Syndrome // H.S.

08. Sing Me to Sleep

Ten minutes later, we were on the road. 

The other guys had been woken up quickly and everyone packed into two cars: Liam's and mine. I was currently sitting in the passenger seat of my own while Harry was behind the wheel, and Zayn was laying down in the back. Harry was on speaker phone with Liam, who was in his SUV  with Louis and Niall. They were only slightly ahead of us, and they were trying to work out where we should go. This was made difficult by the fact that they were all arguing, with the exception of Zayn of course.

"We should have just killed her and left her behind! She's probably the one who called the fucking cops!" Liam said angrily through the speaker. All of their nerves were on edge, but I felt like I was disassociating. The motel we'd been staying at was already a good hour and a half away from my house, and now I was being taken even further away.

Harry responded back, "Liam, why would she call the cops and then warn us that they're on their way? That doesn't even make sense."

Liam continued accusing me, but I sat quietly in my seat, staring out the window to my side as I watched the trees run backwards. I was too out of it to look at the dashboard, but I could tell we weren't going the speed limit. Liam was still ranting and raving and Harry spoke up with an agitated voice. "It wasn't fucking her. You can check her phone when get somewhere if you have to."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I heard Louis say over the phone. His voice was a bit more distant and I assumed he was sitting in the backseat of Liam's vehicle. 

"Shut the fuck up, Louis," Harry growled. I finally looked away from the window to glance at him. His jaw was a harsh, sharp line of tension. It flexed as he clenched his teeth. He had both hands on the steering wheel, and it looked as if it could break from the death grip he had on it. His knuckles were white, standing out against the gold rings that clad most of his fingers. I noticed a single black cross tattooed near the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger. I wondered absentmindedly if he was Christian. Not to sound judgmental, but he doesn't exactly strike me as the religious type.

I glanced back up at his face just as he flicked his eyes over at me and then back to the road. That stupid ass smirk started forming on his lips and I continued staring at him in disbelief, knowing he could see me in his peripheral vision. 

I hate him.

I hate all of them, but I hate him the most, and I'm not sure why. I dragged my eyes back to the window on my other side, crossing my arms and turning my body a bit in my seat so I could angle my knees away from him. 

Eventually the arguing over where we were going to stay started to tune out of my ears. I was having a hard time focusing on anything as all the thoughts left my head. I welcomed the numbness overtaking my brain, a much preferred alternate to the constant anxiety I was used to. 

"Motherfucker!" Harry's voice brought me out of my trance a few minutes later. "Liam, I'll call you back, we're getting pulled over."

I looked in the rearview mirror, and sure enough, the blue and white lights filled the glass. We'd only been on the road for about ten minutes, so we were still close enough to the town of Radford that there was a big chance the officer could recognize Zayn in the backseat. 

As Harry put on the emergency lights and hung up the phone, I hurriedly reached into my glovebox and pulled out a pair of dark sunglasses. I handed them back to Zayn, rushing the words, "Put these on," out of my mouth. "There's a beanie back there too somewhere. And here." I tried to discreetly pull the sweat jacket off of my body so it wouldn't look suspicious if the cops behind us could see the movement. I passed it back to him as well, telling him, "Put this on too. Pull the sleeves over your hands so they can't see your tattoos."