You Found Me

You Found Me - Chapter Twenty- Four.

A/N; hey guys, remember me?

school is taking over my lifeeee. don't hate meeeee

well now i feel bad. asdfghjkl;

Love you all. & as my best friend told a random kid on the street today, "Don't let anyone tell you you're not attractive."

xox, Nathalie.

Allie

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with a simple life. It was a good life, but a simple one, and she longed for it to change. But once it did, she wished it was simple again.

July flew by and, before I knew it, it was August. Niall and I grew closer, forming a fast friendship again, even though I ached for something more. Lucy's birthday rolled around on the first, and the group of us planned her a surprise party that ended up on the cover of Us Weekly. Rumors clouded real life, and sometimes, even I struggled to find out what was real and what was not. Nightmares played a starring role in my sleep, now more than ever, but Niall was always there to comfort me. The boys would leave to do work stuff, like recording their new album, and Lucy and I would do tourist things in London. We settled into a pattern of some sort. Life became simpler.

And then came something no one saw coming.

It was a Tuesday. A cold Tuesday, one that, during summer, was unexpected and had people rushing home and hiding under their blankets. The wind blew Harry into the house, followed by a petite brunette girl who reminded me a lot of Ashley Greene.

Fallen under the spell of foreign charm, Harry introduced us to his new girlfriend, Kristine Gionelli.

"Your what?"

Liam stood up from the kitchen table, a confused look crossing his face. Of course, always polite, he said delicately, "Well, this is a surprise."

Yeah. That's an understatement.

"I hope I'm not intuding," Kristine purred, her Italian accent twisting through the air of the house. I instantly recoiled. "Harry wanted me to meet his, er, family." 

I was slightly touched, until I looked over at Lucy who was pale white. Obviously she hadn't seen this coming, either.

"Not at all." Zayn seemed to snap out of it and offered Kristine a chair. "Take a seat. So, um, how long have you and Harry known each other?" I could read his message plain and clear: this was code for "how the hell did you meet Harry and I didn't know about it?"

"Three weeks," Kristine said, her voice warm in a sickly-sweet way. It sent shivers up my spine.

"Three weeks," Harry said, smiling, as if in a daze. "Three weeks."

I sent a sympathetic look his way. He was obviously so into this Italian bombshell that he couldn't see what a frigid bitch she was.

There was a pregnant pause. "Awesome," Liam said quickly, taking a sip of his Coke. "So why are we just meeting you now?"

"Oh, I had some family troubles that I needed to take care of," she said, crossing her legs. "So, I hear you are all in a band?"

Niall nodded carefully. "Yes." I felt relieved, as it was suddenly apparent that I wasn't the only one who already distrusted Kristine.

And then Kristine's eyes met mine. It seemed like she was trying her hardest to give me a sweet innocent smile, but it wasn't working. I could see the venom behind it.

Zayn awkwardly cleared his throat. "Um. So I'm Zayn. This is Louis, Niall, Allie, Lucy, and Liam."

Kristine's eyes flitted to Zayn for a moment, then back to me. "Wonderful to meet you all." Her lips curved upward in a smirk. "Allie. Right?" she asked me. I didn't like the way she said my name: like I was a vermin on the bottom of her shoe.

"Yes," I replied through clenched teeth. It was amazing how quickly I could hate this girl. I held her stare until it came to me. "I know you."

"How could you know me?" Kristine snapped, rolling her eyes, in the tone of "I'm obviously so much better, how could I ever have met a peasant like you?"

"I know you," I repeated, and the second the words exited my mouth I knew they were true. I did know her. But from where?

- - - - - - - - - -

When Kristine realized that no one wanted her around, she and Harry left to go to dinner alone. I turned to face Niall and said, "I don't like her."

"Yeah, I don't think anyone likes her," he said flatly. "Where'd you say you know her from?"

"I don't remember," I confessed. "I just know her. Her face is just... horribly familiar."

"Unfortunately, that face is about to become even more familiar," Louis said disgustedly, setting himself down on the couch. "It'll probably haunt me in my nightmares."

I laughed and turned my attention to Lucy, who was watching TV with a blank expression.

"Luce? You okay?"

She turned to look at me, and seemed to forget that I had spoken. Then it registered in her brain, and she said quickly, "Oh, yeah. M'fine."

I made a mental note to talk about this to her later, because it was obscenely obvious that she was not "fine".

The night passed by almost instantaniously, and soon I was asleep, curled up in a little ball in my warm, comfortable bed. That's when I remembered her.

It was ten days until my mother's birthday.

I distinctly remember the look on my father's face as the door swung open, and my mother's scream. She told my brother and I to hide, wherever we could. I remember looking up from underneath the coffee table as a tall, dark-haired man burst through the door. My father had the police on the line. I was so little that I never understood what was going on.

But I know now.

My mother's assailant was out of jail. He was coming for us. Later, he sent my mother horrible secret messages telling her to give herself up, or else he would come for Aidan and I.

That's why she told us she was going away. On a holiday with her friend. She was going to meet him.

But she never got the chance. That's when the cancer hit her hard. That's why she was so afraid during her last few days: the screaming and the crying all the time. Because she thought he would take us.

And that's where I remembered Kristine from.

She was a girl then, too. Not much older than me. But she was with the man, in the trunk of his car, the night he came to my house to threaten my mum. The one my parents feared he had kidnapped. Maybe he had kidnapped her. I had to find out what she knew.

I awoke in a cold sweat.

A/N: yeah, short chapter, I'm sorry! but i updated guyssss (: <3 i love you all so much! thank you for staying loyal to this story when I wasn't. sidebar is kristine