The Other Harry #Wattys2015

Chapter 14

-Chapter 14-

I don’t have much time to study the Liams; thirty sets of identical faces, thirty rounded noses, thirty jawlines and sixty almost lifeless brown eyes. I don’t have much time to marvel at how perfect a copy each and every one of them is, not a single mark or crossed eye to set any one of them apart before there is a roar behind us.  Niall darts forwards and wraps his hand around the shutter, pulling it down firmly. And I understand why as a clatter erupts from inside of the lorry, sixty identical fists hammering on the outside.

“Gimmee the keys,” Niall urges me and when I hand them to him, he locks the shutters in tight and steps back from the lorry, fist plunged into his hair. He and Olivia have left Wells only a little way from us, within earshot and have come to join Harry, Joey and I as we look out at the dangerous cargo we have unwittingly saddled us with.

Unable to tear his eyes away from the shutter that now separates us from the Liams, Harry breathes out, letting out a shaky, “Jesus.” Which about sums up my thoughts on the situation as well. “What do you think they are for?”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Niall grimly. “We’ll have to start a fire inside of there or something.”

“Umm…what?” Harry asks, turning around to his band mate and tipping his head. To me it’s obvious though- somehow we’re going to have to get rid of them so they don’t fall into the hands of the other side. The pounding inside of the lorry that punctuates Harry and Niall’s sentences and every one of my breaths tells me we have to. The same cold look in their eyes that the Tomlinsons wore after they killed Trick makes me feel like there is no other option. Trick’s death is still the sharp sting in the pit of my stomach, the ghost scent of his blood and the clear as day memory of him talking to me outside of the lay-by when he agreed to help us and paid for it with his life makes me almost want to get rid of them.  For retribution.

“We can’t let them go.”

Olivia hesitates, looking up at Niall and shaking her head so that her curls bounce. “That isn’t right.”

“….All of them? Niall, you can’t,” Harry says quickly. “You can’t burn Liam alive …. He’s….that’s…that will be agony.”

“Yes Harry I do know what burning feels like,” says Niall shortly. “And we don’t have a choice. It’s not like it’s actually Liam. They’re just clones.”  They’re not just clones. They’re killers too. Which is why I am firmly on Niall’s side. However, it seems between the small group of us that battle lines are being drawn. Olvia and Harry suddenly looking at Niall as if he disgusts them, Olivia especially as she takes a step back from him and spits,

“JUST clones? Just clones….”

“I’m not talking about you, Livvy….the Liams…and the others are different, and you know that. They’re weapons.”

“How much can they even think for themselves or feel?” I have to add. The pounding has slowed down, which makes me nervous. Makes me curl my hand into a fist. “That look in their eyes….how human are they actually?” No one could coldly walk two teenagers into a van and hold a knife to their throats. Could coldly kill Trick. Especially not someone who’s supposed to be little more than a kid himself.

“Oh …they’re …quite ….human,” a man’s voice pipes up behind us. Muffled underneath shallow breathing and a hood, Wells finally speaks- his voice a high, skittering Scottish accent that reminds me of a nervous sparrow ready to take off at the first sudden movement. Niall is the one who pulls up the hood. His dark hair is ruffled, his eyes very round and a dark brown colour virtually indistinguishable from his pupils adding to the impression of him as a frightened, gulping goldfish. As he regards us, he flinches noticeably. “I…what I mean is….the team did a wonderful job. The clones have the potential to think and to feel and love. They’re remarkable. Really they are. Each and every one.”