Footsteps echoed around the walls of the basement at Number 18 Butterscotch Lane-a quiet tap, followed by the scraping of a shoe dragging along concrete. Tap, scrape, back and forth for hours on end. The sound was joined by the drumming of fingernails on a table as Diana watched her eldest brother pace around the candlelit room.
"You really can't live without the junkie, can you?" she said, leaning her face in her hand, "You'll have to get used to it. Harry's gone for good, cops said. Wouldn't even let me see him."
"They know I'll set ablaze the whole blasted city to get him back. He's not going to no darn prison.
Not in a million bloody years." Jack said, taking a knife out of his pocket and throwing it at a dartboard on the wall. He hit a bullseye, but then again, he always did."Cops told me that-" Gemma said, stopping abruptly to swallow her own words as soon as she'd said them.
Jack turned to her slowly and smiled. His eyes stayed wide open like those on an owl, eating away at his prey sat by the table, "Told you what, Poppet? What did the cops tell you?"
Gemma looked him in the face-for a second at most-but it was long enough to make her heart drop.
"They said naught about him.""What did they tell you, Poppet?" Jack repeated, slower than before. His tone was sweet, too sweet, like a pound of sugar dropped on honey. It made Gemma sick at the sound of it.
"They told me that the nurses stopped the spread of the damaged caused by the impact on his head.
They cleared his left side up and there's no damage to his brain. Then, the cops said that Harry's lost his eyesight and hearing on his right side.
Permanent damage. They told me that he's got some brain fog but no memory loss. Keeps having his fits. A whole load of them.. He don't want to leave—made it clear. He's begging them to put him in prison. They made it clear that releasing him in this state will cause trouble for everyone; and even changing him from one cell to another got him making a riot. The cell's his safe place. He does not want to be let out."Jack watched Gemma for a long while after she'd finished speaking, during which time, the tenseness of anger around his eyes and mouth relaxed until he appeared somewhat lost.
"He's not the same person anymore, we're not the same, not since that Balaclava boy got his hands on him." Jack pulled a chair out from under the table and sat opposite Gemma. "It's always been us three. You, me and him. You two are the only things in my life worth something. You are my greatest treasure, and he's got my whole damn heart. What's there to live for without it?"
He paused, rolling the housekey between his fingers.
Gemma watched the light of the candle flame flicker over his brother's face. She agreed that Harry had changed. He'd found someone new who took him just as he came, who'd devoted their whole being to his happiness, and who'd heard the truth as horrid as it was, yet remained so truly and unapologetically themselves nonetheless.
But despite Harry giving his heart to Louis, he respected whose heart he already owned. He never had left Jack's side, not for a single second. When Jack had called, Harry had followed; and while Louis had remained the same, Harry had also. He was—as he'd always been— a bit misunderstood, a bit eccentric; he'd done ballet once. Mentioned that he wanted to be a poet, and the rows and rows of notebooks in the room above Jack and Gemma's heads proved it to be true.
"Come with me." Jack said, standing from the table. He leant over to the furnace and picked up the large pair of red cutter pliers. Gemma watched him examine their sharpness, wondering what had sparked his motivation. They wandered up the stairs together- Gemma in front, Jack following behind; just as it had always been. By the back door, Jack leant the pliers against the wall to dress himself with a popper fleece and deep green wellies. Gemma put on her own fleece, which was similar with all of its patterns and colours, and slipped her feet into her pair of boots. Jack picked up the pliers and put a hand on the door.
YOU ARE READING
The wanted murderer L.S.
FanficThe London most wanted Murderer he can do everything he wants, lay a finger on the people he loves and you're dead.