[COMPLETED]
❝Of all the races I've started, loving him is the one I never want to finish.❞
In this re-imagination of my most popular story, Arielle Hawthorne is an illegal street racer, just like Zayn Malik. Zayn's egotistical, flirty, and a major p...
"He was unexpected. She truly did not expect him or his effect on her heart, mind or feelings. He was the calming sound of the light pitter-patter of drizzle on an April Sunday morning in her brutal, destructive hurricane." — Unknown
A/N: i found this chapter quite difficult to write... i hope that isn't obvious, i knew what i wanted to happen but some form of writer's block kept me from actually typing the words, if that makes any sense. so i struggled a lot and i still don't like how it turned out 😩
it's a bit of a shorter chapter (compared to the like, 6k I've been pumping out lately) but still very important!
hope it's still consistent with my usual work and y'all enjoy! 🥺
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A R I E L L E
My mind is still reeling as James turns onto Zayn's street. I'm clutching the Manila folder that Hayes left for me—the one that holds all of the evidence of his (partial) innocence and Ezra's overwhelming guilt.
I say Hayes is mostly innocent because he's still not completely clean of all responsibility for what's happened. He still broke into Zayn's house with some fucked up intent to do something. He claims he doesn't entirely know what he was doing—something about wanting to get a leg up on him—but I don't know if I entirely believe that part.
How could you break into someone's house without a plan? Especially as a cop, someone who'd deal regularly with break ins. It doesn't exactly make sense. I just can't understand why you'd break into someone's house without a plan of what you're looking for. Without an idea, you could be in the person's house for hours and any logical person would want to be in and out as quick as possible.
However, I think I believe everything else he's told me. I understand that he could have fabricated all of the paperwork that I'm gripping like a lifeline, but something deep in my gut is assuring me that they're truthful.
Who knows though, maybe he'll prove otherwise. Only time will tell, I guess.
"It's that house," I point through the windshield towards Zayn's house as we approach and my nerves start.
I don't know what to expect with this. Part of me believes that Zayn will absolutely lose his shit over what I'm about to tell him. However, he's been so different lately that there's this other part of me that thinks otherwise.
We don't talk anymore so I have no idea what he's thinking, what he's aware of and what he's not, and worst of all, I have no knowledge of what his relationship with Ezra is like. They've been working together for weeks now, how do I know that Ezra hasn't manipulated Zayn into believing his bullshit? He can be a rather charismatic man and his modes of manipulation are like nothing I've ever seen. Even the smartest could fall for it.
