Harry Styles
"Cleodora, don't walk away when I'm fucking talking to you." I raised my voice when she simply decided to bump into my shoulders and walk into the penthouse without looking back, leaving me in the elevator talking to myself.
I rushed out and followed her, I knew the place was safe because Zayn checked, but I would never feel the same in here again. The amount of panic and anger I felt when I came home and Cleo wasn't here the night she was taken was simply going to haunt me forever.
And that was one of the reasons why there was no fucking way she was going to this party because I couldn't go and I wouldn't be able to handle this on my own, knowing she was risking her life.
The pain I felt when she was kidnapped and the fucking guilt that ate me alive because I wasn't there when she needed me was engraved in my brain.
And I was never one to be careful, but now that I felt how it was like to think she was dead or raped or hurt, I never fucking wanted to go through that again or let her put her life in danger when I couldn't protect her or even be close to her.
Cleo was blind because of her revenge plan and I wasn't going to judge her, I would probably do the same. But she wanted to go on her own and I wanted to scream at Ashley for telling us about Liam.
She was on Cleo's side and she thought she could handle herself, which wasn't a lie. But Cleo wouldn't be in a good place mentally and she was even more impulsive than me when she was pissed off.
"Cleodora!" I called her when she was about to go up the stairs, completely ignoring me. It was so weird to be back here, I kinda missed it and kinda hated it at the same time. I felt a bit safer because there was 24-hour security in the entire building now, with new cameras and alarms all over the place.
"What, Harry?" She raised her voice, turning around and stepping closer to me while I placed the duffel bag on the couch. "I don't wanna hear you telling me how dramatic I'm being because I'm not! This is about my fucking brother and I need it."
"You're gonna get yourself killed." I deadpanned, looking deep into her eyes. "And you're out of your mind if you think I'll let you."
"Let me? You know me better than this." She snorted, throwing her hands in the air.
We had lunch at Ash's but we came back here as soon as we were done, the whole thing was so fucking awkward. Mostly because our mood was ruined, Cleo and I had argued over how much I should fill her glass of wine because I was on edge and she was being dumb.
And our fights tended to get intense so we didn't need an audience. I knew Ash was trying to help and keep us safe, but she didn't know the whole story.
This was so fucking complicated, we shouldn't go to this party and I was about to tell Cleo we should run off to some other state and wait for things to cool off a bit. I knew I wasn't okay enough and knowing Liam was so close was a trigger to her.
"Tell me how you plan on kidnapping Liam from a club with a shitload of security." I raised one eyebrow at her.
"Zayn is gonna help me." She shrugged.
"No." I pointed my finger at her. "I won't let you drag him in this just because he can get an invitation. He's helping us enough already and he just had a fucking daughter!"
"I'm not asking the kid to come along." She arched her eyebrows nonchalantly and I clenched my jaw in response.
Here we go.
Emotional Cleo was worse than numb Cleo because she certainly felt way more motivated to do this. Opening up about Niall's death obviously made her more sensitive about this and she was being reckless and selfish.
