Devil's Desire [h.s.]

Chapter 22

a/n: READ CHAPTER 21 FIRST YOU FREAK

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Chapter 22

The first few days having the kids lingering around the house was awkward. Extremely awkward. Neither myself nor anybody else really knew how to act with two six year olds running amuck. In the mornings they would wake everybody up before sunrise and then in the evenings they would throw tantrums when told to go to bed.

They were twins, Ian and Brooks, despite what I'd previously thought. It was interesting to watch them—their dynamic. They spoke a lot, but when they didn't, they seemed to be communicating with one another in their heads. As if linked by some sort of intrinsic bond.

After my initial panic attack, I'd rallied enough to follow through with my introductions as promised to my mother, meaning I made awkward small talk with Austin and had to come up with some on-the-spot lie as to why the handful of people she'd left sitting the house had now almost doubled.

My mother wasn't happy to see Olivia. I wasn't happy to see her. We both got over it.

Ian and Brooks were overjoyed to meet me. They spoke for nearly an hour when I'd finally given myself the chance to sit down and properly introduce myself. Telling me they didn't truly think I existed until now. How they couldn't wait to tell all of their friends back home who hadn't believed they had a secret older sister.

Between the lot of us, Morgan and Louis had taken to the kids the best. According to Zayn, Morgan loved children. Apparently, she used to talk all the time about having some of her own but had rerouted this dream in the recent few years to something simpler. To hoping at least someone that she knew would have kids so that she could spend time with them. Their lifestyle, according to Morgan, wasn't conducive to her having any of her own.

It was hard not to feel like I was intruding on something—observing Zayn while he watched Morgan crouched low in front of Ian and Brooks, smiling so wide that it dimpled her cheeks, babbling on about something incoherent to make them laugh. When he'd cleared his throat and turned away, running a palm over his face, I'd fled to the other room to give him some space.

It didn't surprise me in the slightest when he'd found Harry and I minutes later wanting to discuss new graphics Bill, their head of security, had sent us about possible locations Damien was expanding to. His hands were shaking as he laid out the paperwork.

He didn't call Morgan in for that meeting.

Louis, to his credit, also enjoyed spending time with the kids. He had taken it upon himself to be their distraction while the rest of us were otherwise occupied. Whether that meant at the gym training, or down in the forest for target practice, he stayed behind.

We'd told him repeatedly that he didn't have to do that, but he was adamant he didn't mind. This was slightly problematic for us, because where Louis wasn't, Olivia now was. And without a body to take her anger out on, she became restless and angrier. The most recent few days when our training was winding down, we would actually lose track of her. This made Harry panic at first, until we would crest the hill and see her leaning against a tree, watching Louis with the kids—an expression on her face that I couldn't entirely make out.

It was strange, really, watching the different ways in which everyone interacted with the children.

For me, it was the strangest. Mainly because Harry did everything in his power to ensure there was always a buffer between the two of them and myself. To his credit, this was much the doing of my nurse, Angela.

Angela had come around the house that first night that the children arrived and grit her teeth at the sight of them, not letting them thwart her reasoning for being there, meaning she'd promptly ignored their greetings in the doorway and led herself wordlessly up the stairs—where she waited for me to follow.