Modest Seduction - Book 7 (Larry Stylinson AU)

Chapter 10 - I don't want to feel blue, anymore

I don't want to feel blue anymore

Zayn wakes up with a splitting headache, he doesn't even know what time it is. All he knows is that the wedding was a fucking mess, his life is a mess. All he wanted was to sing, perform for the entire world but now there's so much drama. He sits up, the world spins and he scrambles around for his phone.

A photo of Harry and Louis holding up their hands, a ring on their wedding fingers. Louis is kissing Harry's dimpled cheek and Harry is beaming at the camera. 'We did it!' is the caption.

Zayn's heart skips a beat, they got married? "Holy shit!" He says.

He swipes at his sleepy eyes, wondering if its all a dream, the photo stares back at him. Zayn feels overwhelmed with elation, he's so proud of them. Something good came out of that messy night, after all.

His next thoughts are of Dakota, she's alive and she was on the roof. Then he remembers Niall, crying and desolate on the edge of the building. He flies out of bed, suddenly theres a pit in his stomach. Is it guilt? Is it shame?

Zayn's mind is flying a million miles an hour, concern for Niall wells into shame that he was so caught up in his own shit. I didn't even see if he got home okay, Zayn is riddled with guilt. He swings the door open, only in his briefs he runs down the hallway.

"Niall?" He calls his friends name, the panic evident in his voice.

He pelts down the stairs, two at a time and comes to a halt at the bottom. On the couch, dead asleep is Dakota. The sight is familiar and foreign all at once.

She's like his sister and a stranger all at once, her blonde hair is so starkly different. Some days Zayn imagined pulling her out of his house by her ponytail, he even joked about it with Liam. Now, he missed that mass of brown hair.

He walked down the last few steps, as quietly as possible and catches sight of Niall sitting outside. His feet in the swimming pool and his head hung low. Zayn grabs two bottles of water from the fridge and walks outside.

Niall looks up when the sliding glass door opens, "Dakota?"

"No, it's me."

Niall's shoulder's slump, "You doing okay?"

Zayn lets out a grunt as he sits down next to Niall, he slips his feet into the icy water and it shocks his body alert.

In the back of his mind, he thinks of Saskia and the way she was looking at him last night. He remembers the conversation they had, the way she so easily confronted him about what happened between them. Guilt returns to the pit of his stomach, swirls around like acid and he feels sick.

Niall takes a water from Zayn's hand, "You speak to Saskia?"

Zayn swallows, Niall is the only one who really knows what happened to her. The only one of the boys that knows how hard the guilt of what Zayn did hit him, he was there for Zayn and it was his idea to lie to Valerie about it all. Valerie is the one who destroyed Saskia in the media, to throw the attention from the band.

"Yeah," Zayn pulled himself from his thoughts. "It wasn't..."

"Pretty?" Niall asks.

"Easy."

There is a long silence, "It took guts to face you, to step back into the media and continue performing after we fucked her career."

"I fucked her career," Zayn corrected. "Me."

"Man," Niall puts a hand on Zayn's shoulder. "We were just kids."

"We still are, somedays."

The boys stare at the water, lost in thought and Niall lets out a long sigh. "The Police are coming to take Dakota into protective custody."

"What?" Zayn nearly spits a mouthful of water.

Niall doesn't meet his eyes, "We can't protect her–"

"What about the rest of us? We love her too, or did you forget that?" Zayn's fury comes out of no where, words bursting from his mouth like molten lava. "This isn't just about you anymore, we're brothers. She is our family and–"

"And we can't protect her when we don't know who we're protecting her from," Niall continues. He ignores Zayn's anger, they've known each other long enough to be able to differentiate between real anger and internalised frustration. "If something happens to her, I can't go through that... again."

Zayn is silent. He clenches the water bottle in his hand, the plastic crunches loudly. He knows Niall is right, but they only just got Dakota back and he can't fathom losing her to strangers again.

Niall looked at Zayn, put his hand on Zayn's knee. "Do you trust me?"

"More then I trust myself," Zayn replied without skipping a beat.

"Then we have to trust that Abigail is right, Dakota isn't safe."

"Who?" Zayn turned to Niall. "Who would do something like this? What secrets did she keep? What could be so bad? What could have caused someone to..." Zayn stopped, "We don't even know what they did to her."

The doorbell rang, "I think we're about to find out." Niall took a deep, steadying breath and stood up. "Come on, man. I can't do this alone."

Alone, the word struck a nerve in Zayn. He thought of Saskia, when she woke up alone in a hospital with paparazzi in her face. The IV in her wrist, the flashing cameras, the police and he was no where to be seen.

I have to make this right, even if she doesn't forgive him. He has to try and find a way to forgive himself.