THEFT: A One Direction AU [✎]

CHAPTER 11

Three years ago

"Do you know what you are being charged with?"

"Do you know what you are being charged with?"

"Do you know what you are being charged with?"

"Do you know what you are being charged with?"

"Do you know what you are being charged with?"

"Mister Tomlinson!" The blue eyed boy was practically slapped awake by the annoyed ringing in the officer's voice. "Do you know what you are being charged with?" She asked, her eyebrows rising on the wrinkled forehead.

"I don't know... Larceny?" The feathery haired lad leaned his face to his hand, and shrugged.

"Theft, yes." The persistent woman nodded for way too long.

"And?" Louis said, his tone bathed with disinterest.

"And?" Her lips moved quickly and lightly pursed with annoyance, rising annoyance. "This is serious, mister Tomlinson. You are not underaged anymore, the law won't protect you."

"I wouldn't say the law has protected me very much." Louis snickered, looking down at the stained carpet floors.

The officer tensed her jaw, looking at the boy with raging eyes wide open before huffing as she proceeded to take a look at the files spread on her desk, faking a concentrated glance as she skeam through the sheets. "Thankfully your former boss is willing to drop the charges completely, providing you give back all the money you stole."

"What does it matter?" He looked at her, lacking any emotion on the eyes as his shoulder jumped up and down in a declared shrug.

"What does it matter?" The police woman's voice snapped, as she beat her palms against the metal desk, her features navigating through multiple expressions in seconds. She sounded offended. "Are you interested in going to jail?"

Louis lowly chuckled. "I don't care."

"So you don't want to take the deal?" Her eyes showed how much she could not understand the boy's reactions.

"Sure, I'll take it." He smiled politely, pleased at her discomfort.

"You are aware that you have committed a serious crime, right?" She pierced his eyes with her gaze.

Louis raised his eyebrows up at her, his expression dancing with mockery. "Look," he paused, as to give emphasis to what he was about to say. "I don't know how you stumbled upon this town, but this is Bradford." Louis reclined on the chair pulling out for a smoke even though he had the request to do so denied multiple times. "You are born inside crime, you live with crime as a surrounding, and no matter what your mother tells you, crime is the one that truly raises you around here." He took his time lighting the cigarette, inhaling a long breathy drag from the burning stick, watching the officer's expression turn to shock. "So yes," the smoke puffed out of his mouth as he spoke. "I committed a crime. It was not my first. It won't be my last. But it doesn't matter. There's no way around it." He smiled. "No opportunities, or dreams or escapes out of this town. All of us, those who were born here, and those who came, we will never get out. We are stuck. We are criminals. Nothing less and nothing more. And that all that we are."