==Twenty-Three==
[Harry’s POV]
“I told you, he’s refusing!” I shouted for what felt like the fifth time today, “Is the language barrier too much for you? Jesus Christ! Niall. Is. Not. Coming. We. Have. To. Go. To. Him!” My fists hit the table I was standing at, and the agency members, including the lady who I’ve been reporting to all jumped back. She never told me her name, and at this point in time, I wasn’t interested in ever knowing it because after all of this was said and done, I’d just kill her and move on with my life. I was just using for her for fame after the war, but surely, she anticipated that.
“You need to calm down.” She spoke, giving me a minute to regain myself, “Fine. We’ll all go to this Niall Hybrid. But the ones who’ve been training are coming too. We get him on our side and then we leave immediately after. We’ve waited far too long, alright?” Her words were cold and had no emotion in them. I watched as she stood and followed when she started down the hallway I had just came through. Her bodyguards followed as well, and so did a few other men and women who had black gear from head to toe. It was strange.
They didn’t speak to me for the entire trip back to England, and the journeys back and forth have been exhausting me, but luckily, I wouldn’t have to go back since this was the last time. The next day it was sunny and hot, different from the usual clouds and wind we’ve been having. I suppose it was a nice change.
***
“Go get your friends and the other two, and meet us in the center of the field.” The woman spoke, turning around.
“Which field?” I said, stopping her.
“The one where you found Louis’ lab coat.” And then she left me once again, so I made my way to the park to gather Liam and Ed. When I got there, no one was in sight so I shouted out, calling their names.
“Yo, Ed, Liam! C’mon out, punks!” As soon as I shouted their names, they stepped out of the trees. They both had these smug looks on their faces, “We gotta catch one last Hybrid.”
[Zayn’s POV]
“You think he’s serious?” I asked, “You really think he’s gonna come back with those French folk?” I was growing more nervous with Niall’s lack of worrisome. He was acting like nothing was going to happen, and we knew how capable Harry was.”
“No. He’s n –” Before Niall could finish there was a knock at the door, and I just knew it was Harry. I just knew it. Niall didn’t move, but watched as I gravitated to the door and opened it.
“Sup losers?” Harry shouted, barging into my house, with Ed and Liam following him shortly, “Just gonna cut to the chase, you two are gonna follow us with no questions and you’re gonna join the fight when you talk to the agency. Okay, let’s go.” Then he ran out of my back patio, and oddly enough, Niall started following him, so I followed suite.
Harry took us through the forest that was my backyard and when we broke through, we were back at the open field with the cabin in it. Both Niall and I tensed when we saw where we were, and I felt my throat lock shut when my eyes drifted to the large group of people dressed in black. Harry spoke out to the group who was across the field, “The blonde’s Niall, and the tanned one is his human boyfriend, Zayn.”
Before anyone said anything, the group of people from across the field started laughing and it really pissed me off. When the laughter subsided there was a female voice calling back to us, “Meet me in the middle of the field.” Her voice was so bitter and heartless. I didn’t want to move, but Ed grabbed a hold of my arm and forced me to move with the rest of them. We got to the middle and the woman was clenching a gun rather tightly, and had another one strapped to her back, and suddenly I got ten times more nervous about this whole situation.
“So you’re Niall.” Her voice was quiet, “You’re the one who refuses to join us?”
“Yep.” Niall was bitter, “I’m that guy.”
“I respect your ability to hold true to what you believe. You’re very much like Harry over here. You’re pretty strong, aren’t you? If I’m correct, you killed – or thought – you killed Liam, here, yes?” Niall nodded to her words and she continued to speak, but she spoke to the crowd behind her, “Which one of you wants to tell our friend Niall here what our purpose is?”
“To rebel again America, proving that machinery is a weapon of the past, and that Hybrids are the future.” A voice I had never heard before spoke within the crowd.
“Care to come show yourself?” The lady in front of us hollered, and then within seconds a young boy stepped out of the crowd, revealing himself. “You, sir, are incorrect.” She then raised her gun, took a second to aim, and shot a bullet straight into the middle of his forehead. It took about three seconds for the boy to drop dead, blood pooling around him. There were screams and I could see Harry’s face harden since he was standing just opposite of me.
“What are you doing?” This was Harry who screamed, but all he was given as a response was a sick laugh, “Don’t fucking laugh at me!”
“You see,” The lady began, speaking to everyone in the field, “The agency you all are working for, did, indeed work for Doctor Louis Tomlinson, but we weren’t planning on ever helping him. Our agency agreed to help Tomlinson and agreed to his idea of war again America just so we could destroy his work from the inside. Our agency originally had ties over in America. For the past, however many years, we’ve been feeding the President across seas all your information. See, he knew about the war before any of you did. But there was never going to be a war because our agency’s main purpose was, and is, to slaughter all Hybrids created Louis Tomlinson, and we were going to do so before we ventured off to America. So, I’ve gathered you all here this afternoon so that myself and my fellow agency members can kill you all. And Harry, thank you for making our job just that much easier by gathering all the Hybrids for us.”
The lady started walking back towards the larger group, releasing as many bullets as she could. I saw Hybrid’s dropping seconds after they were hit. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. Ed and Liam had bolted forward towards the group, going in to help fight. Harry stood just like me, frozen, but frozen for different reasons. Niall stood with his hands clenched. His face was cold and more pale than usual. He was livid.
“Harry.” Niall finally spoke.
“What?”
“Take Zayn. Just take him and hide him. Don’t let him see any of this.” And then Niall took off, running after the brawl that had just unleashed in front of me. I started to scream and run after Niall, but Harry quickly grabbed onto me.
“Don’t!” He shouted, “Don’t be stupid!” His hands were locked on my forearms and before I could try to run again, he started pulling me off to the side, closer to the cabin.
“Harry let go of me!” I grunted, trying to hit him off of me, but it was no use. He was so much stronger than I was, that it was pointless, “Why is she doing this!” I just started screaming, not making much sense. “This is sick. This is so fucking sick. Harry, please, just fuck.” When we got to the cabin, Harry pinned me to the ground, looking at me.
“Just stay calm, okay?” For once, in all my time of knowing Harry, he sounded concerned about me. He had this look on his face, asking me to trust him, and strangely, I did. I trusted him. “I’m not going in there. I’m staying here with you. I’m going to make sure you and I are both safe. We’ll survive this. I promise.”
“And Niall?” I asked, shutting my eyes when I heard a gun shot that sounded much closer than the rest, “And Liam and Ed?”
“We’ll all survive.” Harry sounded so confident, “We have to keep watch, okay? And I trust you not to run off?”
“You can trust me.”
“Okay, you watch the back side and I’ll watch the front, okay? Shout if you need me.” Harry then stood, walking forward towards the battlefield, leaving me to stand and retreat towards the other end of the cabin. I turned along the side of the cabin, and walked its small perimeter until I could see the fight before me. I tried to pin point Niall, but I couldn’t see him at all. But, I did see Liam dominating and that comforted me for some reason. I stood, too concentrated on what was in front of me, and not to what was behind me. I let out a scream when I heard a gun shot from behind me, and when I turned I saw Harry on top of some man. Harry had the man’s gun in hand, and was standing in a pool of blood that belonged to the agency member who was about to shoot me.
“Are you alright?” Harry asked me, running up to me.
“You saved me?”
“Damn straight. We’re no longer enemies, Zayn, we’re on the same team right now, and I’m always there for my team mates.” Harry tossed me the gun as he spoke, “You need this more than I do, now, come with me.” Harry led me back to where he was patrolling. “Niall told me to keep you safe, but if this doesn’t end soon, we’ll have to get involved. Are you okay with that?”
“I think.”
“You can stay here if you want.”
“No, I’m fine. I got this.”
“Okay, let’s get in there.” Harry then turned, but froze. I froze too because I saw the exact same that he saw. The woman who he was aligning himself with was holding onto Liam with one hand, and had Ed’s dead body at her feet. She was looking at both of us and before Harry could shout out, she shot a bullet into Liam’s head, letting him drop dead, for the second time.
Harry let out a scream, but he wasn’t screaming for long, “Change of plans, you’re staying here, Zayn.” And before I could argue with him, he ran into the field, screaming. I stood with my back against cabin, covering myself from the back. My eyes were glued onto the scene in front of me, and my hands were grasping the gun Harry gave me. I wanted to get in there, fight for Niall. Hell, I wanted to fight for Harry, and even avenge Liam and Ed. But I stayed. I knew I would’ve gotten in the way.
I was so fixated on the battle, that when I saw Niall running, my heart started to flutter. He was okay. He was alive. I wanted to shout his name and run after him, but I bit my tongue and left him to what he was supposed to do. I watched as he moved and fought, but lost him as he dove into a small group of agency members, fighting them all with another Hybrid who I didn’t know.
I thought everything was going fine, but the woman who killed Ed and Liam started walking over to the group Niall was in and suddenly that small amount of comfort I had was shot dead. Literally. I watched her raise her gun and the agency members retreated quickly. She shot twice and turned without a care. The agency members that were still there, stayed for a second, but started to disperse when they realized what just happened. When it was clear, I fell to the ground, screaming as I saw Niall lying there, lifeless.
I picked up my gun, and ran as fast as I could to Niall’s side. He was in a puddle of his own blood, but I still fell into it when I reached him. The colour was erased from his face and his eyes were closed. He lips were pressed tightly together and I knew he was gone. I shook him a few times, but got nothing. There wasn’t anything I could do that could bring him back.
Hoping he still had a little life left in him, I bent down to him, kissed his lips and whispered, “I’ll always love you.”
Standing from Niall’s body, covered in his blood and my vision completely blurred by my tears, I looked at what was left, and it was only a few from each side. I saw Harry and he was one on one with the woman who he watched kill his best friends. He wanted her dead, and so did I. I started walking towards them, and started shooting anyone in black was in front of me. I felt as if I was moving in slow motion and couldn’t get there any quicker. Hybrids and agency members were dropping on either side of me, but my eyes were only fixed on Harry and that bitch.
When I was halfway there, there was no more gun shots, and I turned to look at who was around, but everyone, minus Harry and this woman, were on the ground – either dead, or dying. The woman got distracted too and Harry hit her gun out of her hand, sending it a few feet away from her, but that ended up not working to his benefit because soon she wrapped her arms around him, suffocating him in a head lock.
“So, Zayn.” She spoke, turning to me, “It’s just the three of us. I assume your beloved boyfriend is dead?” Her voice was like ice, and when she spoke, Harry looked up to me. His eyes told me he was sorry, but that didn’t matter anymore.
“Yes he is, but you should know that. I watched you kill him.”
“Oops.” Was all she could say.
“And I’m going to kill you for what you did. And I’m not going to feel guilty at all when I watch your body fall to the ground.” At first when I spoke, she looked as if she didn’t believe me, but when I raised my gun, her grin wiped away and she turned serious, and perhaps afraid.
“Am I really the one you want to kill?” She asked, “Harry was the one who brought you and Niall into this mess. Isn’t he the main reason behind Niall’s death? Shouldn’t you kill him, and not me?” She was negotiating, and her grip on Harry was tightening. I was biting my lip and my gun started to drift downward towards Harry.
“He may be the one who brought them here…” I spoke softly, “But you were the one who told him to!” And then I brought my gun back up and let a bullet fly loose into the air, pinning her right in the forehead. Her grip on Harry gave as she dropped, just like her shitty agency members. She twitched a bit as her last breath was taken, and eventually let death win over. I was breathing quite heavily and my entire body was shaking. I couldn’t get Niall out of my mind, but I knew he was up There, looking over me, smiling. He and I both knew I saved the right person.
Harry was now standing, his eyes fixed on me, “You saved me.” His voice was so soft, but it boomed in my head, “You could’ve killed me, but you chose to let me live.”
“Yeah.” I threw the gun onto the ground, never wanting to touch one again, “I did.”
“But… Why?”
“Harry,” I started, “We’re no longer enemies, we’re on the same team right now, and I’m always there for my team mates.”
"Zayn, I -" Harry spoke, walking closer to me.
"Don't worry about it, Harry." I said, my voice finally growing weak and sad. My eyes drifted to the ground and I could feel my tears finally letting go as they dropped to the ground.
“What do we do now?” Harry sounded exhausted, “I don’t know where to go, or what to do.”
“Live your life, Harry.”
“I don’t know how. I never had a human to teach me how to play fair and be nice.” Harry crossed his arms, turning to the side subtly.
“Well I guess…” I was biting my lip, “You’ll just have to stick with me from now on. I’ll teach you everything I know.”
“Really?”
“Sure, why not – I know how to deal with Hybrids.”
THE END
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So, Algophobia has officially come to an end. And I can't be happier. I'll be honest, this story was so fun to write, but then school started and I lost so much interest, and don't lie, so did you all. Updating this wasn't fun and started to feel like a chore, but, I pushed through the many urges to delete it and I finished it because I was too far into it to just delete it.
Now, with this ending, I'm not sure if it's what you all wanted. You may like it, you may not like it. However, I feel as if this was the most logical ending for this story. I, personally, love this ending and hope you all do too.
Now, for my thank yous. For everyone who originally read this story, THANK YOU. And for the small few who continued reading once I started updating again after I got used to school, THANK YOU SO MUCH. You all kept me from deleting it, and so did a few of my friends who told me not to and just finish it. This was the third story I started and it's the first I finished. If you keep tabs on my other stories, specifically The Unexpected and Video Blogger, don't worry, they're not ending soon. But sadly, this one had too. And finally, to those who stopped reading it due to my schooling, THANK YOU for making me realize how little attention I was giving this story. I think, if school hadn't of taken over my life, then this story could've been better thought out and much, much longer.
BUT, all good things have to come to an end eventually. I love you all, seriously.
Thank you for enjoying and reading this story,
Peter