Nightlight (on hold)

Chapter Thirty

Chapter 30

Guns everywhere were raised. Pointing at the man behind me, at the men that were now flooding the supply facility, at Zayn, at the men we had brought with us, at Louis and at me.

Zayn spun around quickly, the stitch extension set quickly forgotten about. His eyes flashed with a frantic scare before they turned steely and cold. His mouth pressed into a firm, grim line and I watched as his eyes darted back and forth between me and my captor.

“Damien.” Zayn greeted coolly. I heard the man behind me chuckle.

“Malik.”

I felt something rise in my throat and suddenly I had the intense need to vomit. The room began to spin a little, so I tried to just focus on Zayn, but even he was becoming a little too blurry. The man behind me said something that pissed Zayn off, and Zayn responded with what sounded like an insult, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything sounded like a hum.’

What if this man, Damien, took me like Jay had? What if Zayn couldn’t stop him? What if he… what if he… r-raped me like b-before?

I felt myself quiver, but I tried to get it to stop. I couldn’t let this guy, Damien, know exactly how afraid I was. Did he know I had been kidnapped before? Didn’t he know Zayn would try to stop them?

Zayn would stop them. Zayn would shoot him and he’d die. And I’d be safe. Yeah, in an hour I’d be back home in Zayn’s arms. We’d be in bed, snuggling. He’d probably be pissed at me, but we’d be ok. He’d rescue me.

“You know what’s really shitty?” Damien mused. He leaned in over my shoulder and let out a long breath of air.

“What?” Zayn snarled. I could tell he wanted to reach into the back of his jeans and pull out his gun, but it was a little too risky with the gun wedged against my head.

“How someone has been picking up all of my girls off the streets of London.” The man snarled. “I’ve been losing so much money on those girls who got away. Do you know how expensive it is to pick ‘em up in Paris and send ‘em over here?” His rasp turned into a growl, and he emphasized his point by squeezing my throat tightly. I watched Zayn’s eyes glint angrily when I wheezed out in an attempt to get enough air in.

“No, I wouldn’t know, Damien. We don’t traffic humans.” Zayn answered back with equal ferocity.

“Hmm, anyways. I’ve been thinking of switching to girls from London- cheaper, ya know. I could start right now.” I could almost hear the grin in his voice, even though I’d never dare look at him. I would’ve probably shit myself if I ever looked him in the eye while having a gun held to myself. I mean… I was already on the edge of shitting myself.

“This is our fucking town.” Zayn took a step forward, just as Damien took the safety off the gun. I watched as pure fear crossed over my husband’s features. Immediately, his hands shot in the air, palms forward, and he stepped back, to show surrender. Damien chuckled in our ear.

“And you know what?” His sickening voice cooed, “I think this bird has what it takes.” The hand that was wrapped around my throat released me, only to travel down to my chest. I closed my eyes tightly, unable to look at Zayn as the man fondled me in front of him. I didn’t want Zayn to see how painful it truly was for me to be in this position again. I didn’t want him to see how close I was to crying. I didn’t want him to see how truly afraid I was that this man would be able to just… walk off with me.

“Don’t touch her.” Zayn’s voice was meant to come out strong and threatening, but no one could miss the waver of emotion with every vowel. He was just as terrified as I was.

“Oh, but she’s so fun.” The painfully tight hold on my left breast was released. I knew that there’d be bruising, or some sort of marks, there for a few weeks to come. The hand traveled down to my stomach and over my belly button. It paused on my pelvis. “Do you know how we mark our girls, Malik?”

“Don’t you dare.”

“While you and your group of pussies go for a more… subtle approach,” my hair was moved aside to display the hickey marks I had along my collar bone. “The Black Devil Cartal mark them like men.” The cool metal of the gun disappeared from the side of my temple. I almost let a sigh out in relief, but then I saw a knife come into my vision.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a slight movement. It was Louis stepping forward. I let my eyes scan desperately around the room- looking anywhere but at the weapon in Damien’s hands. Eleanor was nowhere. I counted up all the men I recognized, and I came up short of three of them.

Eleanor got out.

She was with security.

She’d be ok.

All I needed next was to get Zayn out somehow. Of course, I wanted him to protect me from Damien, but I’d much rather endure whatever torture the Black Devil Cartel was planning than to have Zayn in harm’s way.

Don’t tell him I said that.

“What do you want? I’ll give you anything.” Zayn’s voice was sounding increasingly desperate. It didn’t take much for me to avoid looking at Zayn. All I had to do was focus on the knife that was hovering around my midsection.

“I don’t know if too much can replace her. I see the attraction now, mate. She’s quite the looker.” With the knife still around my pelvis, Damien’s other hand passed over my body and stopped right where he would usually carve initials into the girls. I gulped nervously. I hadn’t managed to suppress the tremors of fear, but I wasn’t shaking as much as I thought I would have. Instead of full-out body convulsions, I only trembled.

“We’ll back off your girls. We won’t get involved. You have my word.” Zayn pleaded. I knew for certain that if we got out of this ok, he would stay true to his word for my own safety. The girls would be out on the streets in a matter of seconds.

“We’ve already lost too much money, Malik. It’s gonna have to be more than that, mate.” Damien’s cigarette breath growled. He leaned further over my shoulder, scratching my cheek with his stubble. His hand traveled further south until it rested on top of my lower region. The only blockade between his fingers and my crotch was the thin fabric of underwear I was wearing, and my jeans.

“I’ll give you whatever you ask for. A hundred thousand pounds? I can get that for you in twenty minutes.” My eyes were still locked on the hand on my pants, so I didn’t see Zayn take a tentative step forward, but Damien reacted by grabbing me tightly. I cried out in pain as his fingers curled into my jeans, digging into the most sensitive part of my body. The knife was pressed into my skin gently, breaking through my shirt and just scratching at my stomach. A few droplets of blood soaked through my clothing.

“I’ll take all of my girls back- and her. She’ll make a nice addition.”

“NO!” As the two men bickered and Zayn attempted to negotiate, I broke down. The dam that had been keeping me together burst and the tears started to flow readily. I sobbed silently, hoping no one would notice. I hoped that all eyes were trained on the two key players in the argument, and not the simple piece of collateral with the knife against her pelvis.

“I mean… there is one thing I’d trade her for.” Damien played cruelly. My teary gaze flitted around the room at all of the other tense standoffs. Everyone else had a gun up and pointed at someone on the opposing side. Louis was silently giving directions through hand signals, but no one dared to move. The workers at the medical supply place were cowering in the corner.

“What is it? Anything. I’ll give you anything if you let her go.”

I wanted to scream at him. NO! It was so obvious what Damien meant. And I wasn’t worth it. That was too much of a price to pay.

“Your life.”

“NO!” That time it was me who cried out. I was shut up, though, by him flexing his fingers, sending a jolt of pain up my core.

“There’s four more of ‘em, boss.” A voice spoke up from somewhere. Damien grunted against my skin.

“Take out their leader, they’ll run around like chickens without heads.”

If I had been in a less compromising position, I would’ve demanded Zayn tell me what he was talking about. Originally, like way back two years ago, I had been led to believe that Zayn was the leader of One Direction. But seeing them interact and debate over different ‘business investments’, I had come to the conclusion that they operated with five heads. But maybe not… I didn’t quite understand how the gang was run and that was not the appropriate time to ask for clarification.

“Ok.”

“No Zayn! Please don’t. Just let him-“

“Shut up, Darlin’.” The words weren’t harsh or intended to be mean, but they hit me like a ton of bricks. I would get no say on the fate of my husband. Damien issued an order and suddenly two men grabbed Zayn and forced him down on his knees. I looked over to Louis frantically, but he only had a stone cold expression.

I dreadful feeling pitted in my stomach.

It was my worst nightmare.

The thing I dreaded most.

He was going to die.

He wasn’t going to do anything to stop this. That fucker. I assumed it was because if the situation were reversed, he wouldn’t want Zayn to get involved. He’d want Zayn to get Eleanor out of there and safe.

“PLEASE!” I shouted at him. Someone had to do something. They couldn’t just let him…

“She goes first.” Zayn looked up at Damien without a trace of emotion on his face. He was about to be murdered, execution style, and he didn’t show an ounce of fear. I finally met his eyes and was disappointed to find a trace of absolutely nothing in them. My last moment with my husband wouldn’t be special, it would be his stone hard face looking back at me.

Damien shoved me towards some of his men, who each hooked an arm around me and began to drag me away. I screamed and kicked and thrashed, but they wouldn’t let go. No one paid attention to me. I was just a piece to the game- Zayn was the real prize. He was what they wanted.

Louis caught me when I was thrown to him. I stumbled into his chest, but quickly rectified myself. He knew better than to expect me to follow orders, so his hands replaced the hold the other men had on me.

“Louis- get her out of here!” Zayn shouted as Damien reached back for the gun that had been previously pressed against my temple.

“NO! Don’t! Please! I’LL DO ANYTHING!! PLEASE! Louis- stop him!!!” My words were barely audible over my sobbing. My dam broke and everything began to flood out. I swiftly kicked Louis in the balls and bolted back to where I had been standing not fifteen feet from us. Damien wasn’t ready for me to tackle him to the floor, so he was surprised to say the least, when I managed to drag him down. He fired the gun, but the bullet missed everyone and ended up in a wall.

I was thankful in that one moment.

Then, guns started going off.

Everything that happened next was blurry. Somehow, Damien got me off of him and I ended up on my ass clutching a recently punched cheekbone. Had he pistol-whipped me? I couldn’t remember. Everyone was shouting- but I could hear my name being called frantically from the one person I needed to see. He had to be ok.

There were shouts and screams and curses and gunfire. Things were being thrown and smashed and broken left and right. I stood to my feet, shakily. My conscience said to hide- find cover, but I couldn’t leave him.

I called for Zayn, hoping he could hear me over the roar of the fight. Somehow, we found each other- although we had managed to have quite some distance between us. He looked relieved, briefly, to see that I was ok, but then he looked worried and started yelling at me to run- to get out. I shook my head at him- he knew me better than to expect me to just leave.

“HANNAH- GO! I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND!!” He quickly turned and started firing at someone, I forced myself not to look. I didn’t want to have images of Zayn becoming a monster, so I blocked it out. When our eyes met again, he looked pissed at me and started shouting again.

“I LO-“ My words were cut off by another gun shot- it was louder than the others in the room. It was closer.

I didn’t realize I had been hit until I saw Zayn go white. In fact, at first I thought it had been him to get shot. Of course, when I felt a warm liquid on my torso and looked down to find blood, I was relieved to see that I had been injured, and not him.

Thank goodness.

But my relief was short-lived as the pain started to take over. The already blurry scene in front of me was becoming increasingly fuzzy and muffled. My legs gave way and I collapsed onto the floor.

Where was Zayn?

He was ok, right?

My hands flitted over the injury and I tried to put as much pressure on it as possible, to stop the bleeding. Though, I was weakened, so the pressure was hardly enough.

The blurry vision started to fade.

And then it was black.

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