The Demons Inside. [ZM AU]

Ch: 01 || Welcome.

"Where are we going now, Zayn?" I questioned the mysterious tanned male who's waist I was securely holding as he sped down the grey cobbled lanes, to an unknown destination.

"We're meeting with Nathan in London, hopefully in a few hours." he replies, but it's really not enough information for me. It's the first time I've heard him mention a member of his 'gang' ever since the incident. It seems like a topic we've been avoiding for a while now. It was a too painful memory.

"Nathan? How did you get in contact with him?" I asked curiously, but weary over the fact he could snap easily at me, then things wouldn't be pretty.

"It's been planned for ages, Soph." and this time I don't push him any further. If I had, he would put a wall up and it would that twice as long to break down.

Zayn Malik. He's not bad. Not in my eyes, he's not. He's damaged and broken, though. Almost too broken because of his past, and events that have occurred in his life that he's bottled up for a long time. Before I came along that was. I'm trying so hard to get him to open up to me. It's best to talk rather then to keep things bottled up. I know for a fact that every broken person has the right to be fixed, and it's my goal to fix him--whether he likes it or not.

Nathan Sykes. I hadn't heard that name in the whole month we've been as runaways. I haven't heard Zayn mention any of his gang members either, nor his worst enemy--the one who was murdered one tragic night.

There is a weight in my chest that brings me down whenever I think of that beautifully blonde Irish young man. No-one deserves to die, but he was seriously testing everyone's patience. Someone finally snapped, lost their cool, and killed him. I don't know who it was. All I know is that I'm a suspect. I don't remember doing anything--nor do I remember anyone else coming near him. Someone must have though, how else would he have been murdered?

Zayn and I are wanted by police across the country, especially back home in Bradford. Therefore, we needed to leave as fast as we could. It seemed like that was the plan for a long time now, a plan that I didn't know had existed.

The boys were planning the escape in the meetings they had together. They decided who would go with who. How they'd escape, and where they'd go. Did that mean they planned Niall's murder too? I remember them mentioning multiple times 'Niall is meant to die today' does that mean they planned that? It seems quite likely...

I can't question Zayn about it because that was a delicate memory that no-one wants to reflect on. No-one wants to look back at it; we just want to pretend it didn't happen. But it did. And we wouldn't be runaways if it hadn't. We wouldn't be wanted by police all over England and have to be forced away from our friends if it hadn't.

I feel like the case will never rest, that forever we'll be running away until it'll get too tiring... then we'll get caught. We'll be forced apart, something that neither of us want. We need each other.

Why are we running away? The guilty ones always run away from the truth. I'm pretty sure I'm not guilty; was Zayn?

Zayn gets angry and when that happens, crap goes down. He can't control himself when he's angry... I can barely contain him. I still have the faint scars on my forehead when he last lost it. I was around when I shouldn't have been. He has pure guilt whenever he thinks of that night. I want him to forget about it, but he's too stubborn to listen.

"Stop thinking about that night."

I snap back to reality when Zayn finally breaks the silence that was once amongst us.