into the wilderness - h.s.

twenty-nine

Liam's hand felt different around mine, but I pretended it didn't bother me. I just walked along beside him and smiled. When he put his arm around my waist, I put my arm around his and instantly felt the gun resting in his holster. I felt a little safer knowing he had that conceiled by his side.

I was still Summer Olsen. It helped that I already had fake documents printed for this character. Except this time, instead of Liam being my cousin, he was my husband, Samuel. We lived in DC and worked in the Department of Justice building. We always walked to work together.

The garage we had parked in was about ten blocks from the monument. It was quite a stroll. We had to pause a few times to let Niall catch up. He was dressed as a tourist, wearing white tennis shoes, a red baseball cap, jean cut-offs, a sweatshirt that said "I heart Wash. D. C." and he had a camera around his neck.

Our first obstacle became a problem before we had even left the parking garage. Apparently, the "This Grandma is Fabulous" car did not belong to a fabulous grandma, but it belonged to a short Asain man who worked for Bruce and Jane. Somehow, they knew we were going to pull into that garage. I didnt know why they had hired him, though. He had terrible aim and couldn't harly hold his gun at eye level with both hands. Liam had taken him down easily with one shot and he didn't regret it at all.

Unfortunately, we faced many obstacles between the parking garage and the Lincoln Memorial. There was a Ford Fusion that followed us for six blocks before we vered off down a side street where cars weren't aloud.

Shartly afterwards, we were chased by a rather large man dressed in a clown's costume. Liam finally cornered it in an alley behind a bread bakery, taking a life without any regrets once again. I wanted to ask him how he was able to do it. I wanted to ask how he was able to kill a man without any thought to what he was actually doing.

He could be charged for murder.

Once we finished dealing with the clown goon, we had to deal with the angry manager of the bread bakery. He claimed we were disturbing the peace, but I quickly dedended us, saying that we worked in the building next door and we were just on our way in to open up the office. He seemed to buy the flimsy story and went back into the warmth of the bakery's kitchen.

"Jesus Chirst, Harper," Liam smiled at me. "Your pretty good at coming up with lies on the spot. You must teach me your ways."

"Well, let me know how good you become as soon as you lie your way out of almost every weekly piano lesson for eight years," I smirked.

He laughed and smiled at me.

Wait.

Was I flirting with Liam Payne?

Get your shit together, Harper. You need to find Harry.

I could see the back of the memorial now. At least, I think that's what I was seeing. I had only ever seen the front of the building in the pictures of my history books. But if I were to guess, this is what I would imagine the back to look like.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Niall running quickly towards us. It was a funny sight to see, a thin Irish blonde running through the crowd keeping a grip on his ball cap to prevent it from falling off his head. He was out of breath by the time he stopped in front of us and "asked us to take his picture."

"There's a man wearing darkwash jeans and a fleece pullover. He's pushing a baby stroller and he's been following you closely for the last ten minutes," Niall said as he handed us a camera.

"Niall, that could just be a dad taking his baby outside to get some fresh air," I tried to reason with him.

"That still doesn't matter, Harper," Liam defended Niall. "Anyone could be working for Bruce and Jane. Haven't you heard the saying Trust No One?"