Mr. X |harry styles| ON HOLD

c h a p t e r s e v e n

As soon as my mom says Shane is here, we all file out of my room and go downstairs. "Shane!" I exclaim, throwing myself at him. His arms wind around my thighs as he tries to hold me up, seeing as I basically jumped on him.

"We'll talk later," Shane says, setting me on my feet and looking at everyone. "Is everything packed?"

"I knew I forgot something," I say, snapping my fingers. "Right, Emily, come pack with me, it'll go faster. We're roughly the same size, we can share clothes so we can save time by not going to your house to pack."

She shrugs. "Your clothes are cuter anyway."

"Are you kidding me?" I roll my eyes, gesturing for Emily to follow me upstairs. "Your clothes are way cuter."

We enter my room, leaving the boys downstairs. "Suitcases are in the closet still?" Emily asks. I nod, going to my dresser. "Okay."

She pulls out two suitcases, one for each of us. "You actually left some clothes here from all the times you've slept over," I tell her.

"So that's where all my clothes went." Emily huffs and sets the suitcases on the bed.

"Right, we need to do this fast, I say grab everything and go." I start pulling t-shirts out of my dresser drawers.

It takes five minutes to get everything packed. We roll the suitcases downstairs. "We're ready," Emily says, gesturing to the suitcases.

"Right, we've decided to get a hotel while we find somewhere to go," Shane says. "I'll take those for you."

Shane grabs our suitcases and walks out the door before we can say anything. I turn to see my mom, brothers, and sister all gathered in the living room, watching. "Where are you going?" Ella questions.

I smile sadly. "Just on vacation for a little while, I'll be back before you know it," I say, knowing full well that there's a chance that I'll be coming back in a body bag.

"Bring me a gift!" Max exclaims, running forward and tackling me in a hug. "I'll miss you, Alex!"

"I'll miss you too, buddy." I watch as he hugs the four One Direction boys and Emily, making Liam promise that he'd be back soon to help him build another tower. Ella does the same, except she makes Niall promise to teach her to braid her hair so she can do her pigtails herself.

My mom is the next person I hug. "Stay safe on tour, honey," my mom says. "I'll miss having you around the house."

"I'll miss being here. Bye, Mom." My mother hugs Emily as well before patting Louis on the shoulder.

"Treat my girl right," she says. "Keep her safe. That goes to all of you." My mom looks to each of the boys. "Keep my girls safe."

She bustles off into the kitchen, probably so she can start preparing dinner for the kids. Logan is the last person left in the living room. "Alex," he speaks quietly.

"Keep them safe," I say, pulling him in for a hug. "Be sure to check your email, that's how I'll contact you, alright? Don't tell Mom."

He nods, pulling back. His eyes look a bit misty. "Save Harry," he says. "And if something happens, save yourself too."

"Will do." Logan smiles at the phrase I so commonly use.

"I'll bring your sister back," Harry speaks up. "Even if it's the last thing I'll ever do, I will get your sister back to you."

The tears finally spill down Logan's cheeks. He rushes forward, attacking Harry in a hug. "Thank you," he whispers, his voice broken.

Harry nods and pulls away. I smooth Logan's hair back, pushing random hairs from his bangs out of his eyes, before following everyone out the door.

A minivan is parked in my driveway. The windows are tinted out, and I immediately get a weird feeling in the bottom of my stomach. Didn't Shane say the car that was following him was tinted?

"Hop in." The window of the minivan is rolled down, Shane becoming seen. "We're going to the Best Western."

I nod and get in the van. I sit between Niall and Harry. Harry seems lost in thought, and I leave him be, he needs time to process what's going on. We all do.

"Australia," Niall mumbles under his breath.

I glance to him. "What?"

"We could go to Australia. We have friends there."

"We are not getting The Emos involved in this," Harry says, coming out of his train of thought. "There are already too many people I care about."

"I'm sure once they understand what's going on, they'd love to help," Louis says. "It would give us a place to stay until we have a plan made."

Shane pulls out of the driveway. "Australia, then? I've never been. We're going to have to fly out of Chicago though, I don't think the Mikwaukee airport does international flights."

Harry sighs and runs his hands through his hair, pulling at the ends. "Hey," Emily says softly from the seat in front of him. "It will be okay, Harry. Everyone will be okay."

We get to the Best Western and check in quickly, all of the boys finding ways to keep their faces hidden. They give us their biggest room, which was basically an apartment without appliances. There were four separate bedrooms in it and a living room, complete with a mini-fridge and microwave.

"I'm going to go book the tickets and call Ashton, I'll be back in ten minutes," Harry says, trudging into one of the bedrooms. I give Emily a look and she nods before standing to follow him. Harry can't be alone anymore.

I pull out the small black cellphone we had all gotten and looked through the numbers. It was kind of weird seeing the boys' names in my phone and knowing I could just press one button and speak to them.

"So, Shane, what happened? Was it X following you?" Louis asks.

Shane looks up from the laptop he was typing on. "Sit back guys," he says. "It's story time."

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