soooo...crumble hit 20k...i have no words except i love you and thank you so much. ❤️
Lydia White
My heart was beating a mile a minute.
It was like there was a never-stopping clock ticking in my head, constantly reminding me that I don't have much time before Cody finally cracks and possibly tries to kill me.
Harry was coming. That was the only thing I was hanging on to.
He'd burst through the door and save the day like he always does. I'll be okay. We'll be okay.
Cody paces my room as I sit nervously on the edge of my bed, my sweaty palms gripping the bed sheets. He has the gun in his hand, gripping it tightly as he tugs at the roots of his hair.
"I don't know what the fuck to do." he mumbles to himself, panicked.
"Cody, it'll be okay. Just leave and pretend this never happened." I say, trying to keep the situation as calm as possible.
But when he immediately lunges at me and grips my jaw roughly in one hand with his gun pointing at me with the other, I knew I was getting no where fast. His hand grips my face and pressed against my cheek where he had previously slapped me. There was already a bruise forming and it hurt so badly.
I pinch my eyes shut as he gets right up in my face. "As if I'm gonna just leave you here. You'll run and tell your little boyfriend. I'm no idiot, Lydia."
I suck in a sharp inhale as he lets go of my jaw. "Why are you doing this?" I stare up at him, trying my best to keep a brave front.
With a breathy callous chuckle, he walks right up to me and firmly plants his arms on either side of my sitting body, leaning on the bed. "Why am I doing this?" he cocks his head. "Have you ever stopped to wonder if I may know more than you think I do, Lyds."
My blood runs cold as he taunts me with the name that Harry has called me so many times in the past.
This was more than him being an angry ex...this rooted back to something much deeper.
"W-what do you know?" I question, keeping my tone just above a whisper.
He smirks. "Everything."
I look into his crazed eyes that held such a sinister, disturbing gaze. I was looking at a complete stranger.
I was becoming desperate, and more scared by the second. "Please just stop." my voice breaks.
He lifts his hand to tuck my hair behind me ear. "Relax honey, I'm not gonna hurt you." his voice coos softly, but it terrified me.
I couldn't fight back and tell him not to touch me. I couldn't say anything to piss him off. His sanity was balancing on a thin line and all it would take is a small push from me to send him over the edge. So, I needed to stay calm.
My heart rate picks up when I hear loud, booming footsteps in the hallway. Cody freezes and widens his eyes.
Next came the loud bangs on my apartment door. It wasn't knocking, it was more like kicking.
Harry was here and he was going to kick the door down.
Cody whips his head towards me and grips my arm. "Who the fuck is here?" he growls.
I pull my arm away and immediately spring up from the bed, managing to run past him and out of my bedroom.
I run towards the front door with Cody right behind me. I was just about to reach out before he grabs my waist and pulls me back. I could hear Harry's muffled yells to the guys on the other side of the door. More kicking and banging occurred as my adrenaline continued to pump through my veins.
"Harry!" I scream, hoping he would hear me through the door. Cody throws me to the ground and retrieves the roll of tape, forcing my hands behind me and taping them then placing a quick piece over my mouth as fast as he could before the door flies open.
Just before Harry erupts through my front door, Cody bolts down the hallway into another room, leaving me sitting in front of the door alone.
Harry's green eyes met my wide, fear filled blue ones. He and all of the guys ran up to me in the blink of an eye.
Harry immediately notices the bruise on my cheek, cupping my face in his hands as he frantically examines me for anymore injury.
"You're okay." he pants as he rips the tape off of my mouth. I open my mouth to warn him that Cody was still here and he was hiding, but before I even got the chance, a gunshot rang out.
I flinch and pinch my eyes shut, slowly opening them expecting to see Harry shot and on the ground...but instead, I see Niall on his back with blood pooling around him.
"Niall!" Louis shouts and lunges for his friend. He immediately started applying pressure to Niall's stomach, as did Liam.
Harry curses under his breath. He reaches behind me to untie my wrists but I look up to see Cody charging at Harry.
"Harry watch out!" I scream, causing Harry to whip around just in time to dodge Cody's gun that would have plowed down on his head.
Harry wastes no time fighting back. He grabs Cody and pulls him by the ankles, causing him to crash onto his back on the hard floor.
I was tugging at my wrists, trying so hard to break free as chaos unfolds in front of me. Niall was bleeding and yelling out in pain, while Harry was now on top of Cody throwing punches left and right.
I scream when Cody manages to knock Harry in the side of the head with his gun. Harry falls to the floor, gripping his head in his hands as Cody scrambles to his feet.
Cody, with a blood covered face that looked like something out of a horror movie, looks at all of us briefly while breathing heavily. He glares at me one final time before sprinting out the door.
I watch as Harry's head turns in the direction that Cody ran. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
He was going to go after him.
When he started to struggle up from the ground, I shouted. "Harry don't!"
He looks at me one more time and tilts his head with a look that screamed 'You're gonna hate me but I'm gonna do it anyway'.
He pulls his gun out of his waistband then bolts out the door on the hunt for Cody.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek and just pray that Harry will be okay, because there was nothing I could have done to stop him.
Harry was stubborn—well, we both were, but his stubbornness caused him to end up in extremely dangerous situations.
I turn my attention to the other guys. Niall was on his back, bleeding obsessively from his stomach. Louis was doing everything he could to stop it. He had taken his sweater off and wrapped it around Niall's torso to keep pressure on the wound.
"Liam, help me." I say, referring to my taped wrists. He rushes behind me and rips through the tape, then puts his hands on my shoulders to turn me around so I was looking at him.
"You okay?" he asks with worry in his eyes, looking straight at the large bruise on the side of my face.
I nod with tears in my eyes. It wasn't me who we needed to be concerned about right now, regardless of what I was feeling.
I move over to Niall and grip his hand with both of mine. He was sweating and his face had gone pale from the amount of blood he's been losing.
His weak eyes look up at mine and his lips part. "S-sorry for g-getting your floor b-bloody." he stammers.
I breathe out a small laugh and shake my head. "It's okay, Ni."
Niall, even thought he was still apart of a gang, was always one of the purest out of these guys. He was always good to me and would always make sure I was okay. That's why seeing him like this made my heart sink. But he's strong, he'll make it.
"Niall we're gonna get you to a hospital, alright?" Louis says as calmly as possible.
The next minutes were nothing but a fuzzy blur. Between trying to keep Niall alive and worrying about where Harry was, my head was spinning.
Niall was growing weaker and weaker by the second. The blood surrounding his body was so much and made me question how much time he had left. You'd think he'd bled to death from the amount of the crimson liquid on the ground.
I jump when I hear loud footsteps run through the door. I turn my head in the direction of the doorway to see Harry. I sigh in relief but it doesn't last long. A pit starts to grow in my stomach when I see his blood covered face, hands and clothing.
I stand up and slowly approach him as he just stares at the ground, panting with his gun in his hand.
"Harry?" I say cautiously.
His eyes flick to mine and he bites down on his bottom lip.
"I killed him." he whispers.
My heart drops.
I look at his eyes, which held something that strangely almost resembled fear, as if what happened had shaken him up so much. But it didn't make sense, he's killed people before...and it's not like killing Cody meant he was killing an innocent person.
I bring my hands to his cheeks. "You were protecting me." I say. I wasn't trying to justify his actions, but I was trying to make him feel at least a little less skittish.
He shuts his eyes and nods into my hands. "I just-" he sucks in a sharp inhale as his voice breaks. "He was gonna kill you and-"
"Stop. It's okay." I graze my thumb along his cheekbone.
I don't know exactly what happened when Harry chased Cody...but whatever it was had clearly struck something in Harry that was messing with his head.
It was so unlike him to be so freaked out.
Harry Styles
*moments earlier*
The moment my feet stepped out of the doorway, I wasn't in my own head anymore.
My legs were taking me where I needed to go, right up to the point where I saw Cody about to enter the stairwell.
I jet towards him. The only thing I was thinking about was the fact that he tried to hurt Lydia, and how much fear and pain he's inflicted on her.
When I opened the door to the staircase, he was there. He was leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.
His cowardly eyes grew wide when he saw me. He reaches for his gun but I was to quick. I lunged at him and knock both of us to the ground, sending us rolling down the stairs.
When our bodies smack against the cold tile of the platform, he quickly works to gain the advantage.
He climbs on top of me and knocks my gun out of my hands. He threads his hands through my hair and lifts my head up, then smacks it back down on the floor.
A throbbing pain was sent throughout my skull.
His blood coated face stared down at me. His bloody teeth were clenched together as he brought his hands to my neck and wrapped them around it.
I gasped for air as he began to squeeze his hands around my trachea. My airway was blocked off as I laid there, clawing at his arms with my mouth open.
He took one hand away and put it in his jacket pocket. I think he subconsciously loosened the grip his one hand had on my throat, because it became slightly easier to breathe.
He pulled a liquid-drenched cloth out of his pocket, and I instantly knew what it was.
I felt sick at the fact that he was going to use that on Lydia for whatever twisted reason.
He tried to bring the cloth to my face but I began to struggle so it became next to impossible for him to do so. I whipped my head from side to side as I tried with everything I could to avoid him knocking me out.
"Stop fucking moving!" he spits.
I buck my hips and thrash my arms and legs to try and get him off of me, but it causes him to throw a good punch at my nose.
Blood pours from my nose, and with my head laying flat on the ground with no elevation, the blood starts to drop down my throat.
"Do you realize how much money you're gonna make me, Styles." he smirks as he brings the chemical-doused fabric to my nose and mouth.
Money?
"They promised a fair amount of cash if you were brought to them alive." he speaks again.
Someone was paying Cody to capture me.
Does he know about the Phantoms? Did he have some sort of master plan all along? Why did he go after Lydia?
I held my breath so that I didn't breathe in the chemicals, but it was getting harder and harder to hold on to consciousness.
I had to keep fighting.
Using all the left over strength that I had, I plowed my fist into the side of his face, successfully knocking him off of me enough so that I could get out from underneath him.
I went for my gun first so I at least had a weapon to defend myself with.
Just as he was getting to his feet, I bent down to grab the same cloth he tried to use on me, then I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pinned him against the wall.
He spat blood on the ground, breathing heavily through his mouth.
"What the fuck were you gonna do with Lydia?" I bellow, holding the gun to his head.
His lips pull into a hellish smirk. "Everything you could possibly imagine."
I throw a hard punch to his gut, making him try to double over but I stop him by keeping him standing straight.
His comment made me so angry that I saw red. My head was so cloudy and I just wanted this son of a bitch to suffer.
"What was your plan, huh? Did you down a few drinks then decide you were gonna show up at her home and torture her?" I spit in anger.
"I was gonna use her to get my fucking money!" he shouts. "Who knew a gang leader would have such a soft spot for some girl." he chuckles lowly.
"Who's offering you money?" I growl.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
I grab his face in my hand and stick the barrel of my gun under his chin as I get right up in his face. "I swear on everything if you don't tell me, I'll make sure your brains are covering this fucking staircase in a second." I hiss.
He spits more blood on the ground, not breaking eye contact with me. He closed his lips and it just confirmed to me that he wasn't going to give me anything.
I punch him in the gut again and let him fall to the ground this time. I bend over to his level and grab the chloroformed cloth.
He helplessly watches me as I ball up the fabric and then force it into his mouth. He tries to spit it out, but I swing my leg up and kick him directly in the face, causing him to fall back against the wall.
His nose was definitely broken, along with his jaw. His eyes were starting to roll back because of the chemicals he was being forced to take in.
I lean on my bent knees as I smirk at him. "I hope you rot." I say quietly...and I meant it.
With that, I take my gun in my shaky hands and don't think twice before firing a bullet into his head, splitting it open.
His blood and his brains splattered behind him, and his body slouched down to the ground as the life left it.
I throw my gun and fall from my knees onto the ground, taking my head in my blood stained hands and hyperventilating.
If I hadn't have gotten there sooner, if Lydia hadn't have called me...he would have put her through excruciating torture.
And it would have been my fault.
There was someone paying Cody to find me...and Lydia was just one step in his plan...
...I was terrified.
//
i'm sorry this took so long!
this was an action-packed chapter and there's more to come...stay tuned i guess lol.
i love youuuu ❤️