Try to Scream

24 hours went by slowly. It felt like a year when the police finally called me back. They asked me to come in, so I did. Liam, Zayn and Cora were in the car with Paul and I. We didn’t stop and talk to fans; we didn’t put a smile on or tried to pretend everything was alright. The fans already knew what was happening. 24 hours in, they knew.

None of us cared that it was practically 10 in the evening. None of us cared that we missed an interview and a show. All tickets were honored for tomorrow night, so they would get the show they paid for. Oh course, it was supposed to be a day for us to relax, but they were our fans, we couldn’t let them down.

We walked into the police station, which was under a stricter watch. The fans were not allowed to sit around the place like they did everywhere else. Once one was spotted on the property, they were escorted away and their parents were called.

It took a while for someone to see us, seems we had more fans in this town than they could handle. When they did bring us in to talk, they did it one at a time. I was first.

“So tell us what happened. Everything.” Detective Teller sat on the other side of the table, his arms folded across his chest. A tape recorder sat on the table in between us.

“Louis thought it would be fun to go out and see this haunted house he found online. Since we were in Salem a few months back, he’s always finding a way to top that.” I started.

Detective Teller leaned forward, “Did anything happen in Salem when you were there?”

“No.” I thought back, “Well, there was a guy there, we ran into him in the woods, but he was headed up the path.”

“Okay. So just a happenstance of running into a stranger at a well know place? So when you got to the ‘haunted house’ last night, did anything seem strange?”

“Other than it being really quiet, no.”

He looked at me with confusion. “Why was quiet strange?”

“Sir, I happen to be in the biggest boy band in the world. Quiet isn’t something you come across every day.” He shrugged and waved his hand for me to continue. “Besides the guys fooling around with each other out back, nothing seemed strange.”

“You didn’t see another person or a car?”

I bit my lip. “I did see a car. I was scared it was the police,” I avoided eye contact for a moment, “but it just sort of sped away and didn’t bother with us.”

Detective Teller leaned forward, “A car speeding off? You don’t find that strange?” I shrugged, “Can you tell me anything about the car or the person in it?”

“No, it was all really fast. I was talking to Louis about Munro and then the car flew by. I ignored it and went to give her the cardigan I was asked to fetch.” My heart raced. Maybe it wasn’t her leaving, maybe she was taken.

“Okay, send in one of the others.” He reached for the tape recorder and shut it off.

I stood, but paused, “You will find her, won’t you Detective Teller?”

“Of course,” He gave me a small smile, “It’s my job.” I knew he was telling me that to keep me calm. He couldn’t promise me he’d find her. There was no knowing who took her and why.

When I got out and sent in one of the others, I turned to Paul and asked him to take me back to the hotel. He didn’t sit and think about it. He grabbed the keys and we drove back quietly.

The fans were quiet as I walked back into the hotel. They watched me, they just watched. They didn’t scream or take pictures. They didn’t ask questions or reach out for me. They saw my face, how I fought to keep the tears back and knew instantly that it wasn’t the time to go crazy over me. For the first time, the seemed to notice that I wasn’t just a famous singer, I was a human being.

I took the stairs two at a time. Flight after flight, I climbed, not caring that it was work. Not caring that the lift was working perfectly and it was easier. I just needed the time to myself. The moment I got back to the hotel room, Harry and Louis would be by my side, making sure I was okay. The climb to our floor was the only time I would have alone for now.

When I did get back to the room, Louis was on the phone with someone. Harry wrapped me in a hug and offered to order me some food. But I denied his offer and walked over to my bed. I didn’t get under the covers or lay down. I sat at the top and pulled out my laptop.

Trusting the police would find her was hard. People went missing all the time, few came home. If I was going to ever see her again, I knew I’d have to help. To kidnap her, they had to plan, which meant they had to know of her. Where she was. She was never in a place too long. She was with us. If they wanted her, there was the week off tour. But they didn’t pick that, they picked the days after. They waited for her to be alone, completely alone in a room where there were no cameras or fans.

If she was kidnapped, there had to be a stalker.

My instinct, as someone who was constantly watched by people, was to look up her. Of course, now that she was in a music video and dating me, she would be known. There would be hate blogs, fan blogs; she was as good as famous now. Pictures of her would be everywhere. Rumors of her and theories.

The fans knew what was going on. Somehow, they always knew. Someone would have an idea. Our fans were not just a bunch of crazy 10 year olds. There were older, smarter fans out there. I just needed to find them.

There was really only one place to go. Twitter was hardly specific and random blogs around were hard to just look at. So I took to the one place I knew I could sift through the bullshit. Though I had to call in some help, I knew I would find something.

Josh was in my room not long later; he signed into his tumblr and clicked on the search bar at the top of the page. “We have to look in the right places otherwise it’s going to be a huge mess of nothing useful.” He tapped his fingers on the keys lightly, no enough to type anything.

I chewed at my cheek and thought of something useful. But Josh was already typing something. “Munro Theories” The page exploded with posts of her. Some say she ran away, some say management took her. Josh and I ignored those posts, knowing they were the same people who believed in Larry like Christians believed in God.

We scrolled through pages and pages of ideas. But something caught my eye. I pushed Josh’s hand off the keyboard and scrolled back up. The moment I saw her face, I felt my chest tighten and my throat begin to burn. “Niall, don’t make this harder for yourself.” He went to move my hand, but my eyes were focused on the background of the pictures. I shook my head.

“Dude, look.” I pointed at a slightly blurry face of a guy. “Harry, Louis!” I called; panic filling my voice as I looked at the other photos of Munro and sometimes ones of me as well. They rushed in the room and looked at me, “Remember when we were in Salem?” They nodded, “The guy in the woods?”

“Niall, don’t put ideas like this in your head.” Louis sighed, he turned to Josh, “You shouldn’t be encouraging him.” Josh didn’t stop looking at the screen though.

“Just answer my question. Do you guys remember the guy in the woods?” They both answered quietly, confessing they remember him slightly, but it had been forever ago. I turned the laptop to them, “Does this guy look familiar?”

They both eyed the tall dark haired guy in the back of multiple pictures. A fan suggested something was off about him, but none of them knew what we knew. He was the man I ran into in the woods in Salem. The guy who I said seemed polite. This stranger was in pictures all over the United States. Even some from Mass earlier that day. This had to be the guy who took her. There was no other explanation.