Savior

The Girl that Goes Missing

Layla.

With an ear-splitting crash the red mug in my hands slips from my grasp and falls to the floor, shards scattering across the cement and the hot coffee coating the leather of my shoes.

"Fuck, Styles! My daughter bought me that!"

My ex-boss huffs angrily and scrambles to find a broom to sweep up the mess, but I am somehow frozen on the spot, fixated on the casualty below me.

Rick was in the middle of lecturing me on the importance of a two-week's notice when Layla's face suddenly flashed through my head. Her face, though contorted in pain; scared, lost, and her eyes pleading for me.

The image had a shiver running through my spine and my fingers loosening around Rick's stupid mug.

My hand wasn't slippery nor did I feel myself losing my grip, but I didn't even try to catch it either. It just... fell... very suddenly and there was nothing I could do to stop it –just watch as it crashed to floor and shattered as if in slow-motion.

Helpless. Frozen.

And that visual preluded by Layla's tortured expression... Well, the warm blood coursing through my veins suddenly turns to ice, an ominous cloud starts to move in above my head, and my stomach churns like an ocean during a bad storm.

Something just doesn't feel right.

"Haz, what's wrong?"

Niall's concerned voice manages to pull my focus from the shattered mug and onto his concerned face. I shake my head to clear it, plastering a smile on my face just as Rick waddles back into the room grumbling.

"Nothing, sorry... Just spooked me, is all."

There must be something in my expression that makes Niall not believe a word I am saying because he opens his mouth to speak, brows furrowed, but is interrupted by Rick sweeping the shards into a bin.

He tosses a rag at me angrily, grumbling that I'm the one that should be on my hands and knees cleaning up the mess and not him.

Instead of fighting with him and making the visit perpetually longer than it needs to be I begin to soak up the coffee and collect the shards of broken mug that he missed whilst sweeping. I try to clear my mind, but Layla's face won't stop reappearing in front of me.

Like my mind is trying to tell me something.

But, I try to shake away these thoughts, knowing my paranoia has led me astray before. I focus on wiping up the coffee while the other two watch on.

Niall glowers at him for being a twat –though he doesn't actually grab a rag to help me clean up- and once I am done the boss turns to the lockbox and pulls out my final check.

"Since you up and quit without notice I had to deduct some of your pay in order to give Dave overtime since he came in to fix the cars that you left," He looks at the spot on the floor where his precious mug shattered and sighs, "Now I wish I had taken out a bit more to pay for the property you just broke."

My nails dig crescent moons into my palms and Niall scoffs angrily, "It's a fuckin mug, man. You can't be serious, you're the one that made him quit and you-"

I lift a palm up to stop Niall's badgering and tamp down my seething rage, snatching the flimsy check out of his hand, needing to just get the fuck out of there.

Any other day I probably would have fought tooth and nail against him for basically stealing from me, but my stomach is in knots and something doesn't feel right and it definitely doesn't help standing here chatting to the scum of the earth.