Error. [H.S.]

23.

Scotty.

"Are you injured, dying, or being held hostage?" Beck's voice burst through the door as she came running into the dressing room that had been set aside for us at the venue. Her frantic eyes did a sweep of the room, hand over her gun on her hip. Her rapid breathing started to slow once she cleared the room and landed her eyes on me.

I gave her a low energy wave from my balled up spot on the couch, and she met my forced smile with a frown.

"You know it's illegal to call 9-1-1 for non-emergencies, right?" She scolded, swinging the door shut.

"In my defense, I didn't call, I texted." I point out.

"You don't text a cop 9-1-1, that's like texting a firefighter the word 'fire'." Plopping down in the seat across from me, she leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. "What happened? You look puffy."

Puffy — her nice way of telling me I look like shit after crying and letting the tears dry on my face without giving a damn.

I spent the last ten minutes debating whether or not I should go into full detail, but I'm already keeping so much from her. Any more, and I might explode. Up until meeting Harry, she's known everything down to my most embarrassing secret. Keeping her in the dark about every rendezvous encounter with Harry feels like a weight on my shoulders, but if Beck finds out, then Niall finds out, and all hell breaks loose. So for now, I'll spare her those details and fill in the blanks were I can...

"Harry happened." I mumble, looking down at my shaking hands to pick at my chipping nail polish. I feel defeated by someone who shouldn't have any power over me, but Harry's treading into dangerous territory and threatening to drag me down with him.

He was so cruel; he pinpointed all of my weaknesses and used them against me. That's the worst part, just when I think he's almost tolerable, and maybe I could get the rest of the team onboard to at least tolerating him, he pulls shit like tonight.

"Yeah, Liam said he was a real prick on stage tonight." From her spot in the technical booth, she probably couldn't see everything that was going on up front. "I didn't know that it was you that he was swinging his dick around for."

Her description made it sound so much worse than it was, and sent an embarrassed flush to my cheeks. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about, even if it was slightly enticing.

Again, that was his way of pinpointing me and putting me in the public eyes. Just like he said, all he has to do is get me photographed with him, and I become an easy target. That's always been my dad's biggest fear, that I would be the Executioner's next target. He never said that to me, but I heard him talking about it over the phone once, and now, that's exactly the angle Harry is working at.

"Not that." I shake my head, refusing to give that encounter any more of my energy. We had bigger problems. "He has a girlfriend."

I could be more straight forward with Beck, but I needed to give her a few more seconds to calm down from her initial entrance before setting off the alarms again. We swore we would leave everything that happened back in the bar in the past. We haven't talked about it for years, let alone even driven down that street. We were walking into dangerous territory that could've landed us both in handcuffs, ruining everything we had ever dreamed for ourselves. When we cut our ties from that bar, we made a pact to never look back, and until today, we hadn't.

"And we care about this because..." She furrows her eyebrows, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. "Honestly, it's impressive that someone so fucking pissed off at the world could hold down a relationship."

Time to rip off the bandaid...

"We care because we know her." My teeth chew on my lower lip, my heart pounding in anticipation for Beck's reaction. Beck tilts her head to the side, and the gears in her head start turning to try and figure out who we know that could even come close to dating a celebrity. "It's Ciaran..." I save her the trouble of guessing, anxiously biting on my lower lip.