Run | H.S

Nine

"Hello?" A young girl picks up the phone. "Cierra Addams speaking!"

"Hi, is your father home?" I ask.

"Um, no. It's just me and my mom. He's at work. Why?" She asks. "Who is this?"

"This is his niece, Darcy." I say and the line goes quiet for a few seconds. "Hello?"

Then a different lady picks up. "Who is this?" She asks into the phone.

"My name is Darcy Styles," I introduce myself, again. "You must be Abigail?"

"Yes?" She asks. "And this is Darcy?" She asks. "The daughter of Harry and Mia styles?"

"Yes, I have my siblings with me." I say, looking back to them in the backseat of the car. "I would really like to talk, can we meet up?"

"Oh, you can come on over!" She boasts, a sudden change in mood, which is... Strange. "You have no idea how many times Mark talks about you all, I'd love to meet you! I'm sure you're no harm!"

"Of course not, where are we going?" I laugh, getting my GPS ready before she gives me directions.

~•~•~•~•~•~

I pull into a gravel driveway, turning the car off as I just stay in the car for a sec.

"Is everyone okay with this?" I ask and everyone slightly nods.

I nod myself before getting out of the car, heading up to the porch with everyone else. I knock on the door 3 times before someone answers.

A woman answers the door.

She has long brown straight hair that's tied up into a ponytail and she has a black T-Shirt along with some Jean shorts.

"Hi!" She chirps. "Are you-"

"Darcy?" I finish and she laughs. "Yup, yup."

She nods. "Well come on in." She moves toward the side, letting us in. "Is this your sister, or?"

I look over to her, her eyes on Olivia.

"Um. That's my girlfriend." I admit. "I'm sorry I didn't mention her before, I wasn't sure-"

"Oh, no!" She smiles. "You're fine! What's your name, sweetheart?"

Olivia's eyes dart to me before introducing herself. "My name is Olivia."

"What a lovely name." The woman smiles. "My name is Aubrey." She turns her head to the stairs. "Cierra! Come down and meet our guest!"

"Coming!" A voice calls before I hear feet running upstairs and down the steps.

A young girl appears at the bottom, long blonde hair and amazing complexion with green eyes.

I wish I were her when I was her age. She has a hoodie on and some jeans.

"My name is Cierra." She smiles, walking up beside her mother. She looks to her mother's stomach, poking it and laughing. "And this is 'lil Tristan!"

I look to Aubrey with wide eyes. "You're expecting?"

"Yes, why I should've told you. Haha." She smiles, looking down to her stomach.

"How far along are you?" Maddy asks.

"I'm only 20 weeks, haha. I'm quite small but the doctors say it's normal." She smiles. "Come into the kitchen."

She starts to walk to the kitchen and leans against the counter as we all shuffle in.

"I hope you all don't mind sharing a couple of rooms together." She says, opening a drawer. "We only have so many. Mark should be home in about an hour and I haven't told him about you yet so I would suggest to get settled in while I finish up dinner."

She turns to her daughter. "Cierra, can you show them the basement?"

The girl nods, walking out of the room and to a door right beside the kitchen.

When we get to the bottom steps, I'm surprised to see a full furnished basement. It has a large couch with a flat screen TV. And then 3 doors to the left.

Cierra leads us to one, opening the door. "This is one of the bedrooms." She points to the other door. "That's the other one. The other door is a bathroom. Mom said my dad will be home in about an hour, so until then, feel free to go wherever in the house." She says, walking back up."

I go through the first door Cierra had open along with Olivia. (Picture above.)

I instantly settle on this room to be mine and Olivia's room and decide to go check out the other room

Two separate beds set adjacent to each other and that's about it. It has a small seating area with a TV on a stand in the corner.

"How cozy!" Olivia laughs as I walk over to Maddy, who's trying to get the TV to work.

"You are that desperate to get your hands on a TV?" I laugh.

"Mom, I dont-" My heart drops as Maddy stops mid sentence, realizing what she said. She looks up to me with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Darcy."

"Nah, it's okay." I say, watching her eyes water up. "Do you wanna talk?"

"No." She shakes her head, turning back to the TV and sitting on the floor, just staring at it. "Hey, Darcy?"

"Yeah?" I ask, standing right beside her.

"What if mom and dad aren't dead?" She asks and I raise my eyebrows. Both out of confusion and sympathy.

"Maddy, you can't be serious, you-"

"But really. Darcy, think about it. We never saw them get killed. And at the funeral, it was a closed casket. They could still be alive, Darcy!" She says.

I take a seat beside her, wrapping her in my arms. "Listen, even if they were alive, Maddy, they would've come back for us. They wouldn't leave us to worry our whole lives-"

"But Darcy!" She says. "You're not listening, how are they supposed to find us if they are being held captive?"

"Enough, Maddy." I say, standing up and getting a bit fed up with her stories. "Mom and dad are dead, and I'm sorry, but there's nothing I, nor anyone else, can do about it."

It's impossible, the whole world knows it is. Somebody would have been bound to find the world famous couple! Yeah, there are theories about them being alive, but there's no evidence! Nothing.

I start to walk towards the door with Olivia on my heels, and I almost forgot that she was in the room with me.

"I think I need to be alone right now." I whisper, making sure Olivia hears me before walking off again.