The song for this chapter is Cigarettes & Alcohol - Santino Le Saint.
Celeste
It had been two weeks since I woke up in the hospital and everything was slowly beginning to majorly aggravate me to the brink of insanity.
I'd been staying at Harry's apartment since I discharged myself, much to his and Zayn's disapproval, and I'd been confined between the walls with strict instructions to stay put. Everyone had been working tirelessly to try and figure out what the best next move would be but none of them had allowed me to offer my help, or to go into the field with them to locate sources of information or clues.
It was driving me fucking crazy to not be out there doing what I do best.
My protests hadn't been silent by any means; there had been many heated confrontations between myself, Harry, and Zayn, that had more often than not resulted in me smashing something in Harry's apartment. They were concrete in their decision of keeping me isolated from any further attempted assassinations at the hands of currently unconfirmed assassins. Cora tried to rally against them with me, insisting that the quickest way for me to heal was to train myself better.
They threatened to disband her from the group if she sided on the side of the rebel, which only pushed her to threaten to cut off both of their dicks if they insulted her integrity with such a foolish threat again.
Cora and I had formed a strong friendship over the weeks that I spent sprawled out on Harry's couch, chain-smoking the cigarettes that she brought me every day when she came to visit. Zayn had tried to persuade me to ease up on the smoking whilst I was healing as it could have potentially slowed the process down. I didn't even bother to shoot him a snide remark as I proceeded to light up cigarette after cigarette out of pure pettiness alone. Cora never allowed them to take control over my movements whilst I was in the prison of Harry's apartment; she brought me my cigarettes, my vodka, fresh beauty, and skincare supplies, as well as a whole new wardrobe that she'd purchased for me out of money given to her from Harry. It was comforting to have the presence of another strong woman around me when I'd previously only had the men surrounding me. I kept my guard up around Cora for a few days after I woke up out of paranoia that she may have had an ulterior motive with me, however, I soon came to the realization that there was no need for her to do everything that she was.
She was just like me.
A woman navigating her way in a world ran by men.
We were both sat on the couch in Harry's apartment, as we had been every day since I discharged myself from the hospital, smoking cigarettes and watching some terrible reality television when Harry walked in with Zayn. I flickered my gaze up towards them, taking in their disheveled appearance and tired eyes.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," I muttered out, averting my gaze back to the television and discarding some ash from my cigarette.
"Are you watching reality television?" Harry questioned, confusion lacing his words as he ignored my remark.
I took a deep inhalation of my cigarette before responding with a snide, "What does it look like I'm doing, Harry?"
