Louis' POV (Still)
When I wake up for the second time, the first thing I look for is my mum. I find her sitting next to my bed, just as she promised.
I weakly attempt to sit up in the hospital bed. My mum notices that I'm awake and sets down the magazine she was reading.
"Hello, Louis," she greets me with a smile.
"Hey, Mum. Where are the lads?" I ask.
"They're outside, in the café probably. They were letting us have some time to ourselves." She says.
"Can I talk to them?"
"Sure, honey." She pecks a kiss to my forehead and leaves the room. Soon, the door opens, revealing Zayn, Harry, and Niall. My best friends who I thought I might never see again.
Happiness, or something close to it, surges through my body. I finally feel energized, renewed.
"Lads!" I exclaim. A bright smile plasters itself to my face, casting sunlight throughout the whole room.
"Hey, Louis. How are you, mate?" Harry asks.
I shrug. "I'm alright. Been better."
"We heard you broke your rib? How is it?" Zayn asks, taking a seat in a rigid hospital chair.
"It'll heal," I dismiss. I gently feel my side, touching the spot that currently hurts, assuming that's where my rib is broken.
"And your back?" Harry questions.
"Not too painful." I strongly dislike talking about myself, especially of injuries that make me seem less capable than others, so I tend to steer those conversations to something a bit more jovial.
Harry and Niall sit in the seats next to Zayn, and they all pull them closer to my bed and get situated. Niall has with him some type of sandwich, half eaten.
"I knew you lads would find me," I sigh. I can't believe this is real, I'm alive and my friends are right here, in front of me. But I know this is real. There's no doubt in my mind.
"We looked everywhere. Literally everywhere. We probably searched all of California state!" Harry exclaims.
"How did you actually find me?" I dare to ask.
Niall speaks up. "It's sort of weird...I had a dream. More of a nightmare really, that we drove past an old, rundown shack, and Liam and I ran to it and you were there. And then when I woke up, I looked out the window and saw the same shack! So we searched it and sure enough, you were in there!"
"That's so bizarre!" I say. It's unnerving how Niall had a dream of where I was. It's sort of like we are connected...like the universe is supporting our relationship.
Another thought crosses my mind. "Did you find my message on the bathroom door?"
"Yes!" Zayn says, a smile growing on his face.
"Funny story actually," Harry laughs. Zayn joins in and Niall turns beat red.
"What's so funny?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing, nothing!" Harry struggles to hush his laughter. He waves a hand in the air, "Tell him the story, Ni."
Niall obliges. "Well, I came down with the flu or God knows what, too. And I was going to throw up, so we pulled over at a rest stop, I threw up in the bathroom, and then I saw your note!"
"No way!"
Harry and Zayn start to chuckle again and Niall shoots them a questioning look. "What?" he asks.
"Nothing!" they say.
So Niall continues, with a slightly confused expression, "Okay, so then we called John, our detective, and he checked the security footage, and we saw you buying medicine from the cashier. The cashier said you were sick with the flu or something."
"Yeah, I was. It was something awful, felt like a cow had died inside of me or something. How are you, Ni? Are you better?"
"Yeah, I'm fine now. You?"
I nod my head, smiling. "Couldn't be better."
Harry and Zayn burst out in another wave of laughter and the look on Niall's face shows that he is getting frustrated because he doesn't know what they're on about.
"What is so funny?" he asks, throwing his hands into the air.
Harry struggles to speak, "Z-Zayn and I...we hahaha would l-like to know, h-how it is that both ahahahaha, that both of you were s-sick! Basically at the same time! Ahahahaha!"
Niall's face flushes a deep shade of red that begins to creep up his ears.
I look to him and he returns the stare. Silently, my eyes ask if now is a good time to tell the lads. From the sound of their hysterical laughter, they quite possibly already guessed it.
The curt nod Niall gives me is my queue to fess up.
"Well, the reason that both Niall and I were sick," I begin. Suddenly a lump grows in the back of my throat. What if they don't accept us? What if they are disgusted with us being together. My previous doubts and fears of being openly gay come creeping back, dread spreading though my chest like a lead blanket, suffocating me.
But then a new set of more reasonable thoughts push out the negative ones. These are my best friends, who should be nothing but happy for Niall and I. There's nothing to fear.
"Niall and I, we are dating."
Zayn and Harry are shocked into a silence. Niall's face is one of pure apprehension as he and I await our friends' interpretations of the news.
Then Harry and Zayn break out into applause. Hooting and hollering, Harry turns to Zayn and demands, "You owe me twenty bucks. Pay up!"
"Wait," I say. "You betted on us?!"
Harry flashes his signature cheeky grin. "Yep. Looks like I was right all along."
Zayn fishes out a twenty dollar bill from his jeans pocket and hands it over.
The relief spread across Niall's face, I have to admit, is adorable. He lays his head on my hospital bed, taking my hand in his.
Zayn asks, "So how long have you two been together?"
Niall speaks up, "We made it official the day we went to the bar. That also being the day Louis was abducted."
"But you had feelings for each other before that, right?" Harry asks.
"Oh yes, our feelings had slowly developed and evolved over the course of our month long vacation in California," I say matter of factly.
"I told Liam the other day about us, Lou. I just had to tell someone, you know?" Niall says to me.
I nod and smile. "I get it Ni. No more secrets after this." I turn to everyone. "I promise. No more secrets."
"Speaking of Liam...where is he?" I ask.
Zayn remains silent, looking to Harry and Niall. Harry looks like he's internally struggling with something. Niall looks pale as a ghost.
"Is something wrong...?"
Their silence fills the room, dimming my sunlight.
Dread fills in the pit of my stomach as I run through a list of possible things they could say are wrong.
"What's wrong?" I repeat when they hesitate to answer.
Harry speaks up. "It's Liam. He...He's run off. And we don't know where he went," he says slowly, allowing it to absorb into my brain.
Just when I thought things were going well, another bomb explodes.
"What?" I say, even though I heard him. I just can't comprehend what Harry said. The room begins to spin.
"Liam ran off. We think he may be looking for Richard. But we don't know..."
Anger floods my body. "What the hell!? How could he be so stupid!" I yell. Liam is supposed to be the sane one, the person anyone can rely on during times of trouble. He can't run off when I need him to be here.
"Calm down, Louis. We're doing all we can to find him," Zayn says.
"How could you have let him run off!?"
I hear Harry mutter to Niall, "This is why I said we shouldn't tell him yet! He's getting all riled up when he should be resting."
"Relax. I'm sure he'll turn up sometime soon," Zayn says, trying to calm me down.
Do they even know who Richard is?!? He's nothing but pure evil, without so much as a trace of good in him.
"Relax? You want me to RELAX?! Liam is out there with Richard! RICHARD! You're saying it's fine that Liam is with the man who beat me!? Whipped me!? Broke my rib!? Ra-" my throat tightens up at the thought of what I was about to say. My voice cuts off abruptly, leaving a heavy silence looming in the air. I stop thrashing and stare at the wall across from me, going numb.
My fingers begin to tingle, then my arms, legs.
"Louis? What did Richard do?" I hear someone's voice.
"Louis?" it repeats. Buzzing starts to echo through my head like a bees' nest during spring time.
I think I shake my head to get rid of the awful sound. The room tips sideways and I close my eyes to try to steady it. When I reopen them, a figure is standing above my bed, staring down at me.
It's yelling something, but I can't hear over the buzzing. I clasp my hands over my ears, but the buzzing doesn't quiet.
The figure reaches out a hand and places it on my shoulder, shaking me. Suddenly, I can make out who the figure is. It's Richard! His grip tightens and I feel his sharp nails prick my skin.
"Get off me!" I yell, thrashing wildly in the hospital bed. The blankets seem to be tangled around my legs, trapping me.
I kick harder, attempting to free myself of the tangle of blankets. I need to get them off of me and run away from the bed where Richard is standing.
But I'm trapped. I'm trapped and Richard is fucking touching me with those filthy hands, leaving filth all over my body.
"Help!" I try to scream, but my voice feels hoarse and weak, and my ears don't even register a sound.
Richard's hand travels across my arm, over my chest, and down my torso. The filth spreads everywhere, dying my skin black. I feel millions of little bugs' feet crawling over my body, my sheets, my bed.
"Help!" I repeat. Nobody can hear me. Nobody is coming to help me. Doom causes my vision to narrow, focusing only on Richard and his filth. It's everywhere. It's enclosing my world. I can't avoid it. I must succumb to it, there's no other option.
As soon as the black filth takes over my brain, the rest of the world fades and is gone.
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Author's note
OK FIRST OF ALL, I WOULD LIKE TO SAY I FEEL TERRIBLE FOR NOT UPDATING IN LIKE FOREVER! YOU GUYS/GIRLS ARE THE BEST FANS I COULD EVER ASK FOR AND I AM SO INCREDIBLY SORRY FOR NEGLECTING TO UPDATE. PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I'VE BEEN TERRIBLY BUSY. Honestly, I am trying to update quicker, and I hope nobody is loosing interest in my story because of my slow updates. That is my worst fear.
Anyways, that aside, I would also like to give a massive thanks to my fans for all the support Swapping Spit has gotten. 59.2 thousand reads and over 950 reads!!!! HOLY CRAP THAT IS AMAZING! I AM SO PROUD OF MY STORY, AND EVERYONE WHO HAS VOTED AND READ. You really have no idea how much this means to me. It's great to see people supporting your story.
I hope you enjoyed the previous chapter. The reuniting of Louis and the lads finally happened!! Well with the excepting of Liam, but that will come later. I feel like I'm putting a lot of scenes where Louis freaks out, but that's sort of what I want to happen; Louis has been through a traumatic experience and his panic attacks and anxiety are results of that. Please comment what you thought of it!! and please vote if you deem it fit. Have a good day!! :D