Harry Styles
I have Gemma.
I have Gemma.
I have Gemma.
Liam's words kept echoing inside my head and the pain was impossible to describe or process. Anne was dead. Gemma was taken.
I felt like I couldn't breathe, each sharp intake of breath burned my lungs and I had no idea how I was still conscious. This felt worse than a panic attack, almost like a combination between that and a dissociative episode.
My body was in shock but I was aware of it... I could move if I wanted to, but I felt too weak and vulnerable to even try, completely consumed by pain and helplessness.
I was just lying on the bed... replaying the past hour in my head in a loop as we waited until we got another call from Liam and as I tried to get my shit together.
First I thought he'd called from Zayn's phone, and I nearly had a heart attack. But Liam was using an unknown number, probably a burner phone, and Cleo had forgotten to check who it was before answering.
I wasn't sure how I'd react if Zayn was in trouble as well, maybe I'd simply collapse and break for good. I was so fucking shattered that I wasn't even sure of how many pieces of myself were left scattered after each blow, I just knew I could never be put together again... there was always something different.
There was always chaos and I was so fucking exhausted.
Zayn was here in the apartment... I could hear him talking to Cleo but I felt so far away. They were probably talking about me in the living room, Cleo reacted in a different way than me and she completely lost her temper.
I had a feeling Liam's call telling us that he had my sister was a trigger to her because of Niall. We still didn't know where they were, I was so fucking worried that I was on the edge of simply losing myself. He called to torture us, especially me. Liam suffered because of our families and now he was taking it out on the last people alive on his personal list.
It was just me and Cleo now that Anne was dead, and I just had a feeling he had something to do with her death as well.
It seemed so fucking weird to think that she was actually gone now. I never planned on letting her back into my life, but I was alive because of Anne. I had a second chance that led me to meet the people I loved the most in the world. I met Zayn, Cleo... and my sister.
I remembered my past and I felt less broken, and now it felt like it'd all been for nothing. We kept trying to do something right and we always found ourselves tangled even more in the mess we created ourselves in the first place, and now there was no way out.
My sister was suffering the consequences of my carelessness. Gemma didn't deserve this at all, not after everything we'd been through and also after losing the woman she loved. Not after finding out how much of a terrible person I was.
Her life only got worse because of me and there was no fucking way I was going to let her get hurt. The psychological pain and trauma she had been through were more than enough, and knowing I was the one who made her feel scared now was going to haunt me forever.
Now Liam had her... I didn't know how the fuck he found out about Gemma, but I figured the same way Gemma found out about me. Maybe he hired someone to look into our lives, a simple act of desperation because Liam himself seemed to be running out of options.
Trust me, I tried my best to understand how he was thinking because maybe it could help us get to him more easily. He was probably trying everything he could to get us now that his previous plans had failed, and the fact he had my sister was impossible to ignore.
