After The End: Book 1

15. Here we are again

Louis POV

The ride with Niall was the most awkward car ride of my life. I was finally starting to lose the coke jitters that I'd experienced courtesy of Harry's homicidal  fuck buddy and reality was setting in. Harry was dying. I had watched him do something deadly. I had been drugged and there had been a gun pointed at me until Harry had stepped in front of it and demanded a better deal. That had all happened. It was real.

The first part of the car ride was quiet. Then Niall had timidly asked me again to tell him what happened. In a calmer voice I had explained the sequence of events. My voice lacked the previous emotion as I'd given him and Naomi both a shortened version.

I had answered the door. Jade and her two strong men had promptly neutralized me. I didn't mention the cocaine, but Naomi's face told me she knew I was leaving something out. We had come inside to find Harry. They had immediately threatened him. Harry apparently owed some amount of money, but I didn't get into why. They had threatened to kill us both. The gun had been drawn. Harry had negotiated what he hoped would have meant my survival. Harry had, I now realized, attempted to stall to keep me alive. The boys had showed up just too late to save Harry and now we were going to the hospital to probably say our goodbyes and that was if he was even still alive when we arrived.

I knew there was a tiny bit of hope that things would pull through but I wasn't letting myself be optimistic. Too often, my optimism had been misplaced. I wasn't guarded enough. I trusted Harry even when I knew I shouldn't. I'd been lenient and truly believed he would be honest with me and I'd been optimistic that everyday could be the turning point. Any day now. Any day now he'll wake up and change his life. What a ridiculous pipe dream I'd allowed optimism to let me believe.

Naomi and Niall didn't say much about my account of events. How was someone supposed to respond? Was there an appropriate response to that? I couldn't think of one.

"I did cocaine," I blurted out to kill the tension. I don't know why I'd said it. I had omitted the fact for a reason but in the tension of the vehicle, it seemed to serve its intended purpose. I hadn't wanted to be the only one talking anymore.

"Excuse me?" Niall had said staring over at me from the red light with a look of intense confusion. "Could you repeated that and then make it make sense?"

I explained how I'd been ambushed. "It was like 10 cups of coffee at once," I mused trying to smile. It looked more like a grimace. The comparison definitely described the jitters but not the mental anguish.

Naomi had offered a small and pitiful laugh but the warm smile she gave me was calming.

Niall shrugged. "Harry had always said it was his favorite."

That pulled a small half laugh from me. Niall laughed too, although halfhearted. I glanced back at Naomi in the backseat. She wasn't laughing. She was looking up at us with damp eyes.

"Don't talk about him like he's already gone," she pleaded softly.

When we arrived at the hospital, we all three came in sprinting to the desk. The same police we had seen at my flat were in the lobby waiting for us with a nurse. All but one of the officers stepped away. They asked for the emergency contact and Niall shoved me forward.

"He's still alive," the cop told me immediately. I finally recognized him as the same cop who'd given me rehab pamphlets. He knew me well. He knew exactly what I would have asked. I had been too dazed to recognize him before.

I nodded, absorbing the statement. Still alive. That seemed like a low bar for them to set. I waited patiently for him to elaborate.

"They gave him all the naloxone they could to reverse the dose. He responded at first. He even woke up for a moment, but he's crashed 3 times since then," the nurse worded it so gently but I realized by her tone that what she was telling me something bad. I froze unsure what to ask next.