Viva La Vida

Part 2

  "Thank you, Your Highness," the man says, his voice still steady and soft and thickened by the lilt of a Northern accent. "Would you mind getting out of bed with your hands still raised, please?"

His tone is so polite and conversational that they might have been talking about the weather, but Liam doesn't allow himself to be deceived by the façade. This man has a gun, and from the easy way he's holding it, he's not afraid to use it.

"Do you have anything you can pack a few things in? Just enough for a few days."

Liam swallows hard and doesn't say anything. He's been told not to speak, and he's not going to put using a trick question as an excuse to shoot him past this man.

His assailant, seeming to understand this, adds, "I'd appreciate a quiet yes or no answer, Your Highness."

"Yeah," Liam says, his voice rough with sleep but impressively steady.

"Please pack your things then. And be quick."

Liam opens his closet and pulls out an overnight bag, exceedingly conscious of the man's gun subtly trained on him. With shaking hands, he stuffs his bag with some clothes and toiletries, his breath coming quick and quiet and shuddery. This whole night has had the surreal feeling of a dream, and he can't help but think that the unconscious and the real world are overlapping.

"Are you done?"

"Yeah," Liam says. He wonders if it's obvious how terrified he is, how he's drenched in sweat and shaking. He wonders if he should be putting up a fight right now. Wonders if the man is expecting him to, thinks less of him for not protesting at least a little. Wonders why he cares what the man thinks, and then realizes that despite the situation, he is still being a prince. And princes care what their subjects think of them.

"Turn around, please, and put your hands behind your back."

Liam does as he's told, and then feels his hands being zip tied behind him, tight enough that he won't be able to get out but loose enough that it won't be painful unless he struggles.

"You're going to walk out the door in front of me," the man says, still in that calm, quiet voice that now has a hint of steel beneath its silk. "You are not going to make any noise, and you will do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand me, Your Highness?"

"Yes," Liam says, and then clamps his lips together to swallow down the bitterness that comes with complying so easily. He has a gun, he reminds himself. You can't be a martyr right now. You owe the people of England to stay alive. You are their future. The thought gives him some strength, and so the humiliation and fear that comes with being prodded out of his bedroom at two in the morning with the barrel of a gun at his back is softened a little.

The guards that should be protecting him are gone from the hallway; whether they're been killed or drugged or somehow tricked away, he's not sure and probably doesn't want to know. The man guides him down the shadowy hallway, around a sharp corner, down a flight of stairs he didn't even know existed, and then out of a door that apparently leads to the outside, because the next thing Liam feels is a blast of chilly air through his thin T-shirt. He has trouble believing that this man could have gotten rid of all the guards in the vicinity, but there are none to be seen, even outside—no, he sees the man slipping a single guard a sack of bills, and then exchanging a fist bump.

Well. That explains that.

"Tell the Duke I say thanks for making this so easy," Liam's kidnapper says to the guard quietly, and then Liam's being pushed outside and into the garish glow of the streetlights.

For the first time, he gets a clearer view of his kidnapper, not that it helps much—the man's wearing all black, with a hood that's pulled low over his eyes and a bandana that covers the lower half of his face. Liam would laugh at the clichéd air of it all, but once again, the man has a gun and this is too real to laugh at. The man is a little shorter and wirier than Liam is, but from the lithely graceful way he moves, Liam's willing to bet that attempting to punch him or something similar would probably end up worse for Liam than it would for his kidnapper.

There's a bread van waiting for them on the curb; Liam is pushed into the back and the man gets into the front seat. There's already a driver inside, and slumped onto the floor of the van next to Liam is—

"Harry?" Liam says incredulously, and not without horror.

Harry looks up, his eyes red and nose running. "L-Liam," he says with a smile that tries to be brave. "I was hoping they wouldn't get you."

"Why did they—"

"Quiet back there," the driver says. He has a higher voice with a Northern accent, similar to the one Liam's assailant had been sporting.

"Why did you take Harry?" Liam blurts out. "I mean, I get me, but—"

"Didn't I say to be quiet?"

He falls silent, bowing his head and then leaning it up against Harry's shoulder in a futile gesture of comfort.

"Let's go," Liam's assailant says, and the driver starts pulling away from the curb. Liam is desperately fighting the panic that's rising in his throat with every inch they move away from the palace—the suffocating knowledge of his own helplessness is paralyzing him. If he screams, no one will hear him. If he struggles, he might get shot. There's no way to escape, no way to move, no way to breathe.

His hands are losing feeling from the bonds around his wrists, but the prickle from the blood loss helps clear his head a bit. The best thing he can do right now is stay alive. People will be looking for them as soon as they realize he's gone, which will be in the morning at the latest. Once it's discovered that he and Harry are missing, the whole country will be up in arms. He tries to take some comfort in this knowledge, but seeing as it's hard to even inflate his lungs against the weight of fear against his chest, the morning seems a little far off.

"How are we doing?" the driver asks the other man, who now has a laptop open, the screen of which Liam's can't see from his current position.

"Still clear for now. If we can get even an hour or two outside of the city before they notice we'll be doing good."

The driver takes a deep breath and nods briskly, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "Reckon I should pick up the pace a little, then."

The other man laughs a little and goes back to whatever he's doing on the computer. Liam is shaking with rage—what right do they have to be joking about this? What right do they have to be making light of doing this to innocent people? What kind of monsters take two blameless young men out of their beds at night and then laugh together like they're playing a particularly delightful uni prank?

"They'll catch you no matter how fast you go, you know," he says loudly, the high of his anger dispelling the fear that previously had sealed his lips shut. "You may as well pull over and wait to be arrested."

The driver doesn't bother responding, but the man sitting in the passenger seat twists to look at Liam. It's eerie that Liam still can't see his face behind the hood and bandana, but he meets the man's gaze steadily anyway.

"What makes you say that?" the other man asks, his voice still calm and polite like it had been in Liam's bedroom. He sounds almost genuinely curious, like the idea of his heist being anything but successful is so ridiculous he can't quite believe someone is disputing it.

"I'm the crown prince," Liam says, his voice laced with incredulity. "The crown will tear country apart at the seams to get me back if it has to."

The man regards him for a moment, and then simply says, "The crown has already done that."

***

Somehow, despite his bound hands and choking fear and resolution to pay attention to his surroundings, Liam falls asleep, slumped awkwardly on the van floor with his head lolling on Harry's shoulder and his mouth open. It's a nervous, restless sort of slumber, laced with uncomfortable dreams and brief waking periods where he hears the murmurs of men in the front of the truck without fully understanding them. At some point he's aware of Harry gently moving his head off his shoulder and stretching, but he falls back asleep too quickly to apologize for using his friend as a pillow.

In all, he's not quite sure how much time has passed when someone shakes him awake—all he knows is that for a few blissful moments in between waking and sleeping, he is not afraid of what's coming.

Sleep tends to drug you like that sometimes.

"Wake up, Your Highness."

Someone's shaking his shoulder much too roughly for him to back in his bed—

"S'time?" Liam mumbles, trying to stretch and then realizing his hands are still bound. His shoulders give a sullen twinge from being twisted back for so long, and the fear comes rushing back like an ocean wave, cold and overwhelming and flavored with the salty twinge of sweat.

"Six in the morning. We've stopped for a bit; if you'd like to get out and use the bathroom, now would be a good time. Louis is inside buying food right now, so I'll escort you in."

Liam blinks, the face of the man in front of him sliding into focus. His expression is serious and his eyes fixed on Liam unwaveringly; one half of his face is illuminated by the car park lights from the open door of the van, all razor-sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw, and the other half is thrown into darkness, spindly shadows from his lashes chasing each other across his skin when he blinks. It's hard to see him clearly, what with the poor lighting and Liam's sleep-addled brain, but he knows for sure that he's never seen this man before in his life.

"Who are you?" Liam asks stupidly.

"I could probably be classified as your kidnapper," the man says. Oh, right. Of course Liam hadn't recognized him without his mask on. He's much younger than Liam had thought—no older than Liam himself. "Would you like to use the bathroom, or not?"

"I—yeah, all right." Liam swallows his pride at the thought of being escorted into the bathroom, and climbs awkwardly out of the van. "Where's Harry?"

"He went inside with my friend," the man replies, turning Liam around to take off the zip ties. Liam shakes out his arms in relief and winces as he massages the feeling back into his hands, relishing in the ability to stretch. "Sorry about those. Necessary precaution." The man gestures towards the Tesco's at the other side of the car park. "After you, Your Highness."

Liam slowly starts walking towards the store, eyes scanning his surroundings for possible escape routes, people to shout to, a getaway vehicle.

"Oh—if you try to run, or communicate with anyone, I've got a gun. Just so you know."

"You wouldn't shoot me in a place like this," Liam says, trying to show a confidence he doesn't feel. "Not with everyone watching." You can't be that insane.

"Try me," his kidnapper says, steel in his voice.

Well—he could be bluffing, but Liam isn't willing to take that chance. He has Harry to think about, anyway. If he tries to escape, he could be bringing certain death down upon his best friend.

As if sensing Liam's fear, the man adds, "I am sorry about all this, Your Highness. I wish there was some other way to do this, but there's not, so just know that I don't want to hurt you."

"But if you have to, you will," Liam says. "So that's not very reassuring."

He can't see the man's face, because he's still walking in front of him, but he thinks he hears the man sigh. "Yeah, well, I never did have the best bedside manner."

"A great to start improving on that would be to stop kidnapping people."

The man snorts. "I'll keep that in mind."

"You know," Liam says lightly as they walk into the Tesco's, "I don't think that you would actually shoot me if I tried to run. That'd be suicide for you."

"Want to test it out?"

"No. But, you know, the police would be called and the whole thing would turn out very badly for you. I just think that shooting someone in a crowded Tesco's is too crazy, even for you."

"As crazy as kidnapping the crown prince from the royal palace and making a getaway in a bread van?"

Liam sighs. "You have a point."

"And Tesco's isn't even that crowded at this time," his kidnapper grumbles as they walk into the bathroom. "You have three minutes. Don't try anything funny."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Liam says, and trots over to the urinal. His hands are shaking, but his head is strangely clear. It's obvious what he has to do here—stay alive, keep Harry alive, and wait for rescue. If the opportunity for freedom presents itself clearly—without too much danger for him or Harry—than he'll take it, but obviously he's more useful dead than alive and free to these people, and he does have enough sense to realize that trying and failing to escape would end very badly, his pride be damned.

When he washes his hands and turns around, an uncommonly beautiful young man is standing behind him, eyes narrowed with exhaustion but chin tilted up haughtily. If it hadn't been for his scruffy clothes and the hand tucked under his jacket to where a gun is doubtlessly concealed, Liam's kidnapper wouldn't have looked out of place on a high-fashion runway, or an awards show red carpet. It throws Liam off for a second—he'd expected a cruel-faced thug with heavy fists and broad shoulders, not this slender young man with tired eyes and slender limbs and a beauty so sharp he pulls the world around him into focus and makes the background go fuzzy.

Evil comes in many forms, and the most dangerous ones are the most beautiful, Liam thinks, not sure where the snippet of wisdom came from, but recognizing its truth all the same. The fact that this man doesn't look like a killer means nothing. He himself admitted his willingness to shoot Liam through the head at a moment's notice.

"Done?" the kidnapper asks, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"I suppose so," Liam says blankly.

"Then we're going back to the van. My friend and your friend are already there. They have food." He gives Liam a once over. "Are you hungry?"

The minute he's asked, Liam becomes aware of a persistent emptiness in his stomach. Still, he'd like nothing better than to refuse the food out of spite—but he can't if he wants to stay alive and alert. If it comes down to him making a bolt for it, it won't do to try and make it on an empty stomach and shaky legs. "I suppose so," he repeats.

"Remember what I said about trying to make a run for it while we're walking back."

"Refresh my memory again?" Maybe if he can keep the man talking for long enough, keep him distracted, gain his trust . . .

"Me, you, gun. I'm sure that's a sufficient refresher. Now shut up and walk."

"Don't you have to take a piss?"

"I went before I woke you up," the man says, "and I never thought I'd hear the crown prince say the phrase take a piss."

"And I never thought I'd be kidnapped by a snarky commoner with a gun he keeps talking about but I have yet to see. The world is full of surprises."

"I'll show it to you in the van. Until then, keep it in your pants, Your Highness."

Liam chokes on his own spit.

***

Harry is unharmed and untied and very much alive in the back of the van when they return; Liam hadn't realized how much he'd been worrying until he sees his friend and his knees go weak with relief.

"Get in there," the man says, giving him a little shove, and Liam scrambles in next to Harry, happy that he's left untied.

"There's food," Harry says, his voice a little hoarse, like he's either been screaming or has just woken up. He holds out a banana, and Liam takes it almost without thinking.

"What'd you get?" the man—Liam really needs to find a better thing to call him, honestly—asks his friend, the driver, the one he'd called Louis. He hops into the passenger's seat and Louis starts backing out of his parking spot.

"Bread, peanut butter, bananas—His Grace wanted a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and who am I to argue with royalty? Oh, and cereal, and water, and a pack of ciggies."

"Nobility," Harry says automatically, swallowing his bulging mouthful before he speaks. "Liam's the royalty around here."

"Whatever," Louis says with an airy wave of the hand that belies the force he turns a corner with. "It's all the same. You wanted a sandwich and I got you a sandwich, that's all that matters."

"What matters here is that we're your prisoners," Liam says sharply. "Not your friends. So by all means, don't feel obliged to indulge us in any way. Your friend there made it very clear to me that our comfort is not your priority."

"Showing the big guns so soon, Knockout?" Louis says with a sly grin, shooting the other man a slit-eyed look of amusement.

"I may have told him I'd shoot him if he ran," the other man—Knockout—says, "but like, in a jovial, friendly way. I made sure he knew it was nothing personal. Gimme a fag?"

Louis gives him a cigarette and an easy smile.

"But it is something personal," Liam bursts out. "You chose to kidnap us out of everyone you could have gone for, so it's very fucking personal to me, thanks."

"You are the chattiest prisoner I have ever met," Louis says, a tone of amazement coloring his words. "And I just spent fifteen minutes being bothered for bananas by His Curliness, over there."

"His Grace is equally offended by your actions," Liam says, all the ice of Simon's coldest rages in his voice. "I would suggest you address him with the proper title and respect."

In response, Louis digs a handful of Frosted Flakes out of the bag and shoves them in his mouth loudly.

"Your Highness, with all due respect, this is purely political, and nothing to do with your personal character," Knockout says, spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread. "So if I could make a suggestion here, it'd be a good idea for you be quiet and eat now."

And so, because Liam has resolved to stay alive, after all, he does what he's never really done before in his life, and follows the instructions of a commoner.

***

"Louis, we have a problem."

It sounds so calm and cliché when Knockout says it, like something from a movie—Houston, we have a problem—but the words instantly send a thrill of fear through Liam's body, the shock quickly chased by a glint of hope: what's bad for their kidnappers can only be good for Liam and Harry.

"All right, what's up?"

"The prince was spotted at Tesco's and now they're in the area. We might get stopped and searched."

They're talking in low voices, but in the tiny enclosed space it's loud enough for Liam to hear if he strains his ears a little; a glance at Harry tells him that the other man is doing the same.

"Well, then, we pull over somewhere and chill for a while, just wait for them to pass."

A brief shake of the head. "Not gonna work. When I say they're in the area, I mean we're within their range."

Louis swears, a short, loud, explosive exhalation that makes Liam jump a little. "Well, God damn it, Zayn, why didn't you see them before?"

"Royal police cars? Please, they have the best radar deflection in the world. We're lucky I got a reading at all."

Louis swears again. "How many?"

"Too many."

Louis drums his fingers against the steering wheel, blowing out a long breath. Liam can see Knockout (or maybe it's Zayn, because Louis called him that, too, and Knockout seems more like a nickname rather than a real name, after all) putting ammo in his gun, and despite the tiny blossom of hope in his chest, feels a twinge of fear. If it comes to a shootout, he's not sure that these two have the common sense to hand him and Harry over rather than fighting to the bitter end—and if it gets to that point, there's no guarantee of any of them walking out alive.

"Do you trust me?" Louis asks, hands tightening on the wheel and eyes fixed on the road.

"You know it."

"Then hang on," Louis says grimly, and they're off.

When Liam says off, he literally means off—they fly off the side of the highway at full speed and go screeching onto a side road, weaving dangerously around other cars and running through a red light despite the oncoming traffic. Liam's heart is in his throat, hammering away so loudly he thinks it might choke him; Louis may be skilled at getting away from a police force, but he's by no means skilled at providing a comfortable ride—he and Harry are thrown all around the back of the van with such force that Liam's sure they'll have bruises.

There are police sirens screeching behind them now, and Liam's heart leaps at the exact same moment that the two kidnappers in the front swear in perfect unison; the juxtaposition of the whole thing would have made Liam laugh if the situation wasn't so fucking serious. They don't even so much as glance back at Harry and Liam, which makes him realize that as serious as this is for him, it may be more serious for them. Liam will probably—probably—make it out alive regardless of whether they're caught or not; or, at least he'll be alive for now, because they don't seem to be in a hurry to kill him or Harry unless they try to escape. If the police catch them, Louis and Zayn are most likely as good as dead. It's more than just a matter of freedom for the commoners—it's a matter of life and death.

Maybe that explains the roughness, the urgency of the chase, or maybe that's just the air of all police chases, because don't all criminals have something massive and precious on the line? Either way, the bread van is weaving in and out of traffic, cutting corners, and never once slamming on the brakes. It's like some kind of death race.
After what feels like hours, they slow. The police sirens faded long ago—long enough that Liam has finished swallowing the massive burden of disappointment that comes with realizing imminent rescue is impossible for not—and they've just finished ripping through a small town that's miles from the highway.

"Think they noticed that?" Louis asks casually.

"It was sort of hard to miss," Zayn says. "We're on their suspect list for sure now, but at least now we're far enough away that we'll be able to throw them off a bit more."

"Sometimes you have to throw subtlety in the bin and take the desperate route," Louis agrees.

"Speaking of routes, we're severely off course from ours. We'll have to figure out a way to get back to base from here that doesn't use the main highways, since those are being patrolled now. Not to mention we'll have to use the other license plate from now on, because they definitely got ours." Zayn pauses, thinking for a moment. "Take a break for the night? I'll switch the plates, drive a bit, and everyone else can get some sleep."

"Sounds perfect."

They pull over and change drivers; the two men joke around a little and stretch as they get out of the van, but Liam can see the defeated slump in their shoulders and the bags under their eyes. They're tired, and this isn't an easy thing to pull off, after all.

Maybe a chance to escape will present itself sooner than he'd thought.

***

Liam hadn't really expected that they would have been driving for this long—honestly, he's surprised that they haven't run out of England to drive through at this point—but the fact that they have to keep taking detours and reroutes to avoid police explains at least a part of the length of their hellish road trip. Still, he sleeps better than he did the first night, although that's probably mainly due to the fact that his hands aren't tied this time around. Sleep, he has to remind himself, is good. It'll put him out of commission for a few hours, but he has to stay alert. The only way he can take advantage of his captors' exhaustion is if he's awake himself.

As he falls asleep, however, he thinks of Simon for the first time since his capture. He wonders if his uncle is worried—not only about him, but about the future of the country, about what will happen if Liam for some reason never comes back. He wonders if his uncle is thinking about him at this moment. Wonders if they're thinking of each other even as they move apart. But buried under all that hope and nostalgia is a hidden kernel of resentment when Liam remembers how Simon had brushed off the warning that the rebels were getting closer to the castle. Look where it got him—Liam is sitting in the back of a bread van with filthy clothes and an empty stomach and sore limbs, and even though his kidnappers haven't identified with any particular sect, it's likely that he's in the hands of rebels. Maybe, just maybe, if Simon had amped up the guard force, this wouldn't have happened.

But the world is full of what-ifs and lost chances, and it won't do him any good to dwell on any of them. This may be partially Simon's fault, but before anyone else it's the fault of the monstrous young men who are even now sending them racing away from everything Liam has ever called home.

"Liam?" Harry hasn't said much since they've been taken; Liam can't blame him, really. It's easier to be quiet when you're afraid. He's not sure how his own fear hasn't overcome him already. Maybe because he's still trying to be a king. A king would not let himself be swallowed in terror.

A king with no palace and no power and no throne.

"Yeah?" Liam says quietly; Louis is asleep but he doesn't want Zayn to hear. This is one thing their kidnappers will not be able to take or corrupt. He and Harry will always have each other's backs.

"Are you awake?"
He smiles into the darkness of the van. "Obviously."

"Do you remember when that time when you first came to the palace, right after the attack, and we'd just become friends, and there was a thunderstorm one night? And everyone thought you would be afraid because they thought the thunder would trigger your memories of the bomb?"

"I remember that," Liam says.

"So they sent me to go spend the night with you, but I was secretly afraid of thunderstorms." Harry laughs a little, quietly and privately into the dark. "And you weren't afraid at all. So it was you who spent the night comforting me. You remember that?"

"Of course I remember."

There's a long silence. Liam wonders why Harry has brought this back now of all times.

"Liam?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad you're here with me."

And Liam wonders if maybe it doesn't take a palace and power and a throne to be a king. Sometimes, being a good king is like being a good friend—it's being able to make things better for other people, even if you have nothing but your presence and your empty words to offer.

"I was scared that night too," he says finally. "But you were too, so one of us had to not be scared. So I decided it would be me." He draws in a deep breath and stares at the ceiling of the van, latticed with the shifting shadows and light from the street lamps. "I'm glad you're with me too, Harry. I'm glad we're together."

"It would be terrible to be alone," Harry says, reaching over and squeezing Liam's shoulder.

"It would," Liam agrees. "And that's what friends are for, anyway. Making each other less afraid."

They don't speak again after that, but just as he falls asleep, Liam thinks he sees Zayn glance over at Louis' sleeping figure and pull a jacket over him with one hand.

Maybe that's why the rebels sent two men on this mission. So they could make each other less afraid.