Devotion [h.s]

215

Harry Styles

"What are you doing?" Amelia asks while I sit at the kitchen table, Briar on my lap while using my car key to carve into the table.

"Well, whoever lives here gets their name carved into the table. So I'm doing Briar's." I say while keeping my eyes glued to the table.

"On your sex tally table?" I hear her mumble from the other end of the kitchen, not agreeing with this.

"Well I'll put her name farther away from that obviously." I state while indenting her name in the table.

"What will you do when she's a teenager and you see she has a tally mark under her name?" Amelia's asks out of humour, making my spine shiver in an awful way.

"I don't even want to think about that." I shake my head.

"I feel bad for her future love interest. Boyfriends are usually scared that the girlfriends dad's will hypothetically kill them. But I mean you actually might." She chuckles while walking over to the table.

"Mhmm." I hum in agreement, carving the last letter of her name. "I feel sorry for that guy." I chuckle while feeling my phone buzz in my pocket.

I shove my large hand in my tight jeans, grasping the vibrating item in my finger tips. I yank it out of the tight confines while keeping Briar held in my lap still.

I examine the lit screen to see where the phone call was coming from, but the number was unknown to me.

"Someone calling you?" Amelia asks from the other side of that table. I furrow my eyebrows and nod, trying to decipher the digits but can't.

"Yeah, I don't really know this number." I look up at Amelia for a second before back down at the ringing phone again.

Against my better judgment, I click the accept button, bringing the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I say quietly.

"T-Thomas? Is that you?" A young girls shaky voice stutters through the phone.

I freeze in confusion, but was quick to realize who this was.

"Mariah?" I ask, making Amelia widen her eyes and raise in her seat a little.

"Y-yes, I-I'm sorry to bother you, but I didn't know who else to call." She said in slight panic.

"What's wrong?" I ask, holding Briar buy her stomach as she was leaned against my chest.

"It's Gene, she- she won't.." She could barely finish her sentence, but she didn't have to. I knew exactly what was wrong.

"Where are you?" I ask while standing up with Briar, walking over to Amelia who takes the baby.

"Hiding in the bathroom." She stutters.

"Can you get out of the house?" I ask.

"I- I don't know." She says. "She's downstairs."

"Well just stay put for as long as you can. I will be there in thirty minutes." I state.

"O-okay, thank you." She stutters like she was anxiously scared.

I hang up the phone and stick it back in my pocket, grabbing my keys off the table.

"What's happening?" Amelia says in worry as I grab my sweater off the back of the chair and put it on.

"I don't know but I have to go get Mariah out of that house. Stay here with Briar, Niall's just in the backyard doing stuff." I throw the black hoodie over my head and shrug my arms through the sleeves.