Harry Styles, a secret service agent working for British intelligence is tasked with finding the killer after a series of brutal but calculated murders across Europe. His mind is sharp, he's smart, arrogant and works with a precision that leaves no...
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February 3rd 4.30am 7 hours ago
Winter
The room was completely silent.
Silent besides the hum of my own breath. The kind of silent that had me aware of every other tiny sound. Every heartbeat, the faint creak of the chair when I shifted to get comfortable.
In the corner, I sat with one leg over the other, perfectly still, perfectly patient. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, it was near pitch black except the small glow of the lamp on the bedside table. In the darkness, my eyes could trace the faint outline of his body on the bed and each shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed calmly in his sleep.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. The events of that night, looping in my head over and over again. Harry's birthday, the jazz bar, the way the air had felt warm and alive with the music, atmosphere and laughter. That was the part I wanted to hold onto and the memory I wished I had for that night.
Even if I'd been the one to pull back and let the space between us grow, all I really remembered was the softness of his hand on my waist, the way he pulled me in, his lips on my cheek as he whispered into my ear.
What if I hadn't pushed him away? If we hadn't stepped outside at that moment in time, if we hadn't left and been at that exact spot at that exact time. Maybe it wouldn't have happened. And I could have acted faster.
Maybe he wouldn't have gotten hurt.
I'd never felt this before. Ever. Fear had never been something I carried, not for myself, and certainly not for anyone else. But seeing Harry on the ground like that after not even knowing where he had gone, the blood pooling beneath him, it had sent my heart plummeting to the floor. Crouching in front of him as I fumbled with his phone and tried to get the blood to stop, I was sure I was about to watch him die. And that helplessness wasn't something I was prepared for.
I was always prepared for everything, except saving a life.
Saving someone wasn't typically on my radar.
It was a risk to call for help. I didn't know if anyone would recognise me, drag me away in handcuffs, lock me in some cell and throw away the key. But none of that mattered. Not with him bleeding out in front of me. I used his phone to call emergency services, my hands shaking badly and were so thickly coated in blood I could barely hold it.
When they arrived, their attention solely focused on the two bodies, dead by my hand, and Harry, barely conscious with blood soaking his shirt. They fired off hundreds of questions that I'd been too frantic to answer. But when someone spotted the MI6 badge, there was a flip. The questions stopped. No one looked at the corpses again. No one asked what had happened as soon as they saw he was with the Secret Service. And they'd not taken me away from him.
