To Reach

Chapter Nine: Niall

Harry tucked Sabella’s sleeping form into the bed before he stripped out of his clothes. He was exhausted and just wanted to sleep so once he was clear of clothes he slid into the bed. Out of habit, he curled around Sabella and felt her shift into him. He smiled sleepily before falling into a blissful slumber.

            While Harry and Sabella slept, Zayn was still hard at work and Liam was watching Mary and Eliza prepare something for lunch. He was half asleep but refused to sleep until Zayn could. He knew Harry and Sabella were upstairs already gone from the waking world considering Harry had carried in an unconscious Sabella. He smiled at how tender the couple was and how beautiful it was to see.

            Eliza and Mary were busying themselves with lunch. Eliza was chopping the tomatoes while Mary was slicing up the steak and chicken. They were in the beginning stages of making fajitas. Once Mary had all the meat sliced up she lightly oiled the pan, turned the stove on medium, and placed the sliced up meat into the pan to begin cooking. Eliza had moved from chopping up the tomatoes to shredding up the lettuce.

            Zayn was reconfiguring and bouncing off cell towers to achieve his goal. He was mentally exhausted and extremely irritated. This task was just as annoying as it was the first time around. Niall would have some serious ass kissing to do when he was found in order to avoid Zayn beating the living shit out of him. Zayn typed in a serious of codes and hit enter with a satisfied smirk. The page shifted before and he was given a city and street. Niall was in Mullingar, Ireland.

“What the fuck is there?” Zayn asked aloud after reading where the cell ping listed.

“What’s up, mate?” Liam questioned, walking over to Zayn.

            Mary and Eliza froze and then turned to stare at Zayn. He had been so quiet and concentrated that his outburst had frightened them. Eliza and Mary waited for Zayn to answer Liam’s question. They saw his facial expression go from frustrated to confused in the matter of seconds before he spoke.

“I’ve finally gotten the cell towers and location of where Niall sent his text to Harry from. He was in Ireland as the guys have suspected but it’s WHERE in Ireland that confuses the fuck out of me. I’ve never even heard of Mullingar and that’s where he was. I have a street, I’m going to look up what is on there that he could have been at, but what the fuck is there? I will probably have to look up anything on it since I’ve never even heard that small town.” Zayn explained, running a frustrated hand through his hair.

            Liam nodded as he took in the information and sighed. He had never heard of Mullingar, either. None of them were very familiar with Ireland, outside of Dublin, so this was another issue. They were going to have to research this on top of what they have been doing which meant less sleep. The smell of something burning caught Liam’s attention and he snapped his head in Mary’s direction. She yelped and went to the stove to move the meat around.

            Eliza, who had her mouth open at the news, snapped her mouth shut and went back to finishing the lettuce shredding. She focused on the food, as Mary chose to do, and pretended everything was normal. She didn’t really understand what was going on but she knew it was not good for Liam to be silent and Zayn to be so damn frustrated. She wanted to talk to Zayn about what they were and where they stood but this just didn’t seem like the best time to do so.  

“Zayn, I know you want all of this situated and sorted out but you’ve been at it for hours. Give your eyes a rest and put that away. We’ll eat some fajitas and then get some sleep. I know I’m irritated and exhausted so you must be ten times worse.” Liam ordered, taking the laptop away from Zayn.