Dani's POV:
"What a great surprise," I say, my voice laced with sarcasm. I'm staring at my room, but it's not the way it should be.
The bed sheets are ripped off of my mattress, the pristine posters neatly taped onto my wall are lying in tatters on the floor. My box of recordings is on the floor, tapes from years ago spilling out of the box. My bookshelves are knocked over, crushing the books that fell out. But none of those things are the worst part.
The worst part by far is the small pieces of white paper taped onto my wall.
Slut, one reads. Whore, bitch, emo, attention seeker. Some are more descriptive: Go kill yourself, everyone hates you, you don't deserve the boys.
Evelyn and Brooklyn, I realize. They did this. Who else could know about the boys? Anger bubbles in my chest, pushing to be released. But I can't let them get to me.
One of the papers flutters to the ground and I pick it up. When accidentally glancing at the back, my eyes fall upon words as familiar to me as my own name: I do, Augustus, I do.
A quote from a book. I inspect the front of the paper more closely and see that it is coated in whiteout. My heart pounding with fear, I rush over to the fallen bookshelves and gently reach under. After a minute or so of carefully sifting through the pile of fallen books, I take out my copy of The Fault in Our Stars. Frantically, I flip to the ending and see the sight I dread: the last page is ripped out. And as I flip through the book, I see it is not just the last page, but various pages from different parts of the book.
They mutilated my books. Anger bubbles up in my chest as I stare at my ruined book. I'm done crying; I need to do something about this. I'm not going to confront them, at least not yet, but I still have to do something.
I can't think properly surrounded by this mess, so I go downstairs, my ruined book in hand.
Zayn's POV:
Niall, Harry, and I were listening to some of Dani's covers of our music that she left lying around, and I do hate her, but she's definitely talented. Honestly, I think she's the best female artist out there. I know I'm not supposed to prefer the voice of my imprisoner over my own girlfriend, but I can't help that Dani has more talent than Perrie.
"Guys," Niall says. "Do you think Dani's on YouTube?"
"Yeah, why?" Harry replies.
"Well, remember when Louis shouted out that band? They were called Sauce or something like that?"
"5SOS," I correct, laughing. Even in situations like this one, Niall can always make me smile with his ridiculously cheerful attitude or silly remarks. "But where are you going with this?"
"Well, just like Louis gave that band a shoutout, maybe we could...?" Niall trails off, uncertain of our response to his idea.
No way. Why would we help our imprisoner? I swear being trapped in this basement is making Niall go insane.
"Absolutely not," I say. Before I can elaborate on how bad his idea is, a sound like sheets of rain beating down on me comes from above. Listening more closely, I identify the sound as angry footsteps.
"Someone's coming," I hiss.
Harry just has time to sweep the tapes back into their box and return them to their spot when Dani comes downstairs.
Dani seems completely different, but I'm not sure how. Instead of a recording device, she holds a book, which is unusual for her. She didn't strike me as the literary type, but then again, one of my biggest secrets is that I'm a total fanboy for books; I make edits, have a fanpage, and even belong to a chat group for one fandom with a bunch of awesome girls who almost never shut up. But I doubt she likes the kind of books I do; she's probably reading Fifty Shades of Grey or something meaningless like that. Instead, to my surprise, the book is The Fault in Our Stars.
YOU ARE READING
Stockholm Syndrome (FOUR 1)
Fanfiction"I'll never leave if you keep holding me this way." When Dani's cruel older sisters kidnap three members of One Direction, she's stuck in a basement with three boys who hate her. As her sisters bully her, Dani is forced to get closer to the boys, ex...
