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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Harry Styles.
Permanent brain damage.
Those words.
Those fucking had been sounding in my head since the moment the doctor said them, repeating over and over. Like a knife lodged deep in my heart that I couldn't pull out. I could still hear them in his voice, the way he'd said them. The same tone as if he was explaining that she had a broken finger or had a common cold. Like he wasn't describing the damage done to the girl sitting beside me.
I brought her to the hospital without thinking about the consequences. We were supposed to stay hidden. We're supposed to avoid crowded places, avoid cameras, avoid anything that could put us on Romans radar. But the moment I saw the blood, none of that mattered. The only thing I could think about was getting her help. Getting someone to tell me what the fuck was happening to her.
Because the nosebleeds weren't a one-time thing. That was what made my stomach ache the most. They'd been happening for a long time, and somehow I never noticed. Even though we spend nearly every moment together, she had managed to hide them from me. She told me she could feel them coming before they started, that there was always a pressure building behind her nose, and every time it happened she would excuse herself and disappear into the bathroom until it stopped. She'd clean the blood away, wash her face, take a minute to compose herself, and then come back out like nothing had happened. Like there was nothing wrong at all.
When she finally told me two nights ago, standing in that tiny bathroom with that tissue pressed against her face, she looked nervous. She thought I'd be annoyed that she hadn't told me. Thought I'd be angry that she'd been hiding something like this from me.
I wasn't angry.
I was terrified.
Because the moment she said it, I realised I had no idea what it meant. I didn't know if it was something small or something serious. I didn't know if it was connected to the way her hands never stopped shaking, how even when she tried to hold them still, there was always that faint tremor running through them. I didn't know if it had something to do with the medication she's been taking her entire life without ever really knowing what it was. I didn't know if it had something to do with the procedures Roman put her through.
So we went to the hospital. I pushed until they saw her as quickly as possible, and when they finally did, they tried to brush it off. They told her nosebleeds are common, that some people are just prone to them. They said it like it was nothing, like we could just walk out the door and forget about it. But I couldn't accept that. I refused to leave until someone actually looked into it, until someone took it seriously. I kept asking questions they clearly didn't want to answer, pushing harder every time they tried to reassure us with vague explanations.
Winter broke eventually. I'd flashed my Secret Service ID, printed off some fake NDA that I'd found online and gotten the doctor to sign it. Then Winter told him. To an extent, of course. That she'd been involved in some form of illegal human experiment. That she'd been pumped full of drugs that fucked with her head. She'd even remembered some of their names, butchering the pronunciation, but it was enough for the doctor to know what she was trying to say. She told him how much she had to take and how often. She told them about the procedures, what she could remember of them— wires, electricity, blinding pain.
