Toxic (Harry Styles)

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Deep in my heart I'm concealing things that I'm longing to say. Scared to confess what I'm feeling - frightened you'll slip away.

I sent Dad a quick text telling him I won't be home tonight, and he replied rather quickly saying he wasn't working so he'd see me in the morning. He didn't question on where I was staying or who I was with─ he probably has a good idea by now.

Harry's room is dark, the curtains cover the windows so no amount of moonlight slipping through to show the features of his or my face. But I know he's awake─ his uneven breathing gives it away, but also the way his fingers curl in my hair, occasionally scratching my head or soothing my hair. We haven't spoken since his reassurance earlier, and he let me change silently into a shirt of his that was far too large for my body, and a pair of his boxers in which I blushed at though it wasn't anything new.

Tonight feels different for some reason. Maybe because it's the fact that Harry could've been taken from the world─ from me ─, or the fact that my best friend is currently in the most excruciating pains she's ever been in her whole life right below us. Both of them are horrible to think about and they set my stomach on edge.

In the hour or so since we've gotten into Harry's bed, we haven't moved; Harry's stayed on his back with his arm around my shoulder and his hand in my hair, his other hand intertwined with mine on his chest; and I'm on my side, cuddling up to him and my head rest on his arm.

I know this won't last forever, and that tomorrow when we wake up things will be hectic again, and we'll have things to do, but for now I need to focus on clearing my busy mind to actually sleep.

That's why I'm here and not at home because, quite frankly, I wouldn't feel safe. Evan is still out there and he got hold of Jess when she wasn't expecting it, so who's to say that the same can't happen again. Harry wouldn't let me go even if I wanted to. He'd put up some argument to make me stay, and I'd have to agree with him because it's true. Everything that's happened recently, everything he and Lucas have told me is true and I'm not safe. So why act like I am?

Then another reason comes to mind. I can't bring my father into all of this. If I were to go home whilst they don't know where Evan is, he could become a target in relations to me, and then he'd be used as one more advantage to get to the organization. I have to stay away because I can't lose him.

I've lost too many already. 

***

"How are you feeling?"

Jess' eyes open and close sleepily and she finds me in the chair next to the guest bed that she's laying in inside of Lucas' flat. Her body is mostly covered by the blankets, but the bruises that are sprinkled across her face are no better than they were yesterday with the exception that there's no blood. It seems to take her a few moments to fully process my question before answering.

"I feel like..." she deliberates with a scratchy voice."Like I've been cut with a machete on the inside, and then thrown into a cage of lions."

I asked Regina if Jess had spoken at all about what might've happened in that building but she says Jess has only told her that she's hurting or she wants to talk to me before anyone else. Regina also told me that Lucas scared her whilst trying to gain information about anything Evan said or did when she was held captive. Jess never spoke.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask her slowly. I don't want to trigger anything that could mentally harm her because I know that's just as bad as going through the actual thing because it's forever engrained into your mind.

She reluctantly nods, strunching her nose like she's smelt something bad─ it's only her imagination.

"It was dark when I woke up...y-yesterday. They─ who ever took me ─drugged me or something. I can't remember where I was, just that it was─it was dirty and the floor was vial and... I was bare." Her breathing had come out strangled. "I'm not sure how many of them there were, but I only ever saw three; Evan and two others. They left me in the room and one by one...they─" she choaks. I reach for her hand; I'm enable to produce tears from the crying yesterday, but the hurt in my chest is just as bad. "They raped me. One after the other, Shay, they raped me. Evan was undoubtably the worst. He was the one to do all of this" ─Jess gestures to the cuts and spots on her body─ "to me. He'd take out his knife, ignoring my screams for him to stop, and do this. It hurt so much!"