“Do you feel better, Liam?” Eliza asked, bringing some tea into his room. He was seated on the armchair, with his legs propped up. He was looking out the window, not watching the television.
She had a master keycard for all the rooms in the hotel. She put in all the codes into her keycard. Eliza could just pretend that she asked for the spare key from the concierge.
“I don’t know,” he said, putting his gaze towards her. She was sat on the area of the bed nearest him.
She had her burst, but she was still good at staying focused, no matter what. That was why it wasn’t an option for her to ever lose control. It was fine with just a burst. That was it.
If she had lost control like how she did before when she was younger, she might not have been conscious at all, not until the next day.
There was silence for a few minutes as Liam just kept staring outside.
“What are you really, Amy?” he said, as the silence dragged on. “I can’t believe that you’re just someone from PR. No one from management has ever done even just half the things you did for us. You knew to use oil instead of just ripping the duct tape off. I wouldn’t have thought of that, Amy. You’re always around when we need you.”
“Coincidence.”
“I don’t believe you. It must be coincidence too that you popped up during this time and you know all this Kung Fu whatever,” Liam said, his hands all over the place. “I met PR people. They don’t know half the shit you know, and they don’t know anything about security. From the way you scream at our bodyguards, it’s like it matters what you say.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Liam,” she said. Her cover was obviously becoming very weak. If she was going to come clean, she had to ask Simon first. “Hold on. I have to make a call to Simon. He wants to make sure I’m doing my job.”
“Go ahead.”
Eliza went out on the balcony and called Simon. She didn’t care if he got angry if he was sleeping or busy. She didn’t even know what country he was in.
“Hello?” came his voice. He didn’t sound particularly angry, so she just went for it.
“Liam’s gotten suspicious. He got attacked today. I’m sorry. It’s difficult to keep them under my watch when they don’t know that I’m around to watch over them. He’s asking questions. I don’t think I can keep it up undercover. They notice more than I thought they would,” she said. “I have to tell them the truth that you hired me.”
“I’ve read your report. You’ve got an extensive amount of data and theories, Eliza,” he said. “I want you to work on those theories. Go ahead and tell them, but I’d prefer if you keep it to the boys. They’re quite good at keeping secrets between the five of them. I just want to keep it a secret from everyone else.”
“Okay. Thank you. I again apologize for putting them in danger.”
“I can’t blame you. They’re a handful, and you hadn’t a proper break in months.”
She hung up on him and went out of the bathroom. “Call Louis, Niall, Harry and Zayn. I’ll tell only you five the truth.”
*
“You can’t tell anyone, you have to swear,” Eliza said as soon as they were all in front of her. She started off with, “I’m not English.”
“What?” Zayn laughed. “Of course you are. You’re from Richmond. Eleanor told us.”
“It’s easy to do an accent,” she said, in a thick Irish one this time, to the surprise of Niall. “All you need to do is listen and adapt. I don’t even know what my real accent is. I change it based on what’s appropriate.”
“Then where are you from?” Liam said.
“I honestly don’t know,” she said. She would be giving out the truth that the people that hired her knew. Clients were sometimes different from those that hired her. Obviously, there had to be some extent of background information she had to give if she wanted to get hired. High-profile people just didn’t hire some random girl off the street. She could have been a mass murderer for all they knew. She gave the generic made-up stories to people around her that she worked with. “I don’t know what country I’m from and I don’t know who my parents are.”
“Why are you here?” Louis asked.
“To keep you safe,” she said, getting back to the accent that she had assumed around them. “I didn’t know I would be handling death threats, but Simon hired me to protect you guys, since you wanted security to let up a bit. I was supposed to discreetly keep you safe from fans, at the same time implementing the new security regimen that you demanded.”
“Why all the secrecy?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “At first, Simon didn’t want you guys to know. I asked him if I could say, and then he told me that he didn’t want others to know. It’s probably a precaution, especially now since you’ve got these threats and attacks.”
“Was it you who saved me then?” Louis said, his eyes flashing. “That would be sick.”
“I did,” she said. She wasn’t going to mention the trackers though. She never mentioned that to her clients. “I’m not from management either.”
“That’s probably why she acts differently,” Niall said. “I knew it. I knew there was something different about you.”
“I’m only telling you guys this because I need you to listen to me,” she said, standing up and crossing her arms. “When I say run, you sprint until your lungs give out. When I say you can’t go out, you play Scrabble in one room together. I can’t afford to have one of you attacked again. I don’t know if the next one will come out alive. Liam was lucky to get out of that scrap.”
“So who else have you worked for?” Zayn asked.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “It’ll be just how I can’t tell my next client that I worked for Simon, unless you guys refer me to someone.”
“Did you just be nice to us because you had to?” Liam asked, looked sad at the prospect of that idea forming. “I remember you were really mean that first time we met you, and the first few weeks.”
That put up the awkward silence.
“Yeah, you weren’t nice at all,” Louis said.
“I didn’t want to take the job at first,” she admitted. “I thought you were spoiled and annoying and arrogant and cocky. You sometimes are, but you guys can be pretty nice too sometimes. You have moments.”
“Why did you take it then, if we’re that bad?” Zayn said, tossing a complimentary apple in the air and catching it again.
“Simon,” she said simply. “He stopped trying to convince me and just told me to go away if I didn’t want it, since he could get someone more willing.”
“Yeah, that’s his style, isn’t it?” Harry said, nodding and making a ‘Not bad’ face at everyone. “He really didn’t have anyone better. He was just bluffing.”
“Yeah I know. That’s why I took it.”
“You are just as sneaky as him, aren’t you?” Louis said, falling back on the bed.
“Hang on, what do you know about us then?” Harry asked, narrowing his eyes at her suspiciously.
She grinned, not feeling very apologetic at all. “Your lives before you got famous? Your grades, your schools, and some of your friends. Your families, their backgrounds, the crew… Take your pick.”
“And you were just feeling around when you were asking about our stunts?” Zayn said, his eyebrows going up slightly. “You sounded like you knew everything.”
“Well at that point I knew some, and just had really solid guesses for some,” she said fairly.
“Told you, sneaky,” Louis said, closing his eyes. “Then you know all our dark little secrets, don’t you?”
“You know it’s not bad if you want to let everyone else know, Lou,” she said, sitting down on the bed and resting her back at the headboard. She stared at his face. He didn’t even open his lids to look at her.
“I don’t think that’s your call to make, Amy,” he said, his jaw clenching, even when his eyes remained closed.
“I’m not here to interfere with whatever you want,” she said, putting her hands up. “I’m just here to make sure you guys aren’t in danger. That’s more vital now more than before. I just exposed myself to you guys. I can’t have you reveal to anyone else. You understand? I don’t trust anyone, except for maybe Paul. It has been too easy for the attackers to get to you guys.”
“So there might be someone helping on our crew?” Harry said, doubtful. “Everyone here’s been working with us ever since. I don’t think they would want to see us hurt.”
“You’ll be surprised what people can do when money is shown to them,” she said pointedly. “You guys did a lot of things, and I don’t need to remind you on the things you’re hiding.” She looked at them, letting them know that they’ve done things to deceive people so that they would stay famous. “Some people like that are just harder to spot.”
They looked at each other uncomfortably. Eliza was saying it loud and clear, albeit in a very discreet way.
“Okay, we got the point, but what do we do about it?” Liam said, carefully prodding his wound. He winced a bit and he reached over to where Eliza left the tea for him.
She made another set of trackers in case any of them got kidnapped. Phones might be disposed or taken away. “I need you to keep bead bracelets on at all times, even when you sleep. I’ll be having a tiny tracker inside one of the beads. You wear those sorts of bracelets anyway, so it’ll just look like matching friendship bracelets, not very different from your sudden tattoo obsession.”
“Matching friendship bracelets, whoopee,” Louis said, obviously not finding the idea very attractive.
“By the way, Aims, did you end up getting anyone tonight?” Harry said, obviously not finding anything wrong with anything. His head was always roaming around. It was hard to keep his attention on one thing for a long time.
That caught her completely off-guard though.
“Let’s keep our focus on Liam, shall we?” she said, going over to Liam and pretending to dote on him.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, Amy,” he said, keeping his head away from her. “You’re changing the subject.”
“And Zayn was pulling the moves on you too,” Harry said, sidling next to Zayn and putting his arm around the boy. “And you go getting someone else and hurting his feelings…”
“I don’t think it’d be smart of me to get with any of you,” she said, laughing. It was a preposterous idea. It was like looking at younger brothers that she never had. It seemed fine when she was hit with plenty of things in her bloodstream, but not when she was back at the hotel and sober. “It’s too convenient, and there’s nothing fun with anything too convenient.”
The exhaustion was hitting her now, what with the events of this night taking its toll on her. She needed to take a rest and probably some tea o f her own.
“I’ll have your trackers ready by tomorrow. Thanks for not freaking out,” she said, taking her leave.