Divided. (Harry Styles)

/2/

I sat down, my body shaking with nerves as I fiddled with my thumbs in my lap, only taking small awkward glances towards Harry, as Veronica had named him. He was not much older than myself, probably only around 20, his messy hair was neatly pulled back and he wore a smart black suit and tie, tailored perfectly.

“Look at me,” he suddenly spoke, having noticed my obvious avoidance of eye contact. When I finally looked up properly, my eyes met his, his facial expression was stern and he appeared somewhat stressed.

“Veronica called me Harry, but she shouldn't have, you need to call me Mr Styles,” he spoke and I nodded in response. “You are Felicity, yes?”

“Yes, Mr Styles”, he nodded and weakly smiled at me.

“Okay, there's not always a lot for you to do around here but I'll tell you if anything needs doing."

“Okay," I nodded.

My eyes followed him as he pushed himself up and walked across the room to a large filing cabinet behind his desk. He pulled out a blue folder from the top drawer before making his way back over to his seat and taking a sheet out of the folder and handing it to me.

“Here's a list of names, each one with a photograph of every body who should be working in the department labour room, I need you to go down there and check they are all there, if someone is unaccounted for you need to note it and tell me, if someone isn't there and you don't tell me, your punishment could be as severe as the absentee's.”

I gulped and nodded, accepting his instructions before standing up to leave.

I walked towards the door, Harry's voice suddenly ringing through the room before I could leave.

“Felicity, please understand I'll never punish you, if it happens it'll be another manager or member of staff from the upper half, but it'll never be me,” he said quietly shaking his head.

I gave him a weak smile before leaving the office.

I was relieved by what Harry had said, from his words and facial expressions it seemed as if he wanted to be here about as much as I did which wasn't a lot and that he didn't want to hurt me. Anybody from the lower half knew that beatings weren't an uncommon event for those who worked in the halfway point. The stories I'd heard of what had gone in the factories had always made me dread the day I turned 18. Despite Harry's unexpected generosity I still felt intimidated and absolutely terrified about the whole situation, the whole lower half had to be terrified, it was impossible not to, especially working in the Halfway Point. No one knew what could happen the next second, minute, hour, day, month, year.

When I arrived at the labour room, I was shocked by what I met inside. Machines were lined up in rows, a girl at each one, every single one looked drained, eyes red raw from hours of work and lack of sleep. The clothes they had on were like rags, thin and torn with dirt marks in places. It showed how little we had back at home in the lower half, obviously the constant labour didn't allow much opportunity for them to go home and if they did there were little clothes to buy or change into.

Almost as if something in the atmosphere had changed, everyone looked up at me, worry expressed in their faces as they all sat up straight and got back to work. Then I realised from my appearance after having been given a makeover from Veronica it must look like I'm of upper staff from the richer half of London.

I gulped before saying “I'm one of you, you know,” loud enough so the sound of my voice was able to travel to the back of the room. A room of eyes looked up at me confused, scanning my appearance.

“Are you a personal assistant?” a girl who looked around my age asked from the front row of machines.

I replied with a nod before the girl sighed.

“It's only the minority who get to be personal assistants, usually so they can keep a close eye on you, the ones who they want to torture very, very.. slowly,” a girl on the front row scowled evilly. I gulped hoping she was simply taking her anger out on me.

“I'm sorry but you need to get back to work so I'm not punished for not following instructions,” I responded, trying not to cry at the words the girl said.

Each one of them moved their head down returning back to work as I began to walk down the aisles of machines scanning people's names, photos and real life faces.

I checked everyone off the list, before leaving and walking to the next floor where Harry's office could be found.

I knocked on the door before entering but was met by Harry talking down the phone.

I was about to leave and wait until he had finished but before I could he motioned me back inside.

I sat awkwardly on the seat opposite his desk as I twiddled my thumbs over hearing his conversation.

“Yeah I'll be there,” he said down the line, before listening to the other person's response and nodding.

“Stop going on about it, you know I will. I have to go,” he said next and pressed the end call button on his phone.

“Sorry, that was my um fiancé," he informed me.

I was a little surprised that was his 'fiancé' due to his age and the way he spoke to her in quite a rude manner.

I replied with an “oh right”, still confused by what the girl in the labour room said.

“Are you okay?” Mr Styles asked, looking slightly concerned as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Yes."

“No you're not you're about to cry,” he pressed.

“Just a girl in the labour room she was just being rude I guess,” I reply.

“What did she say?” he asked, looking increasingly angered.

“It's nothing, just leave it honestly it's fine,” I insisted.

His jaw tensed but he sighed before muttering an “okay."

I decided to change the subject so passed the sheet over in which I had marked all of the workers present.

“All here,” I said faintly.

“Good,” he said pulling the sheet away from me and placing it back into its folder.

We were interrupted by someone bursting into the door. It was a middle-aged man also dressed in a suit like Harry's holding a labour room worker by the collar of her ragged shirt. Tears rimmed my eyes once with the realisation she was probably about to be punished and that it would be severe.

“This one thinks she can disobey me Harry, you know what this means,” the man spat.

Harry sighed before turning to me and saying “Felicity can you wait outside please, you don't want to see this." I nodded before leaving the room.

I sat on the seat outside of his office staring into space, worried for the girl in the office, hoping she was okay but then I heard screams. She was yelping and groaning in pain, the sound causing a sick feeling to develop in my stomach and my legs to shake.

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