Mr. X |harry styles| ON HOLD

c h a p t e r t h r e e

Shane had gotten One Direction's phone numbers pretty easily, which was a bit worrying. If Shane, a 17 year old student from Wisconsin could find them, imagine what X could dig up?

"You're sure these are their phone numbers?" I ask Shane. We're sitting in his computer room, all of us in our own large, leather desk chair.

"If they aren't I'll give you each a hundred dollars," Shane says, leaning back and crossing his arms. "That's how sure I am."

"Alright," I say. "Who's most likely to answer their phone?"

"Louis seems like the person who doesn't answer his phone too often," Emily says. "And Harry was probably told not to go on his since the whole incident. That leaves Niall and Liam, and out of the two of them, Liam seems more likely to answer his phone, because he's always on Twitter."

"Good thinking," I say, dialing Liam's phone number.

It rings for a few seconds before a British voice sounds through the speaker. "Hello?"

"Um, hi, Liam, my name is Alexandra Smythe," I say nervously. My eyes meet Emily's, and I can tell she's thinking Oh my God, my best friend is talking to Liam Payne.

"Hi, Alexandra. If you don't mind me asking, and sorry for sounding so rude, who are you and why are you calling me?" Liam's voice sounds confused.

"Uh, well, you see..." I take a deep breath. "Okay, so I'm trying to find the person that tried to kill Harry, and I need to talk to you and the boys about what happened."

"Wait, you're finding X?" Liam says, his words coming rushed.

"Yeah," I say.

There's some shuffling, and the sound of a door being open and then shut again. "Niall, Louis, Harry," Liam's muffled voice speaks. "Listen to this."

I put my phone on speaker, and I'm assuming Liam does the same. "What's going on?" I hear Niall ask.

"Alright, Alexandra, I'm sat next to the rest of the boys, can you repeat what you just said?" Liam is heard once again.

"Okay, well, me and my friends are trying to find the person that tried to murder Harry. In order to do that, we need to talk to you guys so Shane, my computer guy, can get more information on X," I explain.

"No," Harry's deep voice comes through the telephone. "No, you guys can't do that. You sound young, you can't go after that person. I can't be having people getting killed because of me."

"Harry, with all due respect," I begin, looking up at Emily, "shut the hell up. Emily and I are eighteen, we're legal adults now, this is our decision. Now, is there any way you four can make it to Wisconsin so we can talk to you?"

"I like her," Niall's voice is heard through the speaker.

"We're headed to a town in Wisconsin now, right lads?" Louis says. "Green Bay or something like that."

"Great, that's only a half hour away from us. Should we give you directions?" I ask.

"That'd be great," Liam says. "Just text them to me."

"Will do," I say. "See you soon."

Three hours later, we were sat in Shane's bedroom, Shane in one of his desk chairs, me and Emily on the bed, and One Direction on the couch. As soon as they got here, Emily freaked out and hugged Harry and made sure he knew how scared she was for him as soon as she heard the news. Shane and I stood back until she was done. "Is she always like this?" Shane had said quietly to me.

I nodded slowly. "Always."

I was brought out of my thoughts by Liam's voice saying "Right, now which one of you called me?"

I raised my hand. "Me, Alexandra Smythe, but you can call me Alex. Everyone does."

The boys smile and I get various greetings of "Hi, Alex," and "Nice to meet you, Love,". Liam nods and leans forward in his seat, placing his elbows on his knees. "So, Alex," he begins. "How'd you get my number?"

"I have all your numbers actually," I pull the folded piece of paper that had their numbers jotted down on it from my pocket and handed it to Liam. "Shane found them."

"Shane found them..." Liam reads the numbers on the paper, probably to see if they were all correct. Liam looks up again, this time at Shane. "Now tell me, Shane, how did you find our phone numbers?"

"Wait, those are actually all of our phone numbers?" Louis asks, taking the paper from Liam. "Woah."

"Your phone numbers were easy to find. You just need to know where to look, and I know where to look," Shane answers, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms.

"That's a bit scary," Niall says. Shane shrugs.

"Hey, where's your bathroom? Sorry, but I really need to wee," Harry says, standing up.

"It's just through that door right there," Shane tells him, nodding towards the bathroom door.

"Thanks, mate." Harry disappears through the door.

As soon as the door shuts behind Harry, Niall leans forward. "Look," he says quietly, so Harry can't hear from the bathroom, "me and Lou were talking. We don't know what you're doing here, but we wanna help."

"Niall, I know Harry's one of your best friends, but I think it'd be easier for three teenagers to sneak around rather than a world famous boyband."

"I don't care!" Louis says. The sound of the toilet flushing is heard from the bathroom, quieting him down. "We're helping, all three of us, and that's final. Harry is our brother, we're gonna save him."

The bathroom door opens as Louis sits back on the couch. All eyes turn to Harry. "Did I miss anything important?"

Louis' eyes meet mine, and he gives a small shake of his head that only I could see. "Uh, no, Harry," I say, my eyes meeting his. "No, you didn't miss anything important at all."

"Great," Harry says, taking his place next to Niall. "So, you said you had to talk to us?"

"Yeah," Emily says. "We only saw videos of the concert taken by fans, and that didn't really show where the bullet came from. Were you able to see?"

"I was looking at the boys," Harry says. "I didn't know what was going on until the bullet was right in front of my face."

"It came from the left of us," Niall said. "Far left. It nearly hit Liam when it passed."

Shane nods. "That's all I need for now," he says, before disappearing into his computer room.

"What's he doing?" Louis asks, staring at the door to the computer room.

I shrug. "Dunno," I reply, flopping back on Shane's bed. "Probably something important."

"Should we go in there as well?" Harry asks.

"Nah, he'll get us if he needs anything," I answer, staring at the ceiling.

"Are you okay, Alex?" Niall questions.

"Just tired. I stayed up all night trying to find out more about X," I reply, yawning. "I'll be fine."

Silence settles over us, each of us probably thinking about the same thing. How in the hell are we going to pull this off? How are we going to save Harry?

_________________

Hiii

I'm really tired right now and not that funny so

Have you ever wondered why you've never seen a hippo hiding in a tree?

It's because they're really good at it.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, all the love xx