concealed - h.styles // completed

Chapter Twenty-Three

a/n: so I decided to stop putting song lyrics here and instead am putting author notes, im updating because I got 400+ votes and 7.8K+ reads :D I also decided to have goals, so I'll put that at the end of the chapter ok bye

:~:~:

Alex's POV

The old woman was quiet the whole two hours. She sat on her wooden stool, a Cosmopolitan magazine in her hands. She hummed along to the sounds barely escaping the old jukebox-looking machine.

I knew all of this just by peering through the blinds of the back room, which turned out to be a lounge.

I sipped my coffee and sat on the red couch that was by a round table and its plastic yellow chairs.

The coffee was bitter and tasted nasty. Maybe it wasn't the coffee though. Maybe it was my taste buds going crazy because bitter coffee normally didn't bother me.

I set the mug down and closed my eyes. Instead they immediately snapped open. Every time I closed them, two green lights were watching me through the dark. Then thick red blood dripped on them, smothering them, then the lights were evil and were a shade of black that was so dark, it was almost blue.

My chest was rising rapidly as my breath hitched. I couldn't get his face out of my mind. It was like someone drew it on my brain with a permanent marker.

You'll be okay, I thought to myself, even though I knew it was all lies.

Just then, I heard a loud bang of a door being swung open and slamming on to a shelf.

"Sir!" the old woman shrieked. "Don't-"

"I'm looking for a girl," a voice that I wished I never heard again rang through my mind. It echoed endlessly, and I was waiting for the woman to reply.

She sighed. "Look, sir, I am not-"

"I'm looking for a fucking girl!" he bellowed but then hissed. Curious, I peeked out the window through the thin, black blinds.

Tiny glass shards were stabbing his arms, legs, and chest through the bloody black shirt.

I also gasped but then remembered to keep my mouth shut.

"I-I need more specific descriptions than that, sir," she stuttered.

"A stubborn, short girl... eighteen... petite... brown hair and eyes," he panted. "I know she's... here..."

The old woman didn't say anything. She slowly turned her head and looked at me from the other side.

She mouthed, Sorry.

"Behind that door, sir."

:~:~:

Harry's POV

I saw Alex move away from the window. I stumbled through the overcrowded-with-useless-stuff shop, knocking over knick knacks and boxes.

"Alex," I gasped when I pushed the door open.

"No!" she screamed. She gripped the arm of a red couch so tightly that her knuckles were snow white. "Stay away from me, you monster!"

Her words hurt me more than the glass pricking my skin and clothes. I jumped out of a fucking building for fuck's sake!

"How did you escape?" she yelled. "There were policemen everywhere and... Oh, God, did you shoot them too?"

"No!"

"If you two don't stop screaming at each other, I'm calling the cops!" the old woman yelled from the front. I ripped the blinds off the window, earning a shrill scream from Alex, and glared at the woman, who was holding her ancient cell phone in her shaky hand.