Disclaimer: This was written over 10 years ago, and the author no longer agrees with many of the concepts found in this story. Some of the content will be cringey and/or problematic. Please remember this is entirely fictional and does not represent the author's beliefs.
Twitter: dazzleizzy
Copyright © 2012-2023
~~
Abby's POV
I did as Harry advised last night, and began to pack a bag for when we left. It was a decent sized backpack that Harry had given to me - black, sturdy, and big enough to hold quite a few things.
Closing my eyes, I tried to remember what exactly Harry had said would be smart to pack.
There was really no telling what could come at us when we were out there, so packing everything that seemed helpful was a pretty good place to start. Of course, I had to remember that I was going to carry all this stuff on my back, so making sure it didn't get too heavy was also something I had to worry about.
Some shirts, a sweater, two pairs of pants. Extra socks, underwear, and two bras. A small blanket, neatly folded and pressed down so it wouldn't take up too much space. I considered stashing a pillow too, but quickly dismissed the idea when I realized that it would take up too much space.
When I couldn't think of anything else to pack, I headed into my bathroom to see what else we could possible need.
Towels. Yes, we needed towels, just in case. And soap.
I opened the cabinet underneath the sink, and found a couple of unopened boxes of bar soap. I grabbed one, and threw it into the backpack.
A toothbrush, and toothpaste. Toilet paper? Fuck, I had no clue what was going to happen and how we were going to use the restroom, so toilet paper was a definite necessity.
I grabbed all five spare rolls of toilet paper from under the sink, and then frowned when I realized that they were going to take so much space.
Suddenly, an idea came to mind, and I set down the rolls onto the counter and began to unroll them.
They'd take a lot less space if they were folded, and not around a roll. And so that's what I did for the next fifteen minutes or so - unrolling, folding, and packing them into my bag.
When that was done, I closed my backpack, setting it at the back of my closet, keeping it hidden just in case someone were to come inside my room.
I had kitchen duty in a few minutes - yesterday was the last day off that Liam had given me. But that was okay, because I needed to figure out exactly what we needed to pack for food afterwards my chores were done.
Closing the closet door, I exhaled in exhaustion, and then made my way to the kitchen downstairs.
~~
Harry's POV
Sunday.
They were always the slowest days in the hospital, because for some unknown reason, we never had that many events or injuries.
It was as if everyone's bodies just unanimously decided to give us a break on that one day, effectively making it a slow day at the hospital.
Usually, I'd be okay with the hospital being primarily silent, except for the Liam's occasional shuffle or cough, but today, I felt anxious, and I couldn't just sit and relax.
Instead, I was pacing back and forth, back and forth, trying to remember details that I had to do last minute, before we could leave.
Liam took notice of my restless state, asking me if I was okay, several times.
"Harry, what's gotten you all worked up?" When he asked me again, I stopped pacing.
I look away, not meeting his eyes as I lean back against the wall. "Liam, do you mind if I take a break for the rest of the day? I don't feel well." I lied.
He doesn't see through my lie, so he nods immediately. "Of course. You could have just told me, instead of pacing for the last hour like you have."
I just shrug my shoulders. "Call me if anything happens. Thanks, Doc."
"Will do. Go rest yourself, Harry."
I give him a quick, appreciative smile, and leave the hospital wing.
First things first, I needed to go to the library.
~~
Zayn's POV
My fingers played with the pen in my hands, twiddling it around as I listened to the monotonous ring of the phone that was pressed to my ear.
In front of me sat a white sheet of paper, freshly printed and ready to be signed by both Amber and I. Once I was done with this phone call, I'd call her in here, and then we could both sign the contract.
Caleb sat across from me at the conference table, his feet kicked up on the table. I'd given up on telling him to put his feet down - there was no point. Everything I asked, he'd do just the opposite. Just to piss me off.
So that he couldn't use anything against me, I masked a face of indifference at everything he did. If I didn't feed into his games, he'd eventually stop trying to piss me off.
I rolled my eyes, annoyed at the fact that no one was picking up the phone on the other side, and cursed when I was directed to voice mail.
"Fuck."
"No answer?" Caleb asks me.
"No."
He shakes his head. "Stupid fuckers. You got a fucking phone, you use it. What's the point of having one if they don't even use it?"
"I don't know."
"What are we going to do now? You know your birthday party is one of the only legitimate distractions we have to carry out the attack."
I sigh, and shake my head. "I don't know. We could move it 'till later. Make up another bogus party or some shit. You gathered people, right?"
"What else have I been doing these past few years while I was out? I literally visited and convinced everyone you said could possible help us to be on our side. We've got thousands, minimum."
I slowly nod. "Okay, good. And they're free anytime?"
"With a twenty-four hour notice." He answers.
I don't say anything, contemplating over the fact that we had a good amount of power at our disposal...we just had to figure out how to dispose it, and when.
Caleb purposely kicks a cup of pens with the edge of his foot onto the floor, and then looks to me, waiting for my reaction. I just sigh again, and close my eyes.
He squints, scrutinizing my expression. "What's wrong? You're not getting pissed off and I'm literally fucking with all of your fancy conference tables." He says, pointing to his feet that he still had up on the table.
I just shrug my shoulders, and ignore him.
"Seriously, Zayn. What's wrong with you? You're pissing me off."
I ignore him again, and set down the phone onto the table. What I really wanted to do was throw the phone against the wall, and then punch the shit out of Caleb. But I already broke one phone when I threw it against the wall after Caleb's call before the New Years' party, and the my last phone got ruined when we fell into the river at the Riverwalk.
Shit, I was going through phones faster than I thought I was.
And then I'd beat up Caleb...but he'd probably get away before I had the chance to get my hands on him.
"Zeus, whatever you fucked up with Abigail, you need to fix. It's gotten you all worked up all week long."
I clench my fists, closing my eyes. "Stop calling me that, dumbass. And her name is Abby."
"Then go fucking talk to her! For fuck's sake, you owning a shitload of slaves, you'd think that you wouldn't be such a coward."
I can feel myself shake with anger, and I don't know how much longer it will be before I seriously give him a black eye. Or two. "Shut the fuck up, Caleb."
"Coward." Caleb glares at me again, and stands up. "You're a coward, and you know it."
"Shut up." I growl, standing up. If I ended up hitting him, I won't even care. He was asking for it.
"Coward." He challenged me again, a stupid fucking smirk on his face.
I blink once, and the phone that I had set the table goes flying across the room, hitting the wall and breaking to pieces to the floor.
I stormed out of the fucking room, away from the shit that was my brother, my breath coming out quick and shallow.
Fuck, I thought. There goes another phone.
As I headed upstairs so that I could go out on the balcony undisturbed, there was only one word repeating in my head, over and over again, in Caleb's voice.
Coward.
~~
Amber's POV
"Here, Abby." I said, passing her the dishes I'd already scrubbed down. All she had to do was rinse them, and then eventually dry and put them away.
She took them from me silently, as if she was somewhere in another world, consumed by her own thoughts. We didn't talk much as we worked, but it didn't bother me, because it gave me time to think.
Niall.
Niall.
I've been trying to subdue the panic that was slowly rising because of Niall's behavior recently, but it was slowly rising up to where I could no longer ignore it. It was there, lurking in the shadows, and no matter how hard I tried to push it away and to ignore it, it hung over me like a dark cloud.
There was something wrong with Niall, but he wouldn't tell me.
As I picked up a dirty saucepan from one of the counters and brought it back to the sink to scrub, I tried to recount the events leading up to his abnormal behavior.
Everything was fine right before the New Years' party. Everyone was busy with getting prepared - myself included. Once my makeup team and dress up crew left my room, Niall stopped by.
He seemed a bit nervous then, but I had dismissed it as pre-competition nerves or whatever. He was probably feeling a bit anxious before competing.
We shared a few kisses, and then took off for ballroom.
When we reached the ballroom, Niall was called in by Sir for a quick meeting, supposedly. He went, and came back some time later. Now that I think about it, he was probably gone for a good half hour - which I felt was a little too long for a "quick" meeting.
Maybe something happened then?
I don't notice that I'm finished scrubbing off the dried food from the saucepan until a finger jabs me softly in the side.
"You done with that?" Abby asks me, pointing to the pan.
"Oh, yeah, sorry." I apologize, forcing a smile onto my face as I placed the pan in Abby's side of the sink. "I guess I was too absorbed elsewhere."
She brushes off my apology, teasingly shaking her head. "I know how you feel. Same here, girl, same here."
I let out a sigh, and nod. There's more dirty cutlery on another counter at the other side of the kitchen, so I turn and make my way to retrieve them.
Oh, Niall. What the hell is wrong?
Maybe it's not something he did. Maybe it's something I did? Did I say anything to offend him? Did he feel like I was rubbing me winning in his face too much?
That can't be it...I only talked about it a bit, in the beginning. Besides, didn't he expect that the prize I'd choose would be all because of him? Did he not get the implication of my intentions with him?
I let out a frustrated groan, and dropped the utensils I'd gathered into the sink.
When I look over, Abby has a frown on her face, her eyebrows creased as if she was deep in thought.
"Well, at least this is the last bit of dishes we have to do." I say quietly, in attempt to cheer myself and her up. "We're almost done."
She nods, and lets out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, yes."
I need to talk to Niall. Why should I be afraid? I mean, what's the worst case scenario? We have a fight? Easily resolved, right? No biggie, I hoped.
When I finished the last of the dishes and handed them over to Abby for rinsing, I pulled off my plastic gloves, setting them to the side. A few strands of hair had come loose from the ponytail I'd tied, so I pulled out the hair band and re-fixed it.
"Are you good? Do you need help with anything else?" I asked Abby, just before I left. I didn't want to leave her downstairs in the kitchen all by herself if she needed anything.
"No, thank you." She shook her head, a genuine smile on her face. "Thank you though, Amber. You're the best."
"Anytime."
When the elevators open to take me to the main floor, I decide that the first thing I'm going to do is to talk to Niall.
~~
Abby's POV
When Amber was gone, I could finally breathe. Not that she was overbearing or anything - because she was far from that. Amber was one of the sweetest people I've met here, and she has a kind and genuine heart unlike anyone elses'.
But I needed the kitchen to myself so that I could figure out what we could take with us for food.
Anything non-perishable sounded pretty good to me, with the exception of how heavy it was and how much space it would take.
Once I finished putting away the dishes I'd rinsed, I stepped into the pantry closet. There were rows and shelves of different foods and spices and other things, so I hesitated.
And then, an idea popped into mind when my eyes caught a bag of walnuts stored right next to the almonds.
First things first, granola nut bars. They were easy and simple to make, and we could pack a bunch of those because they'll keep our stomachs full for long periods of time. That, and they won't go bad.
Once I roasted the mixture of nuts, some granola, sprinkled cinnamon and vanilla and added a bit of sugar to the pot and mixed them together, I turned off the stove, and dumped the contents into a pan. These would bake for a good twenty minutes, so I immediately stuck them in the oven as to not waste time.
I had to do everything quickly, and inconspicuously, so that meant cleaning after myself and washing and putting away the dishes so that no one would notice anything had been used.
Once again I found myself in the pantry, digging for items that could be useful. Anything that I could store away right now, and that wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday night.
I found myself with a couple bags of chips, cookies, and packs of dehydrated and packaged food in my arms, and then I realized that I had to have some place to put them in.
It took me another five minutes to find plastic bags that I could throw the stuff in, but when I did, I put in the packages carefully as to not crush the food, and then rushed back to the oven where the granola bars were ready.
When I pulled them out, they smelled amazing. I resisted the temptation of taking a bite, knowing we had to save it for later. Sticking the pan into the freezer seemed like a good idea, since I needed the granola nut bars to cool down before I could section them off into rectangles and package them with plastic saran wrap.
All the while I was gathering these things, my heart raced. I was worried for the fact that at any moment, someone could walk in here, and question what I was doing, and that would blow the whole cover off. So as a safety precaution, I left the bagful of snacks back in the closet as I waited for the granola to cool down.
My heart stops when I hear footsteps, and I immediately panic, my eyes flicking back to the entrance of the kitchen.
"Fuck," I curse.
It's Caleb.
"Hey, Abby!" He calls when he sees me.
My heart is pounding a million times a minute, and I sputter. "H-hi?"
He runs a hand through his dark hair, walking in my direction. "What are you doing here? How are you? How've you been?"
"I-I I was on dish duty." I stutter. "And I'm okay, I guess."
"Dish duty?" He asks, raising his eyebrow. There's no tone of suspicion in his voice though. Just curiosity. "Seems like you've finished with that."
I just nod, not knowing what the fuck to say.
"What's that?" He asks, pointing to the tray of cooling granola on the table. "It smells amazing."
"Thank you." I smile. "They're granola bars...well, not yet. I still need to section them and cut them apart and..." I begin to ramble, only to be cut off by Caleb.
"I get it." He laughs. "But how come you made so much? That's a lot of food."
I freeze at his question, unsure of how to answer. "Um, I like granola bars?" I lie.
He raises his eyebrow, as if he doesn't believe me. "But that's a shitload of granola right there."
I just shrug my shoulders, and nervously laugh it off. Fuck, he's going to say something.
"What are you doing down here?" I ask all of a sudden, trying to divert the attention from me.
Now he shrugs. "Zayn was being a prick. And I was hungry, and I wanted food. Well, I got lucky, I guess, because there granola bars smell amazing." He chuckles, and then breaks off a large piece from the edge.
"Wait! They're not ready!" I protest, grabbing his wrist.
He pulls his hand away from my grasp, and gives me a confused glance. "It's okay, Abby, I don't care. I just wanted to try it. Sheesh, woman."
"They have to cool down-"
He rolls his eyes at me, and pops a whole chunk in his mouth. I stand there, lips parted in shock or fear or anxiousness, watching him as he devoured the entire piece of granola he'd broken off.
When he's finished chewing and swallowing, he looks back at me with an approving grin. "They really are good. Good thing you made a lot, you can bet I'll be eating them." He states.
"But they have to be stuck into the fridge first!" I protest, and he laughs, putting his hands up in surrender.
"Okay, okay. Put them away. I thought a kind-hearted woman like you would find sympathy for me and feed me like the hungry asshole I am."
I don't know what to say to him, so I laugh, and shake my head. "I don't sympathize with a fat ass like you." I joke, and then quickly put away the pan into the fridge before he could steal more pieces. I needed as much granola as there was - he'd already eaten a large portion of it.
His jaw drops in surprise, and then he bursts into contagious laughter. "Oh my goodness, Abby. I like you. That was good, I have to admit." He says in between bouts of laughter.
"I try." I flash him a grin, and he just shakes his head, still rumbling with laughter.
--
Goodness, it took him forever to leave. For-fucking-ever.
But when Caleb finally stalked out, I hastily pulled out the pan from the fridge, which had completely cooled, cut the pieces of granola with a spatula, and then proceeded to individually wrap each rectangle with the clear plastic saran wrap. When I was done, there ware about 12 bars, which was a pretty decent amount. They wouldn't last forever, but until we could find a food source, they'd have to do.
I threw them into another plastic bag, just like the ones with chips and cookies in them, and set them in the closet.
One last thing that we needed to take, just in case.
A couple knives.
You never know when they could come in handy, so I pulled out a few small, sharp knives, wrapped them in napkins so that they wouldn't accidentally poke through the bag or cut anybody, and then placed them into another plastic bag.
When everything was done, I grabbed the three bags, and rushed out of the kitchen, knowing that very soon, the chefs would be coming in to prepare dinner for everyone.
~~
Harry's POV
It was Monday before I got to speak to Abigail again. The entire mansion was busy again, just like before New Years', everyone bustling about the party.
I snuck into her run, closing the door behind me, closing my eyes, and slipping down to the floor as I tried to calm my breathing. it was such a risk to take to come see her during the day, when I knew Zayn could come by any moment.
But it was a risk I was willing to take.
That, and I had the feeling that he'd be too much of a coward to face up to his own mistakes and come apologize to Abby.
Apologize? I snort. Yeah, right. I'd like to see the day when the bastard would do that.
"Harry?" Abby's small voice comes from her bathroom as she steps out of it and into her room.
"Hey, Abby." I quickly shift my weight onto my hands and push myself upwards so that I could stand up.
"Hey." She half-smiled, coming out more of a grimace than anything.
"You ready for tomorrow night?" I ask, my voice low and hushed.
She nods. "I packed everything you told me to."
I give her an approving nod. "Good. What else?"
She motions with her head for me to follow her, and so I do. Abby leads me into her bathroom, and then into her closet. She stops walking when she reaches the very end of her closet, and then squats down. Her hands come up to push aside the clothing that was hung, and then pulls out a plastic bag from behind.
Her hands fumble with the knot on the plastic bag, but when she finally opens it, she lets me peek inside.
"Food?"
She nods.
"Well, shit. I didn't actually think of that." I admit honestly. "I guess two heads are better than one."
"These won't go bad, either. While we're out there."
I don't say anything, I just nod again. She quickly puts the food away and hides it behinds her clothes again, and I make my way out of her closet.
"Okay, I pulled several maps from the books in the library, so we kind of have an idea where we're going." I explain.
"Where are we going, actually? Do you have an idea?" Her voice once again comes out small, as if she's timid.
I nod. "We'll easily get lost in the City. No one will be able to find us. That, and we'll have someone waiting for us there. They're okay with us crashing there for a night or two, and then we'll continue on our way from there."
Abby clearly hesitates, and crosses her arms. "I'm-I'm worried."
My bottom lip juts out in a pout, and then I frown. "About what?"
"Everything. About getting caught. About not getting caught. About going somewhere I don't know."
With a quick stride, I close the distance between us, and pull my arms around her. I press my lips to her hair, and pull her tightly against me.
"Listen, Abby. I know you're nervous, but we have to go. You have to find your brother, right? And I need my freedom. I can't live like this forever." I speak in a calm, convincing tone. I needed to convince her. She had to come. She couldn't have cold feet, she couldn't back out last minute. I've never felt so novaturient in my entire life as much as I did in this moment. I needed a change, and the only way was to pick up and leave here forever.
"But-" She begins, her voice full of worry.
"Shh," My lips whisper into her hair. "Everything's going to be fine. Trust me. You'll be okay. I'll keep you okay. Alright?"
She nods, and then her arms come around my torso and return my hug. "Alright."
It's maybe a minute later that I realize that I've been in here too long, and I don't want to risk us getting caught together. It would ruin everything. So, I pull away.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning, then. I have to go finish some stuff." I tell her, and take a step backwards towards Abby's door.
She gives me a quick nod, and a smile. "Alright. See you tomorrow, Harry. Thank you again."
I give her a thumbs-up, and then step outside of her door.
~~