Captive || 5sos AU

Clearing Things Up

This chapter is a little short, but it's kind of important and after this things really speed up :)
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The hairs on Calum's arms stood straight up, and goosebumps raised all over. He felt Laurie's tense body near his, but couldn't feel the warmth which usually radiated from her. "Laurie I get it, okay?" He said quietly, trying to sympathize with the girl he had befriended and done wrong, but received no response.

He looked over at her, her long brown hair beginning to unravel itself from the neat braid she wore daily, and was terrified by her lifeless gaze. "Laurie?" He whispered, and was once again ignored. Calum sighed and stood up, not knowing what else to do.

He looked back at Laurie a final time before leaving. "Laurie, I never meant to hurt you. I wish you could see that." He said, and waited a few seconds for an answer but, receiving none, left defeated. Calum shut the door to the small room and was greeted immediately by the boy who Laurie knew as Hemmings, her captor, but who he was familiar with as Luke, his friend, and more importantly, his boss.

"What were you doing in there?" Luke asked sharply, peering over Calum's shoulder, then darted his eyes to meet his friend's. Calum shuddered slightly at the cold eye contact and cleared his throat. "I was just bringing her some food, you know, I figured she would be hungry." He said softly.

He figured this could be considered more of a half-truth than a lie, because he did bring her food, but he had gone in mainly to apologize. Regardless, Calum was aware that Luke could see everything which went on in the "Captive Square" as he liked to call it, but had hoped that he hadn't. Luke breathed heavily and rolled his eyes at Calum, seeing right through his lie and reading his obviously guilty body language.

"Cal, please tell me you don't have a personal attachment to this girl..." He said. Calum looked down. He couldn't say that he didn't, because in all honesty, he did. He had done this many times before. He would be assigned a girl by Luke, use his schoolboy charm to win her friendship, and would bring her back to his boss with the promise of safety and a hefty check- he had never really thought anything of it.

He knew that what he was doing was wrong, but learned to care very little when money was thrown into the equation. This time was different- Laurie was different. He went into the situation not expecting much, but the way that Laurie had cared for him, even just as a friend, was stronger than he had ever felt from his family, who had left him to the streets, and even from his closest friends who he now did business with.

But Calum was aware of Luke's strict rules against attachments with captives and lied through is teeth. "Good." Luke said and backed away from his friend. "I wouldn't want this to be compromised, this could be our biggest haul yet." With that, Luke walked down the dimly lit hallway and beckoned for Calum to follow.

He did, but cautiously looked back at the room in which his friend was being kept and sighed. "What did I get myself into?" He whispered to himself as he followed his boss up the stairs and into the home which he shared with Luke and a few other boys.