Louis' POV
"Why'd you bring the sociopath?" Zayn doesn't care to mask the uncomfortable horror in his
voice. Okay, so maybe Zayn didn't extend a warm invitation to Harry.
"Will you shut up? He'll hear you." Marie has topped Zayn's anxiety, speaking through her
clenched teeth that form a plastic smile.
"He's not Satan. He can't hear you from all the way over there." I comment nodding in Harry's
direction, across the room standing beside an empty chair and looking everywhere but at us.
"Says you." Zayn chuckles and I bump his arm with a little force.
"Louis, the guy is the talk of the town right now because of what happened at the station. The
cops are too scared to take him in." Marie covers her mouth with her plastic cup as she speaks.
I smirk. "Yeah, I know."
"It's not funny. Harry's dangerous and we don't like you living up there with him-"
"Speak for yourself." Niall suddenly decides to intervene where he is not welcome. "I think Louis
living up there is a wonderful opportunity for him. To, you know, mature. Woah! Who brought
the entertainment?"
Niall is gesturing towards Harry in the kitchen, still statuesque and keeping his eyes glued to his
shoes.
"Don't antagonize him, Niall." I warn. "Bad idea."
This town has a sick, twisted fascination with people who were different, out-of-the-ordinary as
they say. Harry was a toy of some sorts to them, but his means of coping proved to be too much of
a damaging streak so they need to rid this town of his presence.
"Oh relax! Tonight's his last night, I hear." Niall answers me and Marie looks as if she might be a
corpse.
"Maybe." I say.
"Have you and the deranged murderer bonded? I'm sorry you gotta lose your only friend there,
mate."
"Are you drunk?"
"Not yet."
"Go get drunk, Niall. Leave me alone."
He waves briefly before disappearing into the arriving crowd of familiar faces. It's always familiar
faces, no one new ever came to town so we always knew the regulars at these parties. The DJ
turns the volume knob a little too high when he's testing the sound, and it blasts my ears painfully.
Marie covers her ears and Zayn swears the guy behind the table.
"Turn that down! You want to deafen us to death?!" He snaps and the DJ obliges.
I laugh when the ringing disappears and I pick up my cup from the counter top behind us. I yawn
unexpectedly and rub my arm, flinching when I apply a little too much pressure to the spot that's
bruised.
"What the Hell happened to you?" Zayn's eyes widen like he's holding a winning lottery ticket.
"Eh. Banged my arm somewhere." I shrug.
"It looks like a hand." Marie says.
I try to focus on the pattern that is created, and indeed the recognition of it resembling a hand
surfaces in my mind. My phone rings and I hit Answer in a record time.
"Yeah?" I answer.
"Louis, where are you?" It's Jeff and he sounds like he has the flu.
"At Zayn's. Why?"
"Where's Harry?"
"He's here too."
He goes silent.
"Don't worry I'm watching him."
"Louis, this isn't a drug peddler or thief we're talking about. Harry is a crazy young man with a
desire to kill and you can't have him in a room with so many drunk kids."
"What do you want me to do then?" I sigh.
"Keep him busy for.........an hour. We just got to the house to conduct a search on the premises."
"The van will come get him tonight."
"Van?"
"Harry's unstable, Louis." He sounds resigned. "We can't just dump him in prison."
Oh. "So he's going to a madhouse?"
"A rehab institution."
"For the mentally insane?"
"Yes, just keep him there. Okay? I'll call you when everything's clear."
"Yeah. Fine." I hang up.
"What happened?" Zayn's gone off into the interspersed crowd leaving Marie next to me.
"Jeff's inspecting the house now, when they find something Harry will be shipped off to boarding
school with the other nut jobs."
"Oh."
I don't know what else to do except shrug.
"He's not moving from the kitchen." She says. "Did you tell him to stay there or something?"
I glance up at Harry and just feel so much hatred for him, it's his fault I'm in this fucking mess and
even though I'm coming out clean I knew this would come back to bite me. I just felt it, like the
raving of some discontent spoiled infant who would destroy everything when he felt the time was
right. Now all we can do is wait.
"I'll go.......do something." I fumble for a coherent sentence when the clock strikes four and the
music is sent in unhealthy waves throughout the space.
She let's me go off towards Harry, who looks up at me with an unconventional facial expression.
He straightens his back and raises his chin to greet me without sound.
"I don't like it here." He says shifting over so that I can share the standing space with him.
"Neither do I." I reply sipping whatever it is that's in my cup.
"Then why do you come?"
I lift and drop my shoulders. "No other choice. My other option is to die uh- suffocate....um...." I
frown as I lose my otherwise extensive vocabulary to the wonders of amber liquid intoxication.
The most awkward ones decide to slip off my tongue at this moment. "Boredom. I'd be bored-"
"To death?" Harry offers, chuckling.
I'm sure I match the color of flour by now. Why was he so comfortable with this topic? I groan
softly to myself.
"Did you really not move from here the whole time?" I inquire trying to switch topics. I clear my
throat, feeling a little stifled and caught up.
"Had nowhere to go."
Somehow that's the saddest response to anything I've ever heard. Jesus, what's wrong with me?
He wasn't a.......regular chap who I'd encourage to go chat up a girl, I'd much rather have him
standing here than communicating with some oblivious idiot. This whole puddle of misery
brought me great pains, and I can't wait for it to be over.
"Drink? Zayn has soda I think......or water." I offer.
He shakes his head. "No. I'm fine."
I see someone wave me over from the opposite end of the buzzing crowd that's already holding
plastic cups in their hand filled with either juice or alcohol. Our cops didn't really care, and it
pissed me off that they didn't. They were so lenient, deciding only now to take action and look
what happened. Almost half a dozen people were killed by a maniac who everyone is too afraid
off to stop.
"I'll uh...be right back." I say to Harry before weaving my way past several bodies.
"Hey." I greet Marie - again - as I come to stand beside her. "Needed something?"
She is polite enough to introduce me to some of her friends, newbies who just drove in from
Michigan - or somewhere - to visit her from college. They're friendly but I can't seem to keep a
one-track mind. My eyes float back to the leaning figure a great distance from me.
*MARIE POV*
Two hours prior
"Zayn! You know doing something like that is dangerous!" I shout at my brother, who just doesn't
seem to hear me. "My friends are coming all the way from campus and they can't afford to be
drugged by apple juice."
He slings a confident arm around my shoulders. "No stress, baby sister. This won't do anything
besides get people tipsy quicker. And Niall's only spiking the bottles so if they're having juice,
they're safe."
"You're pathetic."
"It runs in the family." He shrugs before going off into the parade of people I haven't taken to.
*LOUIS POV*
His hands are shoved into the pockets of that black trench coat that looks like it's the most pricey
thing he owns. He removes one hand to comb his hair back, revealing a small circular scar on his
forehead I hadn't noticed before despite his invasion of my personal space last night. I take a sip of
the drink in my cup, wiping my lips when a drop threatens to cause a rivulet down my jaw and
stain my shirt.
He observes everyone, each individual with a personal agenda here tonight, as they walk past him
or nudge their friends in his direction. I watch wide-eyed and anxiously when a girl trips on her
own feet right in front of him, he extends his arm to steady her before letting her move on. Hmph,
that's odd of him to be so..........nice.
He doesn't look my way and I prefer it like that, I opted to just watch the actions of others as they
went about their lives. Harry was a curious case; and though he earned a reasonable amount of my
anger, I no longer feared him. I lift the cup to my lips and tilt it back, finishing the contents in one
gulp. Marie has moved on with her friends, so I decide to find a drink before returning to my
companion tonight.
"Here." Niall tosses an unopened bottle at me, the glass displaying tiny water droplets caused by
condensation. It's chilled from being in the bucket of noisy ice blocks.
"Thanks." I say popping the lid on the edge of the counter. It's a skill that took me a year and
twenty-nine plasters to master. It was worth it.
I take a sip of the familiar scented beer, letting the crisp and dry flavor envelope my taste buds as it
rushes down my throat. Parting the bottle's opening and my lips I turn away from Niall - having
no desire to converse with him - before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and returning to
Harold. He's still standing.
"You can sit, you know. The chair doesn't bite." I say, amused. I take a sip of beer.
He shakes his head. "There are a lot of people here."
"Yeah. It's a party."
He looks down, seeming to be tossing around a Rubik's Cube in his mind. I hold out the water
bottle but he refuses it. I place it on the counter and take another sip of my beverage.
"When can we leave?" He asks suddenly.
I frown. "You can leave whenever you like, Harold."
"What about you?"
"What about me?" Another gulp. I sniff when a whiff enters my nasal passages and my vision
blurs momentarily.
"You're drunk. You can't drive back to the house."
I finish off the drink and place the bottle on the counter behind me. Harry eyes it speculatively
before looking at me again. Oh yeah, it was my turn.
"I'll crash here or at my house tonight." I say looking around for the closest plastic bin containing
more beer bottles.
Harry stands up to his full posture, much taller than I am and if it weren't for the bravado brought
on by my one-too-many-drinks gesture, I'd be intimidated.
"You can't stay here." He says, his eyes reflecting all of the fluorescent lights and he doesn't
flinch.
My head hurts. I rub my temples with my finger buds, closing my eyes and trying to simmer down
the wave of nausea. "Ugh."
"See!" He announces conclusively. "It's not healthy for you to be here. We're leaving."
"I'm fine, Harold." I argue suddenly aware that my dog isn't with me.
"The dog's with the girl you were talking to."
Oh well. I gotta go get him.
"No, you don't." Woah. Did I say that out loud? "Louis, I'm taking you back." He reaches out to
grab my arm, causing the sleeve of his coat to draw up several inches.
I stare at the marred tissue that has been exposed by violent abuse of some sort, a thin and long
line runs from the underside of his wrist and under his sleeve. I have the urge to touch it, find out
what the scars felt like. I hadn't even noticed he'd wrapped his fingers around my elbow ready to
tow me out of the house.
"No. I'm not coming with you." I pull my hand back.
"You're drunk. You could hurt yourself here."
"I am fine."
"No, you're not." He steps closer so I can hear him. His breath his hot and smells of metal. Odd.
"I'm not an infant and I'm not one of your toys. You can't boss me around or threaten me." I
challenge.
He seems surprised at this statement, and his smirk indicates his amusement. "Of course....."
I zone him out. Not voluntarily, which is a real bugger. I squint to see through tunnel vision and
the tears I can feel can't be wiped away with the back of my hand. My head throbs from an
uneasy, unfamiliar and quite overwhelming sensation that shreds my thought focus. I mumble
something even I can't hear.
"Lou?" Harry is concerned when he grabs ahold of my arm.
I feel my vision going black, tiny spots showing up blocking my sight. The air is damp and
chokingly thick with a horrid smell.
"Louis?!"
I pass out.