"Alright, listen up!" I hear Liam say loud and clear from the kitchen. I was in the living room, laying down on the couch watching the ceiling fan and he had been in the kitchen for the past thirty minutes, taking note of what was missing. "I need someone to do a shop run." I perk up at this.
"Niall and I went last time." Louis points out, sitting on the now empty space on the couch. He took a big swig of his beer before he finishes it and raises the bottle up. "We're out of beer, might wanna write that down, Payno."
"I can go." I volunteer making them look at me as if I said some kind of a joke. But it wasn't a joke. In my eighteen years of being alive, never did my parents take me grocery shopping. In fact, my parents never went grocery shopping. They had people for that because it was safer. I was born in that house and I stayed in that house, only ever leaving when things got bad and then I would go right back.
"You say that to tight ass over there and he might just murder you." Louis remarked from beside me, snickering a laugh.
"It's just groceries, where am I going to run to?" Styles has already made it his point that I was not meant to be on my own. Given, the first time I tried to escape him I almost got raped and maybe even murdered. He was right, I couldn't trust anyone.
Especially him.
"Tell you what, Valentina and I will go so she can get some time away from you fuckers." Zayn speaks up as he enters the room. He nods for me to stand up and follow so I do, a smile on my face. As soon as we reach the front door, Styles comes downstairs noticing Zayn and I by the door.
He furrows his eyebrows. "Where do you think you're going?"
"We're going to get groceries." I answer and he looks to Zayn in question.
"And what makes you think you get a say if she goes or not?"
"She's been locked up in here for over a week, give her a break." Zayn retorts, looking irritated but so did Styles.
"A break?" He comes down the stairs and stands in front of us, intimidating as ever. "You know damn well why we can't give her 'a break'."
Zayn sighs in annoyance. "We need groceries today." Liam says, breaking the tension. "You either go or don't but Valentina has to be fed and so do we."
"She goes where I go." Styles remarks, pushing past us making me stumble. When he sees I'm not behind him, he looks at me expectantly. "Either you come with or you stay but you're not going to get to leave the house again."
"I was going with Zayn." I cross my arms and stand close to him making Styles glare at me.
"Change of plans, birdie. You've got driving lessons today." Birdie? I hear Zayn let out an annoyed sigh before turning to me.
"I'll see you when you get back." He tells me before glaring at Styles and leaving upstairs. I look back to notice the guys looking at us as if this conversation called for them.
"What?" Styles barked and they look away. Liam came over to me and gave me a list of groceries to buy but Styles snatched it from his hands and walked out the door. At this, Liam gives me a sympathetic look and walks away.
As I got inside the familiar car, I put my seatbelt on, cross my legs and my arms and look straight ahead, ignoring the fact that he kept his seatbelt off. The dinging sound of the seatbelt and the loud AC getting on my nerves as he drove. "You're strangely silent today, I didn't think you even knew what silence was." He says, keeping his gaze to the road ahead making me look away out the window. He was an asshole towards me just last night, now he's expecting for me to speak to him? "If you're upset that I took time away from you being with your boyfriend—"
"Zayn and I are just friends!" I raise my voice, already irritated with him. "I shouldn't have to even explain myself to you, what do you care?"
"I don't." He shrugs. "I just think it's weird how you say you're just friends yet you stare at each other."
"Staring at each other does not mean we're anything more than friends. I stare at you and we're not even friends." I say and he stays quiet before speaking once more.
"Whatever you say, Birdie." I ignore him and continue looking outside the tinted window. When we get to the grocery store, we get everything on the list, Styles keeps a close eye on me to make sure I didn't try anything but I had no motivation to mess with him. Being around him drained me of any energy that even going up to an employee to ask where they keep the fabric softener was such a hassle.
The car ride back was silent and as soon as we get to the house, we take out the groceries out of the trunk in silence too. His phone rings in the middle of this which made him stop helping and look at the phone screen. He mumbles something under his breath. "Are you going to help?" I remark, bags at my hands.
"Shit," He says and takes out all the bags before he closes the trunk in a hurry. "Get inside, I'll be back."
"What? Where are you going?" I ask in disbelief but he only gets in the car and speeds off, leaving me with all the bags of groceries littered around my feet.
—
The guys ended up helping with the groceries and I helped put them away. We made dinner, or more like I made dinner and then I decided on going to my room to take a shower and hopefully get some rest. As I said, being with Styles drained me physically and mentally. His mood swings and the sarcastic remarks confused me and gave me headaches which made me just want to sleep and cocoon myself in my blanket and never come out.
I guess being locked up again, not being able to see my dad, mom or my sister, not being able to call them got to me. I cried for half of my shower and thinking about the way Styles was such a fucking dick also bothered me. I hated him, sometimes at night I'll actually have nightmares and they all have everything to do with him screaming at me and holding a gun to my head.
I was afraid of him and if he had fears, he'd be afraid of him too.
After my shower, I brush my teeth and leave my hair to air dry. It had been hours since Styles had left, where could he have gone? Maybe he paid someone else a visit, maybe he killed someone and is out there burying the body. I ignored my racing thoughts and got in bed, stretching my limbs and yawning. As I was about to close my eyes, there was a light knock on the door making me look towards it.
"Come in." I say, getting under the blanket. When the door opens it was Zayn in a pair of grey sweats and a black tank top. I was surprised to see him in here but I smile at him and sit up.
"Sorry," He says, coming inside the room. He closes the door behind him and walks towards my bed. "Did I wake you?"
I shake my head no. "I was just about to sleep but I don't think I'll be able to with them shouting downstairs." I say, still hearing Liam argue with Louis and Niall about something. Zayn chuckles. He motions to the empty spot next to me, silently asking if he can sit down. "Sit." I scoot and pat the spot.
He places the laptop he had in his hands in front of us. "Yeah, there's no reasoning with them when they argue. I don't even know what it is they're mad about." He explains. "I was going to watch a few movies to drown them out. Want to watch them with me?"
"Of course, I love movies." I grin. "Sometimes I'd even sneak my iPad back in my room after downloading movies so I could watch them offline without my father knowing but I always got caught." I reminisce and Zayn laughs.
"Who knew you were such a rebel?" He taunts. "You can choose if you'd like." He says as he passes me the laptop. I take my time scrolling through Netflix until I finally settle for Marley & Me, completely forgetting how sad this movie was.
"I've never had a dog before." I say making Zayn stop the movie and look towards me.
"Are you joking?" He asks in disbelief, his answer completely different than Styles was, Zayn actually cared about what I had to say. I proceed on telling him about the guard dogs we had that I was never allowed to touch and he told me about a black Labrador he had as a kid before he went missing. After our stories, we continued watching the movie, getting to the part where Marley dies and by the end of the movie, I was a sobbing mess.
"I love that stupid dog so much." I say, almost choking on my tears. I saw his eyes close as he laughed and hugged me for comfort. We stayed like this for a while, I let myself be engulfed by him and his scent before the door was opened by none other than Styles. He sees as Zayn backs up and looks to me, noticing my red face and tears.
"What did you say to her?" He glares at Zayn making him raise a brow.
"I didn't say anything, we were watching a movie." He admits.
"We watched Marley & Me." I add, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. Styles looked from me to Zayn before he looked at his wrist where his watch was.
"It's late." He says. "I think it's time for you to go to sleep, you have training in the morning." All I ever did was wake up early, practice shooting and loading a gun and sleep early.
"I'm not a child, I'll sleep whenever I want." I bite back before Zayn stands from the bed.
"He's right, you should get some sleep." Zayn says. "We'll watch more movies tomorrow though."
"Okay." I smile at him. When he kneels down to my face my heart stops. Was he going to kiss me? I closed my eyes and I hear him chuckle lightly and as his lips touched my cheek, my eyes open.
"Good night, Valentina." He says with a cheeky smile before walking towards the door right past Styles who was glaring at him. He turned to me with the same scowl on his face.
"Go to sleep." He demands and shuts the door a bit too harsh behind him and locks it.