Battle To Be Free (z.m) ✔️

Chapter 38

Alanna’s POV

My sleep was a restless one and my dreams were plagued with nightmares about the past. When I woke up there was no denying that I wanted Zayn to be lying next to me but I was only to be disappointed as the space next to me was empty and cold.  I didn’t want to feel that way. I should hate him, loathe him even, but it seemed that my mind was simply incapable of doing so. Every time I thought about the bad things he had done my brain reminded me of every smile he had given me, every time he made me laugh and I found that all that hatred melted away like snow on a hot day.

It’s one of the most frustrating things ever to know that you should hate someone but you can’t. It makes you feel helpless, like a pushover, and if I could have switched my feelings from love to hate towards him then I would’ve done.

But I couldn’t.

Sighing dramatically, I sauntered slowly out of bed and down the stairs. I expected the place I used to call home to be filled with sounds but instead I was greeted with an eerie silence.

“Hello?” I called out.

No answer.

My heart rate increased and my gut instinct was telling me something was horribly wrong. My feet began to move slower and my breathing became rapid. I didn’t know if I was worried for myself or the others, but whichever it was, I felt like I was going out of my mind.

Reaching the last step I breathed a sigh of relief as there was no signs of intruders or any noises whatsoever. I reached for my phone only to be reminded that I left it upstairs but I figured that I didn’t need it just yet anyways.

There was a piece of paper laying upside down on the counter and as I flipped it over I noticed the scribbles beneath it was addressed to me.

Alanna,

Me and Louis have gone out so don’t be worrying about us when you wake up. Harry and Finn will look after you and if they don’t I will chop their balls off.

Zayn.

So if only Zayn and Louis had gone out where was Harry and Finn?

Deciding that I should call them I ran back upstairs and grabbed my phone. Oddly, the wardrobe door was wide open and I didn’t remember it being open before.  I shrugged it off thinking that I must have opened it for some reason and then forgot, even though I hadn’t been in this house in months and I was a bit preoccupied last night to go searching through wardrobes. 

A loud screech from downstairs halted my thought process.  The screech sounded like metal being dragged over metal; my hands wanted to cover my ears but I was too scared to move.  There was no-one in the house. So who was making that noise?

I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer.

Gripping my phone tightly as if it would be some kind of useful weapon against the intruder, or anything for that matter, I tip toed down the stairs hoping to sound stealthy but in reality probably making as much noise as a baby elephant. 

I knew I should have called for help, but my brain wasn’t thinking logically and all I wanted to do was to find whoever was in my house. I always used to think that people in horror movies were stupid for wanting to investigate the creepy sound that was coming from their house but when I was faced with that situation I could no longer fault them because I wanted to do exactly the same thing.

 So I searched downstairs as well as I could and I found nothing. I wondered briefly if I was going more insane than I already was and questioned whether I should be in the same mental house that Aria was in.