Take Me Home • h. styles ✔

28 | Sacrifices

HARRY

     “No!”

     But I was too late. He was able to fire the gun before I could stop him. Both of us stumbled down, with my attempt of preventing his sudden decision to shoot being a drastic failure. With persistent moves, I was able to get the gun off his hand, sending it zipping across the ground. I looked at him and apparently, he was in a state of shock, his hands quivering with horror with tears weeping from his eyes.

     But I knew that something was wrong. What he did was a radical mistake. As I tried to calm him down, I turned around and saw her still standing, her hand on her neck caked with blood as she looked at me with nothing but grief.

     “Hannah!”

     My body moved instinctively since I knew what would happen next. With all the speed I had, I ran towards her and the last thing I could hear was his frightening moans before the two of us went down on the ground.

     “H-Harry…no –”

     The pain was too unbearable to describe. I let out the loudest screams I could cry as I used my body to protect her. With all the agony I was feeling, I buried my face on her neck, closing my eyes as I tried to endure the torture that my best friend was doing to me. My back was being torn apart and peeled away, and hearing her cries of despair made it even worse. I could feel his teeth sinking deep into my skin, gashing and shredding my back with his continuous attacks. At that moment, I wanted everything to be all over. I wanted Niall to stop and together we would live the world in a different perspective where we could be finally someone who would forget that life even existed. All I wanted now was to protect her, making sure to keep her safe so that she and Louis could make it out, alive.

     “Niall, please,” I whispered out to him before I finally found the time and the strength to move him out, making the two of us rolling on the solid earth.

     As if everything seemed to blur out of my vision, I laid still to where I was with my eyes tightly shut, trying my best to bear the excruciating pain on my body. His muffled cries wouldn’t stop and the moment when I opened my eyes, he was right next to me, our faces just a few distances away from each other. Niall was in total turmoil; his body wouldn’t stop shuddering like he was before back home, when he was suffering from his convulsions. I could still remember that time – that day when I thought that he would finally give up his life and leave me all alone again. But he was a fighter. Niall fought his way several times and played the battle of life, but now, I had no idea if fate would let him win another.

     “Niall –”

     I tried to reach out to him, but his body continued to tremble. Something was happening to him. It would’ve had been a perfect time for him to finish me off, but for some reason he didn’t. He just kept on his convulsions uncontrollably, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him so that he could stop, but then I realized that there was another person who needed me.

     “Hannah –”

     Still like a fire raging through my back, I tried to crawl my way closer to her. Her hand was still on her neck and the blood wouldn’t stop flowing. I held on to her hand and the tears began to fall, both of us were trying to give each other weak smiles for comfort.