Deaf [A One Direction Fanfic] -Amy's Adventures Book 1- #Wattys2014

Chapter 20

~Amy's POV~

I walk over to Niall, putting my hand in front of his face. Niall blinks once, then slowly turns, looking at me. "Greg." I see him say, he's speaking incredibly slowly, probably not on purpose, but I can understand him. "Greg was there. He almost killed him. He tried to kill him. I jumped in the way. He still stabbed him. He might die!" Niall says, apparently unable to speak anything but simple sentences. Louis and Zayn put their hands on Niall's shoulders, shaking him. Niall doesn't react, so Harry walks over, slapping him across his uninjured cheek. Niall yelps, glaring at Harry, but he seems to have snapped out of his trance.

"Niall, what happened?" Harry asks. Niall's eyes go wide, and he looks at is blood-covered hand.

"I relived a couple recent memories while I was asleep and when I woke up screaming Liam and I talked then I looked up and Greg was standing there and he told me you were lying and he was good and you were bad and I should trust him but one of the things I saw on the telly was that he was after Liam so I realized he was going to kill him and he pulled out a knife and I pushed his arm but he still stabbed Liam then cut my face and then he ran and Liam said he cut himself when I hit him and Liam put a tracker in his arm then he started smiling and being weird then the nurses ran in because I took all the medical stuff out and they put him on a stretcher and ran to the ICU I think and I haven't seen him since and oh my gosh what if he dies it's all my fault I didn't save him and-"

"Niall, shut up." Harry says, cutting off the blonde, who takes a deep breath. He just described an entire experience in a single breath, albeit a very long one. And either he spoke slowly enough that I could understand him or I'm better than I thought at lip reading. "Why aren't they looking at you?" Harry asks, his eyes on Niall's still bleeding cheek.

Niall shrugs, looking back at the door. "In all the chaos, I don't think they acknowledged I was injured, Liam was stabbed in the chest so he was more of a priority." He says, and I frown. "The knife was aimed at his heart, I hit Greg and messed up his aim so he hit Liam somewhere else, somewhere a lot less deadly." Niall looks like he's on the verge of tears, so I sit in his lap, hugging him tightly. He buries his head in my neck the way he always does and I smile, putting my practice talking to use.

"He'll be fine, Niall." I say softly. I'm pretty sure Louis, Zayn, and Harry gasped, not that I would be able to tell. I feel Niall take a deep breath, though, and he smiles a bit.

"Little Things." He says, pulling away and looking at his band members. "That's one of our songs, right?" Harry nods excitedly, and he's soon joined by the others.

"What do you remember about it?" Zayn asks slowly, and Niall grins.

"A performance. A single performance, on the X-Factor, but later. Like, a couple years later." He says, and his friends all nod.

"That happened last year, I think. We went back and performed on the final." Harry says. One thing that's nice about Harry to me is the fact that he always talks slowly, so I can always understand him. Niall nods slowly, scratching his head. We all sit in silence- wait...- until a doctor walks down the hall, touching Niall's arm. He says something quickly that I can't read, and Niall stands, following the doctor into a room down the hall.

'He's getting his face bandaged.' Harry signs, noticing that I'm confused. I nod, and a couple minutes of waiting later Niall and the doctor both walk back out. Niall has a bandage wrapped pretty strangely around his face, covering the cut along with one of his eyes and half of his mouth. The doctor starts to talk again, and Harry signs what he's saying. 'The knife cut dangerously close to Niall's eye, so he has to keep it closed for now, hence why the bandage covers it. It also cut his lip a bit, but not too severely. He should be fine, so we need to focus on his memory, not his face.' Harry explains, watching the doctor, who smiles and turns, walking away. Niall takes my hand, pulling me down the hallway.

"He said we can see Liam." Niall says slowly, looking right at me. It's hard to understand him with half of his mouth covered, but I think I did a pretty good job. We arrive at a room and Niall opens the door, bringing us face to face with two doctors, a nurse, and a hysterical Liam. He's flipping out, looking around crazily and not letting anyone touch him. He's not wearing a shirt, just like Niall, and his upper chest is wrapped up, again like Niall. I release Niall's hand and run over to my brother, taking his hand.

"Liam, calm down." I say, or at least, I think I do. I'm pretty sure I did, though, because Liam blinks a few times, forcing a smile and looking down at me. 'You scared Niall.' I sign, pointing to the Irish who is watching us, eyes wide. Liam frowns and stands, walking over to Niall, and he looks guilty when Niall takes a step back. Liam says something, I can't tell what because I can't see his lips, and Niall shakes his head. Liam must do something, because the doctors suddenly step forward, grabbing Liam's arms and forcing him to step backwards. Liam tries to fight them, but when his angry eyes meet Niall's scared ones, all of the fight seems to leave him and he collapses onto the bed behind him. He's acting very bipolar right now, did he hit his head? Niall did say he was laughing earlier after he got stabbed. Is Liam going insane?