Animal

34

Besides Niall screaming, there's the heavy slam of Harry closing the bedroom door to keep Louis inside if he should try to get out. Zayn is up and moving but he doesn't know the code to shut the door again.

Harry's sure this flickering vision is not supposed to be happening. From screaming at Niall, he is somehow yanked into this room that he doesn't recognise. It's cold and dark alright, and he can't fucking move.

He's back here again and his head is throbbing, but not hurting. Zayn has a gun and is pushing Niall away from the door before blowing the intruder's wrist off with a Browning. The noise triggers something in Harry and his sight goes black.

He feels chafing of his skin and when the black cloak is removed from his vision, his eyes fly open. His lungs suck in a long breath that tastes like fungus and trapped insects. Harry coughs violently to his left, blood and saliva mixing on the thin shirt he's wearing. Closing his eyes, he goes black again.

"Harry!" He doesn't know this voice, and it doesn't sound friendly.

"Styles!" He's slapped across his cheek but the sting doesn't register. "Wake the fuck up, you bastard."

"Harry, please." He knows this voice. It's sweet and soft, his saviour in dark tides.

Louis' gone before he can grab him, and his vision switches one last time.

His eyes are bloodshot and slightly bulging in their sockets. He has cut skin everywhere, his restraints having no mercy. His tongue tastes like sandpaper and rust. There's no pain, as there never is any for Harry. His chest is heavy like someone's sitting on him with a ton of hardened cement.

"Good." He is staring up at the ceiling, unblinking, while this female voice speaks. "You're back."

Back? He takes a large gulp of air and tries sitting up, but he is pushed back down. This ceiling is familiar, and has no good feelings behind it. That drip of water and constant screaming background noise is also familiar. Harry screams when he puts two and two together, the veins in his neck and arms standing out.

"Missed us, did ya?" He looks to his right where his shoulder is clean and sees four faces he never wanted to see again staring at him.

"What-"

"Did we do?" Big brother steps forward from the quadruplet siblings. "We tested about eighty different drugs on you in the past month and some days. Those drugs gave you a false memory. This last one had a.....glitch, we think. It failed."

Defeated - an emotion Harry's never experienced before - Harry falls into a hoarse coughing spasm. He feels like a live creature with thorns for skin is caught in his throat. He's back here, where he'd rather rot in Hell than stay.

Briarville.

"Since when....-" He dry heaves into a smelly bucket once he's untied. "Since when?"

He tosses the bucket and wipes the water from his eyes, feeling just how oily his skin has gotten. His hair is matted and containing substances he refuses to think of. There's a tightening sensation around his chest that makes him choke and justifiably fucking angry.
Reggie tries to give him simple Aspirin but Harry pushes him away harshly and the only truly qualified doctor in the room stumbles back over a hospital tray.

"Since you fucked Rose." Eleanor glares at her sister, but there's envy in there somewhere.

Harry doesn't seem to hear that because his eyes followed Reggie when he fell and took a large blue curtain with him. His jaw stiffened at the sight behind it.

On a soiled hospital bed lay a dead body that was female and had blonde hair. Besides the awful stench of decomposition that now ran rampant through the room, Harry saw how thin and useless her skin has become.
Her left arm detaches and falls loosely to the ground, and the sudden movement causes a swarm of flies to pick up from her naked chest.

"Where's Louis?" Harry feels disgusted and disgusting.

"Kitchen duty, last I heard." Rose is the one to answer him. "Oh for fuck's safe, Reg, close the damn curtain!"

Their sibling yanks the plastic cloth sheeting closed after it's hooked up again. Harry exchanges glances with him briefly before looking away with a cold, dead look in his eye.

"Want me to take you to him?" Eleanor is scribbling on something down on her clipboard.

"Now." Harry is not fucking about with anything anymore. He's been fooled once and made to leave Louis all alone.

Rose clears her throat and nudges Eleanor so hard that her pencil flies across the room. There's no apology coming her way either.

We'll get out of here. Not easily, but we will. Harry missed that reassuring voice in his head, and smirks down at his legs when he hears the serpent again. Finally.

Eleanor sees him smile, like being back at Briarville isn't properly registering. He's a strong mind and not easy to break at all, but it's getting easier now that all the recovery he once had under his belt has been reversed.

"Rose, if you do that one more fucking time I will rip that foetus out of you." Eleanor threatens heatedly.

Harry's head snaps up, and the serpent in his head rears its head with interest. It peeks through the windows of Harry's eyes and much like Harry himself, snarls at the extra little pudge on Rose's tummy.

It's lies.

Harry wants the serpent to be right and he's willing to give blood to uphold that. Rose steps forward with her white doctor's coat and crisp clean clothes underneath. She reaches for Harry's hand and ignores the ugly frown on his face. Smiling gingerly, she places his palm on her front where the pudge is.

The whore's a liar.

"No." Harry pushes her away, not worried about harming her.

"Why would I lie to the father of my child?"