Harry.
The air had left my lungs as soon as the car door slammed on her pleading face. Paul slammed an arm in front of my chest, stopping me from running up to the fleet of cars already leaving the scrap yard. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop them, or even catch up with them but I had to at least try, even if it was pointless. I watched in horror as they disappeared back into the city and out of sight.
“Why are we just standing here? Why aren’t we going after them?!” I yelled, spinning around on my heels to look at my fellow South family members. I was raging, the frown lines on my forehead pulsating through my skin. I gritted my teeth together and faced Paul who looked just as furious as I did.
“We’re not having a showdown in the middle of London, in the middle of the day.” He seethed eventually, making my rage even more prominent. I was shaking my head furiously as he spoke.
“No.” I snapped straight back. “It’s happened in broad daylight once before, it can happen again.”
“Harry, we’ll get her back but we need to think about this properly. If we just dive straight in, well who knows what could happen.”
“You think I care?”
“I think you do, you’re just angry and not thinking straight.”
I sighed heavily, Louis was right. I reached my hands around the back of my neck resting my head lazily into my palms. I breathed deeply, looking around at everyone else whom seemed to be prepping to leave again. I stopped looking around when my eyes landed on her mum, she was stood right near me, trembling like a leaf. She resembled Lennon in some aspects, she wasn’t very tall unlike Lennon. They had the same face shape, but not the same features unfortunately.
“C’mon, let’s get you home.” I reassured her, as I approached her shaking figure. She stepped back, away from me. I dreaded to think what the East had put her through, but I could imagine it wasn’t something nice. Which only made me more anxious about Lennon. She stood her ground and it worried me to think it could result in her getting into some serious danger. I mentally prayed she didn’t do anything reckless.
“Home?” The lady whispered, her eyes widening at the prospect of my statement. I looked at her in concern. I stopped walking before I reached her frail frame. She cowered away, trying to make herself as small as possible.
I nodded slowly. “Home. Where you live?” My voice rising slightly as I proposed a question to herself and to myself. She looked even more confused this time. “Where do you live?” I asked softly. Paul had now joined my side, his face was neutral trying to diffuse any fear we might have spread.
She shook her head feverishly, stepping away from the both of us. Paul looked over at me sceptically. I didn’t know what to do next, she clearly wasn’t well, whether this was normal for her or whether this was due to what had happened recently, I didn’t know.
I stepped forward again hesitantly and reached my hand out to her. I waited for her to accept but she looked petrified. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. We’re Lennon’s friends.” I tried to use comforting words but she remained uneasy.
“I don’t know a Lennon.” She replied, slapping my hand away viciously and stepping further back. Louis walked over after witnessing what was happening. He stood several feet behind her in case she tried to runaway. We weren’t going to take her captive, I just wanted to get her home and safe.
“Your daughter?” I asked rhetorically. We all looked taken back by what she said. Was she playing dumb or did she really not know who Lennon was? She continued to shake her head, which only confused us more. I didn’t want to waste any more time in which we could be using to save Lennon on standing here, not getting anywhere. “Tell us where you live, and we’ll take you home.”
“No.” She whimpered as I closed the distance between us with long strides. Louis approached carefully from behind. I stopped right in front of her and placed my hands gently on her trembling shoulders. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want you to be safe. Please tell us where you live so we can take you back.” I pleaded thoughtfully.
I sighed deeply when she shook her head again and looked for an escape. As she glanced around at the world, at reality she looked completely lost. It suddenly occurred to me, she was looking at the Earth as if she hadn’t seen it in ages. I gently took her hand, but tight enough that when she tried to flinch away my grip was still loosely there. I took her other hand in my spare one too and slowly rolled up the sleeves on her stained jacket. She watched me intensely as I found what I was looking for. I spun the bracelet on her wrist around and read the address.
“C’mon, let’s get you home.” I repeated, however this time I meant it fully.
We got back two hours after we had left, one person down. It had taken a little while to return Lennon’s mum, Rose, back to her care home but the nurses were beyond relieved to see her again. The police had even been called, of course. They looked terrified of our presence but she was returned in good health nonetheless. Rose was shaking the whole ride over there but she looked ever so slightly relieved as she walked back inside her home.
I didn’t like showing emotions often but when Rose didn’t even acknowledge her own daughter it pulled on the strings in my heart. I couldn’t imagine how it felt for Lennon herself.
“Now what?” I asked, chuffing as I sat down on one of the kitchen stools, around the table along with everyone else. The girls were watching hesitantly from the side lines, stood behind their boyfriends. I bit my lip, waiting for anyone to answer. But no one did. We didn’t know what to do next because this had never happened before.
“No one has any ideas?” I laughed sarcastically and glared around the room. Everyone looked a little surprised at my strained voice. “Paul?”
“I suggest we wait, we don’t know where they’ve taken her but I’m sure they’ll be wanting something else soon.”
“Wait?!” I spat back out, rising from my seat. “You want me to just sit back and wait? Who knows what they’re doing to her right now!”
“Harry,” he replied calmly. “We don’t have a starting point, let alone a finishing point. We’ll figure it out. Let’s just think rationally before diving in.”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m not going to just wait when she’s probably being to-“
“Harry!” Eleanor shouted across the room, taking everyone by surprise. “Don’t think like that. She’ll be fine.”
“She’s right,” Louis added, agreeing with his girlfriend. “This is Lennon we’re talking about. She made it this far on her own, she can make it past this.”
“What if she does something stupid?”
“She’s not stupid Harry.” Paul spoke above the rest of us.
I ran my fingers through my hair furiously. To comprehend why I was feeling so riled up by the whole situation would mean facing my inner demons and I wasn’t willing to let my inner self show.
“The first thing we need to do is figure out where they took her.” Paul continued to speak, he directed his voice towards Zayn who was nodding in agreement.
“I’ll get right on it,” he replied, leaving the table and disappearing further into the house. Perrie stayed put however, Zayn worked best alone and in silence. The more he could concentrate, the sooner we could save her, I promised after all. My own words haunted my mind. How could I promise to rescue her when we didn’t even know where to begin?
“Then we work out a plan,” Paul continued, the others nodding too. I sighed and nodded as well. “As for now, there isn’t a lot more we can do. We’re not going to start a gang war over this, are we clear?” He shot out, but I could tell it was aimed at me. Everyone agreed again, but we all knew in the end that to solve the case of Lennon Rae, something had to go down, something big that could change the face of how London was run forever.
I left the kitchen quickly after that and stumbled up the stairs, my mind stirring with thoughts, ideas and mindless nothingness. I tried to think where they would take her. They’re headquarters? Too obvious, but it could be highly likely. Other than that the only place I could fathom would be their shipment area but that was just a warehouse on the outskirts of town, or in other words a perfect place to hide a kidnaped person.
I sub-consciously walked into the bedroom I hadn’t been in all week. I didn’t hate Lennon, I wasn’t avoiding her for such reasons, but something more serious. I slowly walked across the room, her scent lingered ever so slightly in the air. Anyone could smell like vanilla but she made it her own. She made it eerie, lustful, beautiful and innocent, just like herself.
I rested against the windowsill. My fingers brushed across a piece of paper that was lying lifeless on the surface. It had been crossed out and scribbled all over but the writing underneath was still evident. The breath caught in my throat as I recognised the page. I squeezed my eyes shut as I reminisced the first time I had read the words.
I jumped when I heard a faint cough from behind me. I shot my eyes open and looked over my shoulder. Louis was stood in the doorway, I nodded, letting him in. He made his way over to me and looked out the window, as did I.
“How the fuck are we going to find her?” I gulped visibly, shaking my head, the paper in my hand crumbling at my touch. Louis turned to look at me, sympathy etched across his features.
“We’ll find her, not instantly but we will.”
“I don’t think we have all that much time.” I admitted unwillingly. I looked helplessly down at my feet, closing my eyes tightly. “Do you think we should have told her?”
“Told her who she really is?”
“I think she’s knows who she really is, just not where she comes from.”
“I don’t know,” he sighed as he answered honestly.
“But it’s too late now.”
“She’s going to find out now anyway. She’ll either find out herself or they’ll tell her.”
“Or will they-“
“Don’t think about what they might do. Focus on what we’re going to do.”
“I can’t help it. We’ve left her in the dark and now she’s in even more trouble than before. We should have just told her straight up everything.”
“You don’t know how she would have reacted though.”
I contemplated his words. She didn’t strike me as the person to go on a rampage, or to lose herself even after she found out where she’s from. But there’s no certain way to tell. We didn’t know each other that well, or dare I say, I didn’t know her that well. She knew more about myself than most and it scared me.
I turned around and rested against the window, my eyes still solemnly closed shut. “I was just trying to project her.”
“From herself?”
“Mostly, yes.” I replied, cracking my eyes back open. “Where do you think she is?”
“My best bet would be somewhere far away from London right now.”
“You don’t think they would have taken her to a different country do you?”
“They could have done anything, I really don’t know.”
“Zayn better find out soon.”
“It’s Zayn, he knows what he’s doing.” He replied sharply and abruptly stopped the conversation for the time being.
Louis mirrored my position before taking the paper, which was now screwed into a ball from my hand. “It’s from her journal.” I stated as he unfolded it and started decoding the words underneath the harsh lines she had added recently. I knew I was the reason for the graffiti across her own words. He read it for several solid minutes, most likely decoding the words and taking in everything she had written and projected. He licked his lips as he stared at it in deep thought.
“There’s more, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” I spoke, as he remained fixated on the paper. He was turning it around, reading the letters doodled up and down the side of the lonely page. “There was so much more.”
“When did she write this?” He questioned wearily.
“I don’t know.” I answered honestly, shaking my head.
The silence returned as he handed the paper back to me, contemplating his own thoughts. The rest of the house was silent. The bedroom door still wide open but no voices could be heard, no footsteps, it was peculiar and unsettling. Walking into the house you could tell something was off.
“It’s like she’s watched my whole life play out.” I started, “She knows me inside out, but I don’t know her. She barely knows herself.”
“It’s not a bad thing that she knows about you.”
“It scares me. I didn’t tell her any of these things. How does she know any of this? How did she know about my family?”
“Harry, you know the answer to that. You know where she comes from. You both know things about each other that one another didn’t know. When she finds out she’ll probably be even more scared than you. Her demons are worse than yours.”
“She doesn’t even realise what’s she capable of.”
“Yet,” he cut in.
“She thought this was all mindless thoughts, but it’s all true. Every last word, every last detail.”
“She scares you doesn’t she?” I replied by nodding. “You scare her too.”
“But not for the right reasons.”
“Are there any right reasons?”
The deathly silence returned again as we both gathered our own thoughts. All I wanted was to protect a girl from the life she didn’t deserve, but I had ruined that. I couldn’t protect her because right now, everyone else was one step ahead of us and we were lagging behind. We were normally on top of our game, protecting our side but this was more than just rivalry between gangs. This was much more, we were fighting against the top of the chain.
“I never realised you felt so strongly about her.” Louis marvelled casually. I titled my head to look at him, raising my eyebrow at him. He smiled briefly before patting my back.
“I promised I’d save her.”
“I think you promised her a lot more. I’ve never seen you worked up so much over a girl.”
“She’s not just a girl though is she?” I questioned rhetorically. “She’s Lennon.”
“You’re like fire and fire.”
“You mean fire and water?”
“No, fire and fire. You ignite one another.”