*NARRATOR'S POV*
"I can't believe you're handcuffing me." Niall didn't resist when Edward grabbed his wrist andknocked it against the railing he was attaching the boy to.
Edward gave him a look to shut him up. His eyes were stained with bloody veins that struggled tocarry blood to and fro the way they would if he wasn't torn apart inside. He tightened the cuff linkedto the wall to inhumane confines until it guaranteed bruises on Niall's wrists.
Anne was still there, never having sat down once after her sons returned with a third person shedidn't know. "Edward, is this necessary?"
"Yes!" Harry was most perturbed by his mother at this point in time and would blow his top offeverytime she said something.
Edward shouldered past Anne and glared at her when she tried to touch him. He didn't want anyonewho wasn't desired touching him ever. "Harry, did you call home?"
Home was still Middleston where Gerard is residing at their Manor. It always will be no matter howfar away on the other side of the world they went. Harry was made to make contact with Gerard sothat some information could be found out about Dexter's whereabouts.Harry nodded and got close to crushing the empty water bottle in his hand.
"He's looking."Edward felt helpless when he heard that there was nothing more to do than wait.
He listened toNiall's shifting for a round of thirty some odd seconds before making a fresh decision, a colder onethat originated with the monster that took the reins of his mind.He looked over to the uncomfortable hostage and how unaffected he looked by being here. Neitherbrother suspected that he would ever be, seeing as he's in the worst possible position in thisscenario.
Edward wanted revenge for whatever happened to their petal. He knows there's a bold mark on theside of Louis' face wherever he is - the uncertainty killed him - and he was going to put a mark farworse on Niall to exact punishment. The ignition of something beastly awoke in his subconscious asHarry realised as well what his brother was thinking.Harry brushed Edward's arm and spoke in his ear, two sets of eyes zeroed in on Niall. He was themore hands-on brother and would love the honour of performing any attack.
"Let me." He whispered to his elder twin, not changing the destination of his gaze.
Edward turned his head without the need to lower or heighten his eyes because of their identicalfeatures. He found comfort for a tiny bit of the ache in the broken cage of his heart when he kissedHarry, no other touch taken from him. His lips feel like ice on lava and that's partly what soothes alittle bit of the burn in the voids they've recently developed.
"Not too much damage." Edward pulls away from the connection and finds it impossible to evenrender himself smiling so his attitude remains bleak.
"We'll get him back." Harry reassures his brother with as much effort as he can muster. His spirit isas dampened as Edward's is. "I know we will."
Edward fully turns away from all the intruding outsiders that are in their home. Their newhome that they're supposed to be sharing with their darling petal. Now, that connection hasbeen temporarily severed up until the moment they get that boy back.It felt like a knife digging into their nervous system, paralysing their mental state but driving theirphysical form to disproportionate over-active functioning. One part worked ahead the other and thebattle to maintain their opaque sanity became harder and harder.
"I know, brother." Edward frames Harry's right cheek and rests his forehead against the other's.
"Have we ever felt this way before?"They were a single system, two bodies mounted on one ghastly control to operate as one.
What onefelt, so did the other.Harry kisses Edward's forehead but it doesn't feel like Louis' kisses and Edward has to close hiseyes tightly to keep the heartbreak in.
"No and it won't last long either, brother. We won't have tomiss him for long."Edward never has to imagine a life without his twin. It would be a ferocious and ugly one with halfof himself missing. "Go now and do what you love to do. I'm sorry I've deprived you of it."
"It wasn't your choice. It was mine." Harry has hardly ever felt the emptiness of not having blood onhis hands because there was their petal to keep him distracted, to keep him happy.
"Go, pup." Edward releases Harry and nudges him in the right direction away from him. "I want towatch."
Harry gave him a conditional smirk that quickly fell down to the pit in his abdomen whereeverything good to him disappeared. He spun around on his heel and completely ignored Annewhere she stood biting her nail at the window when he approached Niall.
The boy looked up and scrambled back against the wall he had as support, eyes tired from lack ofsleep for two days but not giving in to exhaustion now either. Harry caught his ankles and the coldtouch froze Niall's resistance.In his all-black attire of jeans and a clinging T-shirt that exposed every ridge and flex of hismuscles, Harry looked like he came straight from Hell with the matching shade of his eyes.
"Look at this." Harry fishes out the poor polaroid photograph from his pocket and without sparingany glance at it for the sake of his own emotional distress, shows it to Niall.Niall gasps at the terrible sight of his best friend in such a state.
If he could, he'd have covered hismouth so the quivering of his lips weren't visible. He knows who did this and is aware that Dexterpromised him no harm would come to Louis. Yet, here this image is depicting a beat-up right side ofLouis' face.
"Is this-" He had to make sure this wasn't a ruse before he does what he's prepared to do. "Isthis real?"
"What do you think?" Harry catches Niall by the side of his jaw, all his fingers pressing painfullyinto the boy's face as he forced him to look. "Look at him! Do you think we'd do this?"
Niall becomes terrified by the lurking danger that inhibits Harry's dark eyes, sucking in sharpbreaths as his body starts to shudder. He can't look away from the picture, can't recover from it nowthat he's seen it. Dexter lied and he won't forgive that.
"He-He said-" Niall closes his eyes to get his words straight and stop any stress tears from rollingdown his cheeks. "He said that he was coming here for the woman who had his children."
Everything in the apartment comes to an abrupt standstill but Niall continues anyway because if hedoesn't get it out now he'll regret wrongly keeping it inside later. Anne stares out the window a littlelonger, wincing at the words that indicate to her.
"He's in Middleston." Niall goes on again, feeling betrayal grow more and more. "I don't knowwhere Louis will be but I know he's still in-"
"The Madhouse?" Harry more hurriedly offers the end of that sentence.
"He's still in....theMadhouse."Niall nods to confirm it, finally tearing his focus away from that photograph. "It's the only place hecan be and I don't care what you do to get them back."
Harry turns around with one knee on the ground to look at Edward, who is already redialling Gerardfor a smaller search area. He looks back at Niall feeling no less determined than he did when he firstwent to him. Whether or not this boy decides to switch sides, Dexter will still know pain by harmdone to Niall.
"Thank you." Harry hears his brother talking to someone and takes it as a signal to get somethingdone.
"But?" Niall was awaiting the add-on to Harry's gratitude that he was to expect after what he's done.
"But-" Harry got to his feet and revealed his car keys that dangled from his middle finger, beforesnapping his fist closed to that the tips peeked out from a tiny gap. "-we still have a point to prove."
Anne screams when she witnesses her younger son slam his fist into Niall's cheek, a fierce impactmaking the boy's bone release an audible crack with how hard the force was. Her handsshake as she tries to cover her face but still sees the blood stream down Niall's face from temple toclavicle, marking his skin and draining his body.
"Harry!" She felt with each shout she got more shrivelled up on the inside, watching the boy shegrew up go one step below mutilating.
"Shut up!" Edward barked at her from the kitchen, using a voice that frightened her into quietlysobbing behind her palm.Harry hadn't heard her and wouldn't have stopped even if he did
. He was only satisfied after he'ddelivered three consecutive blows that bruised his knuckles, allowing all the rage and misinterpretedhurt to fuel that violence.The entire right side of Niall's face is sliced open by the jagged edges of the keys Harry used,leaving ugly gashes down the length of his skin. The blood gushed down in heavy rivers to gather athis collarbone or soak into his shirt. He spits out the blood with saliva onto the floor as Harry walksaway to rejoin Edward.
"Gerard found him." Edward says, dropping the phone onto the counter.
"Do we show him?" Harry weakly gestured to the mess of a boy he left sputtering on the floor.
"No." Edward said with gritted teeth, staring out the window where his mother once was. "Leavehim alone, Ma."
Anne stopped moving towards Niall as the boy also looked like he didn't want her help though heneeded it. She was shivering with the slide-show of all the sinister actions she'd missed all theseyears. Now she knows what Louis had to accept of them and why they're so dedicated to gettinghim back.
"We don't show Dexter." Edward said next to Harry.If they did, he couldn't bear to think of what it might trigger in the man to harm their petal, theirlove. He couldn't let that happen. Dexter can see what they'd done, the extent that they'd goto for Louis, once they had him back.
"We're going to Middleston right now." Edward grabbed his phone and caught Harry's elbow to startmoving.
"Get Niall. He's coming with us."Upon passing his mother while Harry uncuffs Niall from the railing, Edward pauses to inform hervaguely of their plans.
"You're coming too." Is all he says.