Freak [Zianourry] - COMPLETE

Chapter 11

As we made our way across campus, I noticed other groups of people going the same way. "Quite busy today." Zayn said thoughtfully.
"Hey, Louis!" We all turned, to see Trixie running towards us.
"Hey, Trixie. What's up?"
"Have you seen what happened?" She panted, looking at us all. We all shook our heads. "The old headmaster, the psychic one that tried to... kill you, he's been found. They've locked him up, and there's celebrations going on in the city. It's beautiful."
"Awesome." Harry grinned.
"Wonder if this'll mean Lela gives you more of a discount, Lou." Niall laughed.
"After a bow?" Trixie asked, confused.
"Louis's made it into the nationals." Liam smiled, that same, proud look appearing on his face.
"Really?" Trixie gasped. "Which team are you in?"
"Just said Team One, whatever that means." I shrugged. They all stared. "What?"
"You're not in the reserve team?" Trixie said blankly. "You're not in Team Two or Three, but Team One. Are you sure?"
"Yeah..."
"Louis... That's the best of the best." Zayn whistled.
"School's best about five archers, and there's hundreds and hundreds and thousands that come here." Harry explained.
"I'm in Team One, but only just." Trixie looked at me curiously. "I've worked for years to get to that team. You must be really, really good!"
"He is." Niall laughed. "Bloody hell, Lou!"
"Who's in the rest of the team?" I asked Trixie.
"There's me, obviously, a girl called Kat, two boys called Finn and Nick, and you must be making up the spare place after Rose left." Trixie explained. "You better get a really good bow!"
"Will do." We said our goodbyes, and carried on the walk to the city. Eventually, we reached a place with several large, tin sheds, horses galloping around, cars and bikes weaving their way through the crowd and a whole load of people.
"Let's see what we can get." Liam pushed his way through the crowd, and we followed, Harry gripping tightly onto my hand so he didn't loose me.
"It's chaos today!" Harry said loudly over the noise. "To think, in some ways, it's all thanks to you and your bloody amazing powers."
"Not really, love." I shouted back, ducking a flailing person. "I mean, if I was dead, then no one would be as interested, because he'd just be a common murderer."
"Don't say that." Zayn said in my ear, leading me along with a hand on the small of my back. "It's not pleasant."
"Sorry." I twisted around to grin at him, only narrowly missing someone carrying a crate of oranges, trying to sell them to anyone. The crowd was hot, loud, and noisy, and I was quickly becoming uncomfortable.
"Harry, I'm going to fly above. It's too loud. I'll land wherever you lot go." With a smile, my body shifted into a snowy owl and I flew above the crowd, keeping a careful eye on the boys as they wove their way expertly through the mass of people until they got to a certain man standing a short way off from the crowd, by a smaller tin shed. I swooped down and turned back into a human, straightening my clothes off.
"Like to borrow one of my ol' bangers?" He blew out a mouthful of smoke from his cigarette, making me scrunch my nose up. "Fred'll drive ya."
"Please." Liam smiled politely and the man lifted the door to the shed, going in. "Don't mind him, Lou, they've got some of the best rides around."
"Here ya go." The man motioned to a large car with blacked out windows. "For th' day, or jus' the one way?"
"Just one way, thanks." Liam handed him a couple of notes, before we all got in and put our seatbelts on.
"Why the one way, Li?" Niall asked.
"I've got a better way of getting back." He smirked. "Set something up, so you lot better not read my mind, otherwise you'll spoil the fun."
"What makes you think we'd ever do something like that, Li?" I batted my eyelashes playfully.
"Shut up." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, before kissing me briefly. "You're trouble, sometimes."
"Thanks." I said sarcastically, leaning into him, eyes drifting shut. The previous night hadn't been peaceful, so I was eager to take a nap to ensure I stayed awake the whole day.
**********Two hours later**********
"Louis? We're here." Someone shook me awake, and I stretched, feeling much more awake. We got out of the car and I saw the city.
"Wow." I grinned.
"It's just like a big city." Harry giggled.
"Well, I've never been to one, have I?" I retorted. "And the pictures of it sometimes aren't great, so I'm just going to stand here and appreciate it, and you're going to stand there and be cute."
"I'm not cute." Harry moaned.
"Gone off the idea of getting a bow? You could stand there and stare at the city all day..." Liam trailed off.
"I'm going!"
They all laughed, and I eagerly ran after them. We walked for a while down the lively streets, pointing out things we liked in shop windows until we came to a decently large shop which we went in.
Bows of all colour, size, shape and make were hanging off every wall, and on stands taking up the floor room. "Bloody hell." I murmured.
"Long time, no see!" A middle-aged woman with short, light brown hair came over. "You are...?"
"Louis, ma'am." I nodded politely.
"Oh, don't be nice, Louis, you won't even like me after a while!" She smiled warmly. "I presume it's you who's doing the shopping, as these lot can't shoot to save their lives?"
"Hey!" They all exclaimed indignantly.
"It's true, my dears." Lela (I assumed it was her) bustled behind the counter, bringing out a few charts. "What is it you're looking for, specifically?"
"He's just made it onto Team One, Lela." Zayn explained. Her eyebrows rose.
"A highly impressive achievement. So, how come I've never seen you before? Normally, I always know who's going to make it into any of the teams." Lela's eyes scanned over me, before she started to tick things off on her lists.
"He only came to the school two months ago." Harry chuckled.
"Bloody natural." Liam agreed.
"Were you interested in archery before you came, Louis?" Lela asked.
"Never picked up a bow in my life." I grinned.
"That's interesting." Lela stopped what she was doing, and looked at me curiously. "Even a natural wouldn't make it onto the team that fast. Did your parents have a knack at archery?"
"I - I wouldn't know." Swallowing, I looked down at my feet.
"I do apologise, my dear. Most insensitive of me." Lela smiled at me warmly. "Do you have any preferences in how you shoot?"
"A strong bow." The boys all chimed, making me glare.
"I see." Eyes sparkling with amusement, Lela wrote something down. "You know, Louis, you seem awfully familiar, but I could swear we've never met before, have we?"
"Not that I recall." I met her own blue eyes with mine. "Why do I remind you of someone?"
"I don't know." She hummed. "Because you're in the best team, will you be after a bow specifically for yourself?" I hesitated, knowing I wasn't paying.
"That's the thing, Lela. I want to reclaim my debt here and get a discount." Liam smirked. "A nice, big one."
"Very well." Lela smiled. "I shall make you your bow for free. Don't look so shocked, my dears. I do have a heart, you scroungels!"
"Polite as ever." Zayn muttered as Lela started to measure me, asking questions about my shooting style, what eye I closed, how strong I wanted it, etc. etc..
"And, finally, colour. Oh, and what it's made of?" Lela said in the middle of writing everything down.
"Just... Metal black?"
"I can do that." Lela finished writing, added a very hard full stop for emphasis, then straightened up. "I'll get that to you on Friday."
"Thanks." We all waved, before leaving.
"She's an awful lot like you, Louis." Niall grinned. "I forgot what her sense of humour was like."
We wandered around the busy streets, buying a few trinkets, my phone and all of our clothes, and stopping for lunch. When the afternoon started to become later afternoon, we headed off to the 'secret location' of how we were going to get back to the school.
"Basically, Eddy owed me one..." Liam paused. "So, I might have got us a free trip." We turned the corner to see two men standing in tight, skiing gear, goggles and all.
"Are you kidding?" Niall burst out laughing.
"This is going to be humiliating." Zayn said dryly.
"I've never gone skiing before, and, let me guess, we're going down the mountain?" To the east of the city was a high rising set of mountains covered in snow, leading towards the school.
"Oh, yeah." They both grinned at us.
"I'm Eddy, that's my mate, Jack. We've got gear for you all in the hut and skiis, but we need to be quick incase it falls dark." Eddy introduced himself, and that's how I found myself heading up a mountain to what seemed like certain doom.
********************
"Remember everything we've told you! If you start rolling down the mountain, we'll save you... Eventually." With a grin backwards, Eddy and Jack both used their ski poles to push off before they were shooting down the mountain. With a sigh, I did the same crouching down to gain some form of speed.
"This is going to cause fatal injuries!" Harry yelled at me as we sped down. "Seriously!"
"You'll be fine, love!" I swerved to avoid a snow drift, before we were out of ear shoot, gaining speed slowly. The speed we were travelling at was a bit too fast for me, who'd never even seen a pair of skis in real life before. "F**k!" I overbalanced, smashing into some rocks.
"You okay?" Liam skidded to a halt beside me, turning his skis perpendicular to the way we were going so he didn't slide down.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Accepting his hand up, we were off again. My leg was throbbing lightly, but it didn't hurt too much, so I carried on, making a mental note to ask Niall to heal it if it got worse.
Finally, we made it to the bottom without killing ourselves. "Well done, guys!" Jack pulled his goggles off. We got changed again into our clothes that we'd carried in a backpack, leaving the gear in a second hut at the bottom of the mountain.
"That was fun." Harry giggled.
"I nearly killed myself." I deadpanned. "Fortunately, there's more than a bit of snow."
"Are you talking about the first, second, third, fourth or fifth time you fell over?" Zayn teased.
"I didn't fall over five times!"
"Nah, only seven." Liam ruffled my hair, and we made our way back to the dorms.