so much more. Believe me." I chuckled, kissing her on the lips before getting up to go.
I drove down to the station and had to go to the back, to sit in a little office with the chief who was probably as tired as I was. Nonetheless, he was pretty straightforward with his questions. I hated Roger Barker with a passion. And in addition to that, perhaps if he got thrown in federal prison, I'd be out of a sort of debt to him. "Can I ask you something?" I asked the chief as he was writing notes about the last question I answered. I was drinking coffee as I answered the question, but the chief of police had already went through four cups. It must be really hard dealing with shirt like this during the night shift. I had strong sympathy for the man.
"Anything." he said, adjusting his glasses. He was being really polite despite the fact that he probably knew what a criminal I was, myself. But, I hide it well enough to keep out of legal trouble. I save the police department some excruciating paperwork. I'm a better criminal than Roger Barker. That gave me a strange sense of satisfaction.
"How did you get my phone number? Certainly you didn't get it from Mr. Barker? We're not exactly what I'd call friendly."
"No, no. We acquired it from a young man named Michael Clifford. We knew that he was at Mr. Barker's building with a girl during the night a few weeks ago. We actually had to question him for the last couple days. Is he your friend?"
"Uh, yeah." It worried me that he knew that Charlotte was their with Michael. Hopefully, he didn't know who she was. I didn't want her to have to be involved in any of this at all. I wondered if they asked Michael about her, but I didn't want to ask that. If I did, Chief Harris would ask me about her. I bet Michael refused to answer any questions about her. I'd do the same if they asked.
"He's quite the character, isn't he?" the chief chucked to himself, still speaking about Clifford. "He didn't want to answer a single question. But that might be because he didn't want to get arrested for anything else. He's in a lot for street racing."
"Yeah." I smiled at the thought of Clifford adamantly protesting all the questions he was asked. I was finally able to leave the police station, but as I was driving home, I started to feel worse and worse about the situation. The whole thing felt really tense. Something wasn't right. I never had to talk to the police very often about stuff like this, but especially not about someone like Mr. Barker. As much as I hate to admit it, he's stronger than me or anyone I know. And I don't mean physically. Because this man is a multi-billionaire, he has hundreds of people who work for him and fight for him so that he doesn't have to. He's everything that someone like me and my people hate. We work and fight for ourselves. So we're usually outnumbered by the hundreds of men that are paid well by business men like Roger. It already felt like I had multiple sets of eyes on me. I had to pass the building on the way back to my house and I could have sworn that I saw the glint of eyes through the windows. Maybe I should have just ignored the call when I got it. Who in their right mind answers their phone at four in the morning? Me. Because it's been me who's had to go and save dying friends at ungodly times of night. I tried to ignore the gnawing fear in my stomach. It's not like anyone who works for Barker would know what I said to the chief.
I unlocked my front door and made my way upstairs. I felt like I was going to hurl, unsure of if Charlotte would still be there. Horrible things always happened to that girl when I made the wrong move. I let out the breath I had been holding when I saw her, still asleep in my bed. She was wrapped around my pillow as if it were me, which hurt me somehow. I should've been there instead of having to deal with Roger Barker's tax crimes. I took my jacket off and climbed back into bed. She woke up, her eyes barely opening, and shifted from holding the pillow to holding onto me instead. I smirked to myself and kissed her forehead. I was so incredibly tired but still had the hardest time falling asleep.
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Authors Note: Thank you all SOOOOOOO SO much for getting this to 50K reads. That's SO many people and you come from all over the world! Comment to let me know where you're from! :) I promise that the next chapter will be coming sort of soon. I love you all! :) <3 -P