Taken

Chapter 8

A/N

Hi! Just to warn you there will be some self harm and sucicidal thoughts in this chapter. I am in no way promoting self harm and the characters' opinions of this topic are not linked to mine. I will put another note just before it so you can skip it if you dont feel comfortable reading it, it won't affect the plot line. Thanks and enjoy.

Monday 10th January 2014

I step in to the shower and sigh slightly. It's a sigh of confusion, frustration, exhaustion and contentment all in one. Its been a long day so far, you could say.

I smother my hair in shampoo as I go over the events of today's lunch in my head for the millionth time:

The five guys were already sat down, eating, when I walked in after my little 'chat' with Niall. They had saved me a seat at the head of the table, with Liam on my left and Niall on my right. I have to say, I was pretty relieved to see that I wouldn't be next to Harry; I didn't really know where I stood with that boy. Actually, I still don't.

They were already in a conversation when I sat down, so I focused mainly on my food to begin with and figured that I'd just try and bring things up later on. It turns out that it wouldn't be me bringing the subject onto a more serious topic, it was actually Louis, who seized the change during one of the few lulls in the conversation.

"So Evelyn," he had begun, a genuine smile on his face as he spoke, "Niall told us what you said. You know, about why you've done all this for us" when he stopped talking I didn't really know what to say, so I just looked down at my plate nervously.

"I think Louis is trying to thank you, in his own strange way," Liam stepped in, grinning at Louis,"we all want to thank you actually and I hope this means that you don't hate us anymore?" They all looked at me expectantly, and I doubt I'll ever forget the glimmer of hope in Harry's eyes while he waited for my answer.

"Of course I don't hate you!" I lied, grinning like a maniac, "I'm sure you have a perfectly good reason for all of this, which, by the way, I would still like to know" Their happy smiles suddenly froze and I could feel the sudden tension in the air. I knew I had to back track, and fast.

"I mean, I understand if you can't tell me everything, but I'm kind of homesick and I, oh I don't know, I just feel like it might help with...things" I made my voice wobble slightly at the end and let out a little sniff before looking up and seeing their softened facial expressions. Niall took my small hand in his giving it a reassuring squeeze as he did so. I swear I saw a look of anger and maybe even jealousy cross Harry's face when he did this.

"It's ok, we understand that we owe you some sort of an explanation, but please keep an open mind..." My heart started beating at least 5 times faster when Niall had said this and to put it shortly, I was terrified of what they were going to say.

"Well we're famous pop stars right? Well it's a bit less pop culture and more like pop cult. We're pretty much puppets, used by Si-er I mean a government society, to persuade the public into agreeing with certain things. It's very subtle and very very effective. We had no idea what we were getting into, and by the time we realised, well, it was too late and we were in too deep. Well anyway, there's this group of people, a secret society thing, who are fighting against us and your father, he was the leader before the...er, incident. That day was no accident; it was planned to precision. After that day, your brother took over and he was even more ruthless than your dad. Many lives were lost and families were destroyed, so it was decided that something had to be done. Past mistakes had shown that killing the leader would only add fuel to the fire, so we, us five, were given the task to find his weakness. Which is where you come in. Jack is incredibly protective over you, almost like you're some precious diamond or something. It was believed that if we, er, did things to you then your brother would immediately call things off, so we took you...I'm sorry Evelyn, we're sorry. This is all our fault and we're the ones in the wrong here, this whole society is fucking messed up..." Liam trailed off helplessly after that. The first tear rolled down my cheek when he mentioned my dad, and by the end, I was in floods of tears. I opened my mouth to say something but was cut off my a fist slamming into the table, causing everything to shake.