Infinity //1D AU ✓

Chapter 10

~I never counted all of mine,

If I tried, I know it would feel like infinity,

Infinity, infinity, yeah,

Infinity~

The next morning, Ed was hard at work when the others woke up. He took the coffee that Louis made, and kept to himself while they got ready for the drive back home. "He's very different from Zayn." Zayn talked a lot while he worked. Liam found it endearing.

While Liam's brain went on a rant about Zayn, he thought that maybe he just had a crush on him. Something that would go away once he was positive that there was no chance between them. Zayn had every reason in the world to hate Liam.

Liam just wanted one more chance.

"Time to go, Ed." Louis finally said, urging the other one out of the chair.

"I need vodka." Ed said, instead of moving.

"Ed, you have cancer." Louis stated. "And we need you sober to help us."

"Don't worry about me missing work." Ed said, on a different train of thought, already. "They know that I'm dying. And I emailed them to say that I'm not dead, I've got a bad cold."

Liam eyed Louis. "Very different."

"Don't sass me." Ed said, clearly a very different person in the sunrise than in the dark. That was the only attribute he shared with Zayn. Zayn thrived in the darkness, as well. "I need vodka."

"I'm not supporting your drinking habits. I'll buy you some orange juice and an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's instead."

"Wait, but I want that too." Liam chimed in.

"Fine. We can all get that then." Louis sighed, feeling as if he was dealing with children. If his own daughter was this infuriating, then he didn't want children.

---

"Okay." Lou said, sitting down at the table in Zayn's hotel room. "Let's dissect all of these items."

Zayn was playing with Lux while Lou and Harry tried to solve the mystery of where exactly Niall Horan was. "We printed these images out, which we both think are of the location where Niall is being kept."

"And you know that this woman who kidnapped him is related to the man who he broke out of prison. And he also broke out of prison. Harry, I have an obligation, as a bounty hunter, to turn him in, even if I don't get paid for it."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lou, just not this one. Please. I'll bribe you, whatever. Just please don't arrest Niall Horan."

"Give me a good reason."

"He doesn't deserve what happened to him. He was a little clueless kid, fresh out of college, who will be in jail for the rest of his life because of that mistake. He doesn't get to live his life. Meet someone. Have kids." Harry was always the one to guilt trip others into things, and Lou finally dropped the subject, letting Harry continue with the evidence. "So yes, she is related to this man. We just don't know how. This is a key, maybe to that place. And the emails."

"Zayn. That's your name, right?" Zayn nodded at Lou. "Can you pull up all information on the case of Connor Rodes? See if there are any mentions of Evelyn, or a sister, a mother, aunt, etc."

Zayn sat down at his computer, and Harry grabbed Lux. He tried to get her to give him a kiss, but she pushed his face away. How rude. He started singing to her softly. "It's getting crazy. I think I'm losing it. I think I'm losing it."

"Harry, what song is that?" Lou asked.

"Just a bit of a blurb I came up with on my own."

"You could be a singer if you wanted to." She told him, instead of working.

"Nah. I like who I am now. I like baking and driving cars and hanging out with Louis."

"Triple barf." Zayn rolled his eyes. Luke hadn't changed his personality, then. He still thought that Harry and Louis' lovey dovey attitude was excessive. "She's his little sister. Evelyn Rodes. She was sixteen when Connor was arrested and the trial began."

"But why does she want Niall? Is there going to be a ransom? There's no one that will pay it."

"Read the emails, genius." Lou told Harry. "They are talking about evidence from her brother's case. She may be gathering a case to prove his innocence, and clear Niall of his blame."

"Niall must have found something out that did not prove his innocence, and cut ties." Harry interjected. "And she found him and kidnapped him to get his statement or something. We have to find him."

"Niall is a whole box of mysteries. Keeps getting himself in trouble." Zayn shook his head.

"Okay. Now that we know the why, how, and when. We need the where." Lou started looking at the pictures. "Are we assuming that they are in Ireland? How did she get him on a plane from Chicago here?"

"She'd want to take him back here." Zayn said. "This is where all of the attorneys who worked on the case are. Where the scene of the crime is."

"So, we're assuming they are in Ireland. People tend to stay close to home, so we can assume that she is within a fifty mile radius of her house. We don't have a street name, so this will be infinitely harder." Lou gave her daughter a ziploc bag full of goldfish.

"We have the house number." Harry said, bouncing Lux on his lap. "So search that number."

"It'll take us forever to search through all of the results." Zayn said.

"Do it anyways." Harry told him. Zayn set up a search, and the group of them piled around the screen, looking at the photos of all of the houses.

Lux climbed onto Zayn, and started touching the screen. "Pretty houses. Pretty houses. That one is pretty." Zayn lingered on that picture a second longer so that Lux could admire the pretty picture.

"Wait. I think that's it." Lou said, laughing. "Yeah." She held the picture up next to the screen. "We did it. We found Niall."