stockholm syndrome | styles

chapter fifteen

NATALIE

"I'm sorry, Anne." I said through sobs. "I tried, but they took her."

"It's not your fault. You both did what you could." She replied, softly before getting up and heading towards the bathroom.

Both her children, gone. And for what? We don't know. We wish we did. It would be so much easier if we knew why.

"Miss Sanders." I heard Agent Khan say. I looked up at her with wide eyes. I didn't get much sleep last night, but it wasn't effecting me. I was more awake than I've ever been.

I stood up and walked into the room, playing with my hands which was a nervous habit I've had since I was a child.

I sat on the black chair that was placed behind a silver table. I placed my hands on the table and looked down at my distorted reflection.

"Miss Sanders..I need you to tell me what happened." She said slowly.

I swallowed, "You saw what happened."

"We saw the result of what happened," She said, "But we need to know what happened. Louis only saw part of it and Gemma..well."

"Mhm." I nodded. I didn't wanna talk about this. Violence was such a terrible thing in my childhood and I didn't like to or want to ever bring it back up.

"This could help find Harry." She finished, trying to reason with my stubborn mind.

It could help. We knew what those two looked like.

"Okay," I sighed, "Well, I was going outside to get some fresh air because I just really needed it, given our very stressful situation, then I opened the door and I just saw this girl. I didn't question it at first, but she was frantically saying something to the officer, I didn't hear she was too far." I explained, slowly so the agent could understand.

"And then?" Agent Khan said, urging me to go on.

I swallowed, my throat dry as I thought over the events from last night. "I saw her take out a knife when he wasn't looking, she slit his throat and put on a mask."

"Do you know-"

"Agent Khan, with all due respect, I would appreciate it if I could finish my story before you asked questions?" I said as politely as I could even though I was becoming really irritated.

She nodded in response and I smiled. "Thank you. Anyways, after she put on the mask, I screamed as loud as I could for Louis. She heard me, of course, and ran towards me. It got violent. She tried to hold me down, but then Louis came and tackled her and tried to hold her down. He took off her mask and then what seemed like a few seconds later, this man came. He seemed the same age as her. A brother, maybe even a friend?" I paused and closed my eyes to remember what exactly happened next, "Um, Gemma came out and she chased her down to the side of the building—well it's not really a building it's three stories high, but she chased her down there and then that's the last we saw of Gem."

"Can you describe the couple?" Agent Khan said after a short pause to make sure I was done.

"The girl, I heard the guy call her..M..Misty?" I said, unsure. "Missie! Her name was Missie. She was about my height; I'm 5'6". She had really dark hair, it almost looked black and light blue eyes. She had pale skin and," I paused for a moment, "that's all I remember."

"Okay, we'll get an artist in here to draw a picture and you'll see if it's accurate or not." The agent said as she wrote down the information I gave her.

I nodded in response, "Am I done?"

"Yeah, you can go. Thank you." She said. I stood up and walked towards the door, pulling the heavy door open and exited, letting it close behind me. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, becoming less tense as I walked away from the room and out to where Louis was.

"Is everything okay?" He asked me once I was closer to him, "How did it go?"

"She asks so many questions." I sighed, "I want this all to be over."

"We all do." He paused for a moment. "I think he's okay."

"How do you know?"

"That girl.." He mumbled loud enough for me to hear. "She kinda saved us from being killed."

"No she didn't." I scoffed. "She just didn't want to be caught."

"But, did you see her? She looked like she didn't want to do this, you know?"

"No, I don't know."

"I don't know, maybe I'm going crazy and trying to make myself happy by thinking Harry's safe, but I really hope I'm right."

HARRY

I was waken up by someone kicking my thigh hard, but not hard enough to hurt me badly. My eyes fluttered open and my vision cleared up to reveal Derek and Missie. They both had a devious smirk on their face, which wasn't surprising coming from Derek, but from Missie it was.

Either way, the same feeling of fear came over me. Missie approached me, putting a hand on my shoulder and her face inches from mine. "How does it feel?"

"What?" I said, groggily.

"What did I tell you?" Derek said, "She works with us. She has no interest in helping you."

My heart started to sink at the reminder of the previous events. I hated thinking about what Missie did and the danger my sister was in.

"I hope this teaches you not to pull this shit again." He said as Missie pushed herself off of me and stepped back, "If I find out you're planning to escape, I won't hesitate to kill your sister right in front of you in the worst way possible and then kill you."