Devil's Due [h.s.]

Chapter 80

Chapter 80

HARRY'S P.O.V.:

The entire drive, I felt like I was alternating between being conscious and blacking out. There was no way this was happening. No way this was real.

An entire warehouse had been blown up. Right after I'd taken River there – Riv. My Riv. The correlation was uncanny, but she wouldn't have done that, right? She wouldn't have gone behind my back to expose the one thing I'd told her to keep a secret, right?

"No," I said aloud and squeezed my eyes shut briefly, tightening my hold on the wheel. "No." I shook my head. There was no way. She wouldn't do that. She wasn't like that. She wasn't like everyone in my fucking life who used me to get what they wanted and left me for dead.

...Right?

It was hard to rationalize how else this would have happened as I drove. Was I being too quick in assuming things? This was River. The girl I'd give anything for. Deep down, I knew she wouldn't do something like this. Not intentionally, anyway. This was the girl I trusted with my life. The girl I –

My dash lit up with an incoming call. It felt like I'd been driving forever at this point. I just needed time to cool down, I finally settled on. Time to figure out for sure what had happened. I wasn't blaming River, I resolved, I was just upset at the situation – that so many people had been hurt. That she could have been hurt.

It took a few seconds of deep breathing before I was able to click connect on the call from Zayn. After everything that had gone on, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear more bad news. We could deal with the loss of product, I just hoped that at least a few had made it out alive. My heart hammered in my chest at the notion.

"Hey," I said before he could speak. "I'm almost there, I just–"

"Harry," Zayn's voice sounded different than before. "Harry, where are you?"

"I'm like 5 minutes. Less than that. I'm sorry it took me so long–"

"No, I need you to pull over," he said quickly. His voice sounded odd. Slightly thick – erratic, rushed. "You need to pull over right now."

"What?" I furrowed my brows. "Why? I'm almost there–"

"Harry, you have to pull your fucking car over right now, do you understand me?" Zayn didn't wait for my response before barreling on, "If you are ever going to listen to a thing I have to say, now is going to be the time. Pull your fucking car over, turn it off, and breathe, okay?"

"Okay," I muttered and flicked on the turn signal. The road I was on was deserted. Gravel crunched beneath my tires as I pulled up onto the shoulder. "Okay, yeah, fine. I've pulled over."

"Turn the car off."

With an annoyed sigh, I did as he said. "It's off."

"Take a breath, okay? Before I say anything, just take a breath–"

"Zayn, what the fuck?" I shouted and slammed my hands against the steering wheel. "Seriously. What the fuck is going on? Have you found any more bodies? Am I being traced or something? Tracked? Should I get out and ditch the car–?"

"River's been shot."

For a really, really, really long time in life, I believed that I was here as some sort of simulation. That I was fake – that this world was fake. That everything around me was fake. I was one-dimensional, the things I saw and witnessed were all a collection of cells meant to test me, the world wasn't actually spinning and I didn't actually exist. But in moments like this? Moments where I could physically feel the earth come to a complete stop, it was when I was hit with the terrible realization that this was all real. Way too fucking real to even comprehend.