Mr. X |harry styles| ON HOLD

c h a p t e r t w o

It was about 10AM when Emily woke up. I was sat at my desk, stalking social media websites, trying to find out every little thing there was to know about this Mr. X character. "Alex?" she asks, her voice a bit husky from sleep.

"Hey," I reply, not looking away from the website I was reading.

"What's happening? You look like you haven't slept yet." I finally turn to look at Emily. Her hair is messy and she's blinking slowly, as if she's trying not to fall back asleep.

"It was true," I say. "The whole thing with Mr. X."

"Oh." Her brain seems to take a while to process what I said, because it takes about ten seconds before she jolts out of bed and says "Wait what?! Harry's dead?! Alex, this better be some sort of cruel joke!"

I shake my head. "He isn't dead-"

"Alexandra freaking Smythe," Emily cuts me off. "You're horrible."

"You didn't let me finish," I say. "Emily, he got shot at, but the bullet missed him."

"Oh," she breathed. "Poor Harry."

"I'm gonna find Mr. X," I say. "One way or another."

"Alex, that's crazy," Emily says, immediately shooting my idea down. "Even if you did find Mr. X, which you won't, what would you do? It's probably just a psychopathic fan that resents Harry Styles because he didn't fall in love with her or something."

"No, it's easy," I insist. "You know Shane?"

"The weird guy from school? What about him?" Emily asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm sure X has a team, so it wouldn't hurt if we had one," I say. "And Shane is good at computers, it wouldn't surprise me if he knew how to hack."

"Alex, you're being stupid," Emily says, shaking her head.

"I'm doing this Emily, whether you like it or not." I stand and go to my closet, pulling out jeans and a t-shirt. "Now I'm gonna go to Shane's house and talk to him."

"If you're gonna be stupid then I have to be stupid with you." Emily sighs, standing as well. "I'm borrowing clothes and showering."

"Okay, have fun, don't masturbate in my shower." I yank a hairbrush through my unruly brown hair and tie it in a high ponytail. Sighing, I tug a sweatshirt on over my t-shirt and pull on my Converse.

Forty five minutes later we were in Emily's car, which she had funnily enough named Harold. "How do you know where Shane lives?" she asks me as I give directions.

"I know where everyone lives," I reply, watching out the window. "Now turn left up here."

"Alex, those are the rich neighborhoods," Emily says.

"Yeah." I look at her weirdly. "Didn't you know the Simon family has money?"

"I do now," she says, turning down the street.

"Okay, his house is the huge one at the end of the block," I instruct her. As soon as we pull up, we get out and walk up to the front door together.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Emily whispers before knocking on the door.

A plump, friendly looking lady opens the door with a smile. "Hello ladies, can I help you with something?"

I glance to Emily before saying "Um, yeah, is Shane home? We need to talk to him."

"Of course, do you two go to school with Shane?" the lady, who I'm assuming is Shane's mother, asks.

"Yes ma'am," Emily answers.

"Please, call me Jenny." The woman, Jenny, smiles at us. "I'll go get him."

Emily and I were left to awkwardly stand there as Jenny disappeared through a door. She came back two minutes later, Shane behind her. "Mom, I'm telling you, no one from my school would be here to see me-" Shane stops in his tracks when he sees me and Emily.

"I'll leave you kids to talk." Jenny smiles at us once more before walking off to somewhere in the house, leaving us alone with Shane.

"What are you doing here?" Shane asks, cocking his head.

"Um, hi, Shane. I know this is really weird, but we have a favor to ask you." I smile awkwardly.

Shane stays quiet for a moment, seeming to take in the scene in front of him. "Alright," he finally says. "Come with me."

We follow Shane back through the door he came out of. It leads to a flight of carpeted stairs and we descend them, going down to his basement.

"Nice place you got here," I say, looking around. And it is, with smooth cement floors and brick walls, an entertainment center complete with a Wii and PS4 on one side of the room, an open door leading to the bathroom next to it, a closed door next to that, and a bed shoved in the corner.

"Thanks," Shane replies, obviously thinking I'm being sarcastic. "Okay, what do you need?"

"You're going to think this is stupid," Emily says. "Just warning you."

I roll my eyes at her. "Well, if you watch the news, you would know that Harry Styles nearly got shot." Shane nods. "Well, I'm going to find the person who did it."

"I'm still confused as to why I'm needed," Shane says, crossing his arms.

"I've seen you in computer class. You're pretty handy with computers. I actually watched you the day you reprogrammed the whole entire computer software, at least I think that's what you did."

"So...?" Shane looks like he knows where I'm going with this, but he wants me to say it.

"We need a hacker," I tell him. "This person, Mr. X, probably has a whole team of people, it wouldn't hurt if we had one too."

"So you're telling me you want me to help you hack into things so you can get information on whoever tried killing Henry or whatever his name is, so you can save the world's biggest boyband since The Beatles?" Shane clarifies, raising his eyebrow.

I look to Emily before saying "Yeah, basically."

Shane stands silently for a few moments before slowly nodding. "Yeah, alright, I'll do it." Shane gestures to the closed door. "We can work in there."

Emily stares at the door. "What's in there?"

Shane smiles. I realize it's the first time I've seen him smile since I've known him. "It's my computer room." He crosses the room and opens the door, flipping a switch.

We're met with the sight of a room painted black. The room is windowless, and lighted only by the soft blue glow  of three computer screens, and twinkling Christmas lights strung around the room. "Woah, cool," I breathe out, staring in the room.

"I know," Shane says smugly.

"Why do you have three computers?" Emily asks.

"Five, I have two laptops. It comes in handy," Shane says, closing the door. "Okay, I'll read up on what happened and try to start doing something, but I don't think we can do anything until we talk to the people that were on stage."

"You mean One Direction?" Emily gawks.

"Yeah, I mean One Direction."

__________________

I'm actually having a lot of fun doing this.

Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Oh, and for some reason I imagine Shane as Lucas Cruikshank. If you don't know who that is, he's the guy who did those YouTube videos, Fred. He looks different now ig

Leave a vote and a comment if you'd like (:

All the love xx