Forbidden Hope | H.S.

24

Harry's POV

Niall and I walk into the living room and we take a seat on the sofa as Mrs. Anderson sits across from us in the armchair.

"So how can I help you, boys?" Her expression is grim and lifeless and I feel bad that we know where her daughters are while she's worried about if they're alive.

"We just wanted to talk to you and check in on you and see how the case is doing," Niall says for us as I smile softly in response. She clears her throat before beginning to speak.

"Well, the police have nothing new. All they have is her car and the rags that were left by her car. They swept the house and found nothing." She pauses taking a deep breath in her eyes welling with tears.

"A-absolutely nothing." her tears begin to fall as she tries to quickly recompose herself.

"I'm sorry, um it's just crazy that this happened to them. These past 2 days I've been thinking everything I did over and over again, trying to figure out where I went wrong, what I did to lose my daughters like this." She cries harder and Niall gets up to comfort her. I know this is harder on him because this is his second family.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Mrs. Anderson," I speak up.

Her sad eyes look to me "It feels like I did though. I couldn't protect them. I couldn't protect Hope the first time and now it's happened again." She looks down and she begins picking at her hands, something I noticed Hope does a lot too.

Niall gives me the look to go ahead with what we were sent to do so I politely excuse myself to go to the bathroom and I hear Niall start to reminisce with her.

I head up the stairs and into Athena's room. It's not as big as Hope's room and it screams Athena. Her room is a light blue and her bed is in the top right corner with a desk pushed in front of the window.

The closet is on the opposite side with a full-length mirror hanging on one of the sliding doors, the dresser is right next to that. I open the bag that I brought up with me and open her closest, grabbing shirts and pants that she can wear.

I do the same thing with each of her drawers and close my bag noticing something on her desk. It's a photo of Niall laughing while holding Athena on his hip with Hope pretending to bite her cheek as Athena laughs out. In the corner, it says July 15th, 2009.

This was Hope's 10th birthday

I grabbed the photo and put it in my bag heading across the hall to Hope's room, her room is white and the bed is in the middle of the room with the dresser next to it.

She has a bay window on the right side of her room and the closet is on the left side and the bathroom door is across from her bed. I grab a couple of things out of her drawers that Niall didn't grab the last time and I head out of her room and see Mrs. Anderson looking at me.

I clear my throat out of awkwardness, "Um sorry, I just wanted to see something." I say to her who nods in understanding.

"I get it, it's weird to see her room without her in it," I mumble out another sorry while I walk past her and get halfway down the stairs before I'm stopped with a call of my name. I turn back and see her giving me a sympathetic look.

"I'm not stupid I know you were probably over here with her when I wasn't home and I get it, I can see you care about her, so don't stop looking," she whispers to me.

I nod my head and go outside closing the door behind me seeing Niall in the car already. I get in as he scolds me for getting caught but I just wave it off and ignore his rambling about how it could've gone worse.