Till Dawn (HS)

xviii

This is so hard to write but I did my best aha. The next chapter will be long and hopefully up on Harry's birthday ❤️

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"Where to?" The cab driver craned his neck to peer at the girl who had just gotten in the backseat, her pupils blown out and a frantic flush to her cheeks. She clutched the diary and her phone in her lap and hesitated. Where did she want to go?

Her first instinct was to say the hospital. After everything she had just discovered, it seemed like the easy choice since the only thing she wanted to do in that moment was be held by Harry while she told him how much she loved him and was reassured that he was alive and they were okay. Clara had to rub her temples to soothe her racing thoughts; the first place Liam was going to go when he regained consciousness was the hospital. She was almost certain of this. Clara was unfortunately aware of her lack of upper arm strength and inability to even run without feeling like her lungs were going to collapse. How would she be able to protect Harry all on her own? With this in mind, she shook her head after a fleeing moment and prayed that she was making the right decision.

"Police station," she uttered to the driver, swallowing anxiously. He nodded and pressed his foot against the gas pedal. The roars of thunder outside were muted by her loud thoughts. None of this seemed real to her, but as Clara began to piece all of the details together, she was face to face with the reality she had been oblivious to for years.

She thought back to the one night when she had stepped out of Harry's house and heard a rustling sound from behind her. That had been Liam.

She thought back to when she went out to dinner with her friend and he had said things about Harry that she could have sworn she never told him. Now she knew that he had followed her and figured those things out on his own.

She looked out the window to see the lane full of cars. Clara swore under her breath and gripped the back of the seat in her hand, her heart beating so intensely under her ribs that she feared it would chip away the bone. She wanted to yell at the driver to fucking step on it, but her voice was lost.

It was nearly twenty minutes later when the car finally passed the thicket of traffic and they pulled up to the curb in front of the police station. Clara had never associated herself with the kind of crowd that would cause her to end up at this place, but ironically here she was, because of the last person she would have suspected to be even somewhat dangerous. She still couldn't imagine Liam ever hurting her, not physically anyway- as for Harry, he had already proved he was capable of hurting him.

Clara didn't have any money on her so she quickly recited her address to the cab driver and told him to send her the bill. Keeping the leather book and her phone tight in her hands, she stepped out of the car and hurried to the entrance of the building, the rainwater mixing with her saline tears.

When she walked inside, the heater above the door blasted hot air over her shivering body. Her eyes frantically darted around and she nearly cried in relief when they landed on a vaguely familiar face. It was the police officer who had spoken with Harry earlier that day.

Clara rushed over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder to rudely draw his attention away from the stout man he was talking to.

"You were talking to my boyfriend this morning," Clara sputtered to him once he turned to face her, his eyes widening subtly in recognition. "He got shot in the leg, remember? I know who did it and I have evidence!" She lifted the diary in her hands and stared at him with wild, hopeful eyes. "Please, help me. I don't know what to do and I don't think he's safe because this guy- well, he's just a fucking lunatic and I'm scared. Please."