Stockholm Syndrome

twelve

- Louis -

Harry is gone.

What are we supposed to do? It's like him and I swapped places. It couldn't have been the same person who kidnapped Andrea, could it? Most likely. And Eleanor and Dexter were looking like suspects last night, they have to be in on it. This is all too much.

"So now what?" Niall barks in his thick Irish accent. He ran a hand through his blonde hair, continuing to pace back and forth of the room. Liam and I exchanged glances, scared of him blowing up. That's the least we need to worry about right now.

"Where's Heather?" Zayn speaks up, the first among us to actually start using our brains. "She's the Private Investigator, isn't she the one who should be working on this?"

"We're all supposed to be finding them." I answered him, getting up and pacing with Niall. I couldn't sit still. So many ugly thoughts kept flashing through my head, I needed to distract myself. I started playing with the rubber bracelet on my arm, spinning it continuously around my wrist. "Heather's here to help, not do everything for us."

"She's still at the station," Niall said, looking amongst us all, connecting eyes with each of us. "She said she's hurrying over as fast as possible."

"Or is she the one that took him?" Zayn harshly brought up, shaking his head in disappointment.

"What?" Niall snapped back, folding his arms over his chest and pressing his back up against the wall.

"You heard me." Zayn stood up, beginning to throw his arms out in frustration. "Think about it, Ni. She took Harry's phone to the station with her so now he has no way of contacting us3, and then suddenly Harry's missing? It makes sense. She was the last person with him before the concert."

Niall looked like he was ready to blow. His blue eyes were sliced thin and flared with anger. His cheeks started turning blush, and not in a flirty way. "Are you even listening to yourself? Zayn, Harry wasn't the one she screwed over. If anything, it would be me. It doesn't make sense for her to target Harry."

Niall still doesn't know. Poor lad.

"Let's just stop yelling." Liam jumped in quickly, standing like the rest of us. "This isn't going anywhere, okay? All we can do now is wait for Paul and Heather to get back and we can talk about this like adults. So instead of playing the blame game here, let's just sit and think of possible suspects or places they could have gone. Both Andrea and Harry."

Zayn was the first to sit down, then I, then Liam who parked it beside Zayn again. Niall, however, remained standing at the wall. His eyes looked lost in thought. He was definitely pondering hard.

"What's going through that little Irish head of yours?" I asked, his eyes quickly blinking back to reality as his attention directed at me.

He shrugged and sighed heavily. "You said that both Dexter and Eleanor were at the concert, right? You saw them both?" He asked, confirming with me.

My mind rewinded to just a few hours ago. I was up on the stage, finishing the chorus to Little Things when all of a sudden, in my direct line of vision, my high school best friend's face appeared in the crowd. I didn't believe it at first and had to look a little harder. But he was there, and he was as real as ever before. A giant smirk planted on his face. He wore a dark hoodie that covered his hair. It was all still there; every little detail of the few moments before my best friend went missing.

"I didn't get to see Eleanor, but Harry saw her and told me immediately." I told him, nodding as the pictures flashed vividly in front of my eyes.

Niall nodded, pondering a little longer. His eyes screwed tight onto the floor, he was chewing his cuticles. I could hear the wheels turning in his head. That's when a light lit up in his head. His eyes widened in complete and utter horror as he brought them up to meet mine.