Legendary // H.S

40.

'Let it sink

Don't let it hold you down.'

*

There's a moment of silence before you experience trauma. When you know it's about to happen and everything in your world starts adjusting to it. The life you once had disappears and is replaced by the aftermath of it. Everything slows, the sounds quiet, and you're alone, just watching and waiting. Then when it hits, reality crashes back down on you and the excruciating pain begins. It's deafening.

In the car as we speed along the motorway into London, my body is still. I'm anticipating the worst. I'm accepting it. No good can come from messages like that. The blood that pumps through my body is stone cold, hands numb, limbs weak. There's nothing that can be done for this disease. There's no cure to what I'm experiencing. It's grasped onto every fibre of my being, seeping into the veins, entering the organs, cutting my air supply short.

I can feel a hand on my knee, comforting circles drawn by a thumb, but I'm stuck in the haze of impending grief. Fear. When I tried calling again, there was no answer. The first ten minutes in the car, I dialled that number every 30 seconds, but it was to no avail. It's a short drive, Harry had told me, we'll be there in half an hour tops. That's too much time for them, I responded. I felt the car jolt as he put his foot down, but with the Saturday afternoon traffic there's only so much speed the vehicle can exert without causing an accident. The last thing we need is a crash. This car is moving quicker than his four-by-four, though. It's a grey Audi, moving much smoother on the roads. Slick, very on brand for him. Zayn had dropped us off at Harry's for another car on the way in this morning. I remember thinking how much I enjoyed the way it felt on the roads earlier today. There's no comfort inside this vehicle now.

Instead, I sit in silence as I wait for the darkness to cloak me and block out the light. The last few specks in my vision that I had been clinging onto these past months, now burning out. Like a star in the sky facing its death, so too shall any peace I once had.

Behind us, Zayn and Babz follow behind on a motorcycle, agreeing it had much better speed. There's one always kept at the warehouse, only driven when they feel like it, today being an exception. The sound of their engine revving knocks me out of my subconscious every now and again, but I quickly fall back into it. I tried to reason with Harry to let me on it with Babz, but the sight of my anxiety was enough to make him refuse. He had to physically hold me back at one point before pushing me into the passenger seat of his car.

They come to the side of Harry, nodding our way before increasing their speed and moving ahead. They'll make it there first, that much is certain. It feels wrong to me that someone else should find him before me, when I seem to be the reason for his demise. I still don't know what I'll find when I arrive at his house, but I know it won't be good. Joe could have been attacked, taken, even killed. None of those options are more appealing than the others.

They've found me. The three words that electrified my body with terror. Ones that flash behind my eye lids every time they shut and whisper in my mind. I'll never forgive myself. Joe, while no longer an important part of my life anymore, doesn't deserve this. I wouldn't even wish it upon my worst enemy, although that person is the one doing this. How will I ever avenge Joe if I'm still stuck in this moral and ethical nightmare as I weigh up what is right and wrong?

The phone held so tightly in my hands starts buzzing, it's ring sounding in the vehicle. Harry's head whips over in response to it, my eyes glued to the device. I see Joe's name flash on the screen, but my hands are frozen, too frightened to listen to the danger that awaits him. Harry calls my name, squeezing my knee once more to give me the smallest amount of courage I need. My hands fumble with the screen. As soon as the phone is brought to my ear, I am met with commotion.