Captive Of Lies Book 2(Imprisoned in my Heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 9

For the next month, Harry and Louis lived in fear.

Barely a day went by without some form of threatening message, or a menacing, wordless phone-call from a withheld number, or one of their phones vibrating as unknown numbers sent them threatening texts reading ominous messages like I KNOW WHO U R or U GONNA REGRET WHAT U DID BIGTIME orWE R GOIN 2 GET U. When Harry wasn’t bitterly complaining about the lack of correct spelling and irritating text-speak of their harassers, he was sat crying in corners. He was sent borderline hysterical when Louis went to work every morning, and more often than not, he would turn up during the day on the pretence of bringing something that Louis had ‘forgotten’, or that he didn’t really need. He commanded some of his more imposing community service mates to escort Louis home, and refused to be alone himself, constantly asking his mum, sister, friends, or combination of them to come to the flat. Both he and Louis stayed in the house whenever they could, doing most of their shopping on the internet and only leaving to work or discharge community debts. Yet somehow, being at home was sometimes worse – because their stalker clearly knew exactly where they lived. Harry didn’t feel safe anywhere. The only reason he preferred staying in was that the letters, graffiti and rubbish posted through the letterbox only arrived when they were out. The first time he had come home and stepped on a pile of old teabags, banana skins, broken glass and tin cans on the doorstep, he had cried. Especially when Louis cut himself on one of the rusty cans whilst trying to clear it all up, and had ended up going to hospital for a tetanus jab. Louis hated needles, and he passed out, which only made Harry more distressed. He felt ridiculously guilty, not helped by the fact that Louis was so sweet and understanding about the awful situation.

“It’s not your fault,” he assured Harry whenever Harry was too distraught and remorseful, and started sobbing hysterically and saying that maybe he should leave, and then they would leave Louis alone. “There’s some psychopaths in this world – I should know, I’ve met some of them. If we could chain these guys up and they’d let me at them, I’d have turned them into harmless, fluffy little kittens in a week.”

But then all of a sudden, things changed dramatically. They went from waking up three or four times a night because of threatening phone calls, being afraid to get the post in the morning, and having to constantly sweep up the rubbish fed through their door, to having…nothing. Strangely, the threats, the danger, the fear – it all stopped. Harry went from looking over his shoulder in fear to looking over his shoulder merely through force of habit. He was still reeling from the shock that the abuse had stopped, whilst Louis quickly began to rejoice, delighted that the danger had passed. Harry was adamant that they shouldn’t let their guard down, but Louis was so giddy with relief that he wouldn’t listen to Harry’s warnings.

“They’ve got bored!” he said delightedly. “I knew they would.”

Harry wasn’t so sure, but even he started to relax after the first few weeks of nothing. He stopped clinging to Louis so tightly at night that he left bruises. He stopped fearing for both of their lives. He didn’t, however, stop double-locking the door, even though he knew Louis didn’t always bother. There was no point in getting reckless.

 *  *  *  *  *  * 

“Evening!” Harry called as he swept through the door, tutting when he discovered that Louis had only locked the door once and not bothered to bolt it at all.

He rolled his eyes and stripped off his luminous orange jacket, stretching. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror in the hall, he let out a short laugh – his hair was soaked and plastered to his head with rain, there was a streak of dirt running down one cheek, and he was bright pink and bright-eyed from having spent the afternoon laughing. A smile had been an expression that he had been unused to wearing of late; both he and Louis were glad that Harry had his cheeky grin back again. Habitually checking the doormat for rubbish, which thankfully was not there, and sparing a sweeping glance on the table in the hall for a note, which also was not there, he smiled happily and kicked off his shoes as he took a step towards the kitchen.