Runaway // n.h.

0.5

Twenty-two people dead.

Niall supposedly murdered twenty-two people just hours before I sat beside him on that stuffy train.

He had been at my university, probably shortly before I had woken up, torturing almost two dozen innocent students.

"I feel sick," I spoke, my voice horse as I attempted to hold back vomit.

My hands flew to hold my stomach as my vision began to blur. My knees buckled and gave out beneath me, my body suddenly smacking against the cold ground. Silent tears unknowingly streamed from my eyes as I wheezed on the ground.

"Adeline," a voice whispered beside my ear. "Babe, let's go to the loo."

I whimpered, my body shivering in fear and disgust.

"Upsie daisy," the voice spoke sweetly, his strong arms wrapped around my body to carry me out of the room bridal style.

My hot tears continued to pour out of my eyes as I wrapped my arms around the neck of whoever was holding me. At this point I didn't care who it was-I knew it wasn't Niall-I just needed a warm sense of comfort.

I was carefully placed on the carpet lying on the tile bathroom floor, my body leaning over the toilet to vomit.

A large hand slowly ran up and down my back, circling every now and then to comfort my sick, shaking body.

Soothing words were whispered in my ear, but I couldn't hear them. My body was rejecting everything but my thoughts of Niall.

How could someone be so sick and twisted? He murdered twenty-two people yesterday; who knows how many others there have been?

"Adeline, it's okay," the voice, that I now recognized as Louis', whispered to me, his hand still grazing my back. "Everything is okay."

"Everything is okay?" I shrieked, my body still bent over the toilet. "How is everything okay, Louis? He just murdered twenty-two people!"

I began to vomit again, my mind fuzzing at the thought of his crimes.

"Hey, hey," Louis spoke calmly, grabbing a towel to wipe my mouth with, "we don't know that."

My body collapsed again, his arms flying underneath me to hold me to him.

"He's a serial killer," I cried, snot filling my nostrils and making it difficult to breathe as more tears ran down my cheeks. "I have to leave, Louis! Get me out of here please!"

His frown deepened as he brushed my hair out of my face.

"Adeline, you can't go," he spoke quietly, gauging my reaction. "You know that."

"I won't tell anyone about you guys," I sobbed, squeezing his forearms. "I promise, Louis. Please just let me go. I can't stomach this anymore."

Louis closed his eyes and squeezed me harder.

"They could be wrong, you know," he said, slowly rocking me back and forth.

"About what?" I asked, my tears still running.

"Truth is a strange thing," he whispered in my ear.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The truth is the truth; he killed those people.

"Louis, please," I begged, "please let me go."

"We're good guys, Adeline," he soothed, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. "We just got caught up in the wrong things, that's all."

"Mass murder isn't an accident," I said, my tears beginning to fall slower as I came back down to Earth.

"No," he agreed, "it's not, but maybe that's not what's happened here, Adeline."