Second Chances

Chapter 13

Songs of Inspiration

The Scientist - Coldplay
Superheroes - The Script
She Is - The Fray

The door swings open and Jax walks through the doorway. I extend my arm out to stop her from closing it until I am outside too with my car keys dangling from my fingers.

I close the door behind me just as she turns around to give me a glare.

"Harry, please stay here," her voice is begging in a strict tone.

"I can help," I say, but it comes out as more of a demand than a statement.

"Nothing you are going to say is going to stop me from tagging along. So I'm either going to follow you on the sidewalk, or I can drive you to where you have to be to save time and effort," I interrupt her before she has the chance to argue again.

Her focus stays straight in front of her as she walks away from my rental and down the walk way. Her eyes roam the sidewalks for answers in the pavement.

"And I haven't done my cardio today yet, so don't bother running because I have all my energy saved up for a good ole chase. It would be a good headline too," I smirk, and she stops in her tracks.

"I fucking hate you Styles," she spits, not even giving me the curtesy of her attention and look my way.

"All the love to you, too," I smirk, walking towards the driver seat of my car.

I unlock it, and we both stare at each other with doors open but neither climbs in first. I stare at her, waiting for her to sit before I do. I'm not an idiot, I know the games.

She rolls her eyes, and throws herself into the passenger seat with a slam to the door as I gently close mine, smirk still dancing on my face.

I check my mirrors after clicking my seatbelt in, and start the engine.

Before I pull away, out of the corner of my eye I see a dangling seat belt next to her.

"Please put your seatbelt on," I ask Jax, who has her arms crossed over her tiny body in Morgan's scarlet shirt.

"Just drive."

"It wasn't a question," I raise my voice a notch, and grip the steering wheel harder.

She refuses, and I let out an exasperated breath from my nostrils to let my steam fade a tiny bit.

"I'm going to say it one more time," I begin, closing my eyes. "Put you seatbelt on, please."

My eyes open again and I don't peel them off the window in front of me, but feel her glance at me before giving in and clicking the belt on.

"Control freak," she mumbles but I ignore it as I pull away from my living quarters.

I exit the road and turn towards the same end of Boston where I usually find her, which happens to be the rougher part of the city.

"Are you going to lead me to our destination?" I politely ask her.

"I guess," she grunts.

The car ride is silent as I just continue to drive in the area of direction from my memory. She doesn't tell me to turn anywhere, so I figure I'm going the right way so far.

"Right here, pull over," she announces, right in front of a random building where no one is in sight.

"Here? You're positive?" I double check, scanning the area with my limited visibility inside the motor vehicle.

"Positive," she mimics my accent. Trying to open the locked door.

"Nice try, I'm getting out first. And if you try to get out after me, the alarm goes off. And I don't think you would like that kind of attention," it's sort of blackmail, but I can't help but hide my chuckle as I climb out of my car and lock her inside.

I walk around the hood of the car towards the building, looking around carefully for any watchers or paparazzi, or even worse-one of my friends.

My feet travel to the side of the building but I just find a whole load of smelly dumpsters. I decide to revisit the front of the building where there is a door just on the corner.

The place inside is dark, and dust coats the screened window in the old rickety door.

I glance back at my car to Jax who has her elbow propped against the window with her head resting in her hand.

I refocus back in the door, and open it slowly. I wait a few seconds to make sure nothing pops out at me before taking my first step inside.

The wooden floorboard below me squeaks at my foot comes in contact and my weight shifts onto my leg.

I am overly careful with my awareness like a hawk's. The first room is a hallway, and I struggle finding a light so I just slip out my phone from my back pocket and switch on the flashlight.

The excessive dust becomes more visible with the light, along with the crawling bugs on the paint cracked walls.

There are multiple doors, open doorways, and a spiral stair case at the end of the hall.

I leave the doors shut to keep those rooms a mystery and flash my light through the open rooms from the hallway. My steps are as slow as molasses, and my heart race is quickening every millisecond but I have to remind myself consistently that this is to assure myself of the safety of this place to just drop off Jax.

The rooms are mostly empty, some have a few tables with even more dust than the walls and floor combined, and one looks like an old library with sky high book shelves full of novels. If I wasn't in Bates Motel or on a short mission, I would take the time to read the titles.

I jump a mile when I feel a soft touch on my ankle and a yelp escapes my mouth.

I grab my forehead in shame when a rat scurries away as I curse it until it's in the cracks of the walls where it should remain.

My feet eventually take me to the spiral staircase, and I shine my light to observe it intently before taking the risk of adventuring upstairs of the sketchy building.

Each step I take carefully, each a louder squeak than before. I don't know what's louder-the pounding of my heart ripping through my ribcage or the creaking floorboards on this staircase.

Centuries later, I reach the top of the stairs which leads to an open room with boxes everywhere, and I can't tell if they are empty or packaged up.

Shining my light through, I spot some rags of clothes thrown about over some boxes, and some few dirty pieces of paper and wrappers but other than that, it's pretty empty.

Just as I'm about to head back downstairs, I hear a rustle in the back corner of the large room, immediately shining my light towards the producer

My phone flashlight doesn't reach that far back, so I slowly creep my way there and mentally prepare, and hope for it just to be another rat.

The flashlight beings to reach, and a shadow forms against back wall of some fandom figures behind a wall of boxes.

"Jax? Is that you?" a fragile voice of a young boy speaks up, followed by a sickly cough.

I don't respond, but stop dead in my tracks as I try to take in the situation.

"No. I-uh," I struggle in responding, not knowing how to approach this.

"Yes, Chris, I'm here," Jax says, inches behind me.