Burn

“One day,” Trystan said lightly as she waltzed into the room, “I will find you without your nose stuck into a bloody novel. And it will be most glorious.”

Rae glanced up from her book, smiling at Trystan as she sat down on the couch next to Rae, still in her work clothes. Trystan gave her a huge smile, happy that Rae seemed to be doing much better than she had been. Things were easier, though not exactly happier.

“You almost sounded poetic there,” Rae teased, scrunching up her nose and kicking Trystan playfully. She stretched out and sighed, putting the book in her lap, pausing her reading. “How was work?”

Trystan shrugged, rolling her eyes. “The usual, of course. One day I’m going to stick my stiletto up my managers arse. He’s a complete dick, I tell you.”

Rae laughed. Trystan did not take kindly to being bossed around, which did not work that well if you were employed. But Trystan was Trystan, and she would do as she pleased, as she always had. “Of course he is, Trys.”

Trystan opened her mouth to say something in reply, but there was a knock on the door to interrupt her. She rolled her eyes and got up, trudging to the door, disappearing to answer it. From down the hall, Rae recognized Louis’ voice, urgent and his footsteps quick.

Leaning forward she looked down the hall where Louis suddenly appeared, walking into the living room. His blue eyes were right on right and they were filled with alarm. She didn’t even know why he looked so afraid, but her heart picked up and she felt sick.

“What?” Rae demanded, sitting straighter. Something about alarm always made the spine stand a little straighter, she thought. “Why do you look so alarmed?”

“Because I am alarmed,” he answered, running his hands through his feathery brown hair. Her eyes trailed him as he began pacing, trying to figure out where he wanted to start. “I know the last thing that you want to hear is anything about Harry, I do, but you need to hear this, okay?”

“Is he-"

“Nothing has happened,” he answered quickly, hearing the alarm creep into her voice. “At least not yet. Look, ever since that night, Harry has been destroying himself. He’s been spending time with Sean, Leon’s brother, and that cannot mean anything good, and I’m worried.”

“Sean?” Rae stood up, confused. She brought her hand to her forehead, as if holding her head might make her brain work faster, as if it would tell her the answer to what Louis was talking about. “Sean would hate Harry, wouldn’t he? Why would he-"

“Yes, why? Sean is always the master mind to things, you know?” he said, laughing without humor and shaking his head. Louis looked like he was seeing into the past, like his eyes were distant. “He is smart. And he would do anything for his brother, that’s why he lets Leon walk all over him. Sean was waiting for this to happen, he was waiting to take Harry and screw him, to drag him under.”

Rae’s heart stopped. She could see it now. Sean was like a snake, black and cold, waiting to strike, always coiled. He was waiting for Harry to be at his weakest before he could seduce him with alcohol and ruin him.

Sean knew Harry. He knew him like the back of his hand, and he knew that Harry and Rae would fuck up eventually. He knew that they would hit a bump in the road, and that Harry would be vulnerable, that he could destroy Harry and take revenge on him that way. It was ingenious. And terrifying.

“Sean wants to ruin him,” Rae whispered, her voice trembling. She could not imagine that, she could not imagine the person that Harry would be, with no light, with no one there to be with him. The urge to gag was creeping up on her. “Have you tried to talk to him?”

“Of course I have, we all have,” Louis retorted, angry that Rae had even questioned it. “Harry invited us to some party that Leon was having. Rae he was slurring, and saying it was going to be great. Niall and Zayn were going there now, knowing something wasn’t right. Liam is waiting in the car.”

“You couldn’t drive yourself?” Trystan asked.

It was inappropriate time and Louis gave her a questionable glance. “I may or may not have misplaced my keys- fucking, this isn’t the time! Rae I think you are the only one who can get him to stop spiraling out of control, alright?”

Rae was nodding before she processed it. Licking her lips she asked him, “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to come with me,” he explained, walking up to her and looking at her earnestly. He held her in place by her arms, shaking her slightly with urgency. She could feel that he wanted to save his friend from a life that no one wanted. “And I need you to not be scared of him, okay? I need you to know that Harry would never hurt you. He is in love with you. So I’m going to need you to get mad.”

She frowned. “What?”

He cracked a bit of a smile. “I need you to get really, really angry at Sean. I need you to do that for me, because if you make Sean mad, and Sean does anything to hurt you, Harry will respond. Understand?”

The girl went quiet, letting a million different things go through her mind. She pictured Sean’s dark eyes watching as Harry spiraled out of control. She felt the hate Harry felt for himself, and she felt how angry it made her, that anyone thought they had the right to do that too him.

Rae thought of his parents, who had made him miserable, who had taken his happiness. Rae was so over everyone taking Harry’s happiness from him. She was tired of his parents doing it, she was tired of her father doing it, and she was not about to let herself or Sean do it. She would not allow it.

“Get in the car,” she growled, her voice trembling like the earth during an earthquake. She shoved past Louis, still dressed in her nice clothes from work earlier that day, not bothering to care about it. Louis grinned as she stormed towards the outside. “I’m going to kick his fucking ass.”

The entire car ride, Rae did exactly what Louis told her. She got mad. In fact, she was so angry that she was trembling, her adrenaline getting the best of her several times. She even had a tear streak down her face as she ground her teeth.

Trystan kept telling Louis over and over that he had no idea what he had done. Rae was like fire, when she was angry, and she would destroy anything that got in her way. Rae tried to pretend like they weren’t talking about her, but she knew that they were glad she was angry.

“Don’t be so fucking happy about it,” she snapped at Louis, who was grinning at her. He raised his brows in surprised and she glared at him. “It hurts too, you know, to be angry. Anger doesn’t just come from nothing. Anger comes from being hurt.”

Louis was speechless. It was clear he had not thought of that so he leaned back in his seat. Rae turned around in the passenger seat to face the front again, fuming to herself. She wasn’t mad at Louis. But he had to understand that this wasn’t some sort of game. They were having actual feelings, here.

Liam drove up to the curb of some club that she had never seen. It was certainly a raunchy one and the people waiting outside to get in did not look so nice at all. In fact, as she passed them, she was sure that most of them had drug induced gazes, all sluggish and empty. It gave her chills.

Marching to the front of the line, Louis simply gave them a name. The bouncer looked at the list, and raised his brows in surprise to find Louis’ name. He glanced at Trystan, still dressed in black slacks and a white button up from work, and then to Rae, who had on a simple t-shirt and jeans. They certainly looked out of place, but he removed the rope, nodding for them to go in.

The darkness she was met with intimidated her for a moment, her eyes grappling to adjust to the lack of light. But then the dance floor lit up, throwing colors and fractions of light all over, techno music blaring through the entire place, making her rib cage rattle in her chest.

Trystan grimaced. “A rave,” she announced over the music, glancing at the people who threw their bodies together, pressing against one another in the dirty club. People were covered in sweat and alcohol, and Rae could smell the grimy tint all over the place. It made her want to hurl.

All of them instantly began peeling through the crowd, looking for someone they knew. At first, Rae was absolutely hopeless. There was no way she was going to find anyone in this place. It was so packed with people that she could barely breathe. But then she saw the tuft of blonde hair and heard the accent.

“Niall!” she shouted, reaching for the blonde boy who was trying to escape the grasp of some girl. Niall’s blue eyes found hers and filled with relief as Rae sent a thundering glare at the girl, who let go reluctantly. “Where is he?”

“Thank god you’re here,” he panted, grabbing her wrist and dragging her through the throng of bodies. She stumbled several times, people stepping all over her and shoving her. Pupils were dilated and white powder covered faces. It wasn’t powder at all. “I’ve been trying to talk to him for the past fifteen minutes and I only left to find you, to see if you were here.”

“How bad is it?” she demanded, making them stop for a moment. Niall turned to face her, a sympathetic look written all over his face. He licked his lips and shook his head. “Better for you to just go get him out of here, alright?”

The girl nodded and continued following Niall. They finally broke out of the mass of bodies, though Rae now had much sweat on her that was and wasn’t her own. She felt disgusting, but that didn’t matter. She spotted Sean instantly, his blonde hair easy to find as he leaned against the wall, smirking.

Green eyes then went to the figure on the table and she froze in her spot. Harry sat down on the table and laid out, a slack smile on his face as he pulled off his shirt, tossing it behind him. Ice crept through her veins as he lay all the way back, his toned stomach flexed as a girl got up next to him, emptying a bag of white onto his stomach, giggling all the while.

It was like watching in slow motion, when the girl formed the line, kissing his skin lightly before rolling money, leaning down and inhaling the drug from his body, right off of his stomach. Wrath burst forward from Rae like an atom bomb, reaching all corners of the room.

Moving had not even occurred to Rae. She was so startled when she found herself across the room, her hand snatching the girl by the hair and ripping her backwards off of the table, pulling her body to the floor. The girl hit the concrete with a yelp, dazed from the fall. She couldn’t even get herself up properly.

Rae whirled on Sean then, who pushed himself forward and advanced on her, opening his mouth to say something. Rae cocked back faster than he could speak and her fist flew forward, smacking into his nose and cracking it. It hurt her hand, but she felt nothing as he gasped in pain, Rae grabbing his hair as he doubled over, using it as leverage to drive her knee upwards into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Sean hit the ground in a gasping ball of shock. If she hadn’t been quaking with fury, she would have been shocked too. Pure adrenaline had gotten her to do that. She would have never been able to other wise.

Harry sat up and when his eyes landed on her, she saw the fear in his eyes. They were almost blank, almost gone, but there was a small light in them, a tiny little light of hope that recognized the girl in front of him. She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him off of the table, staggering under his weight as she put his arm around her.

Suddenly the weight was gone and she turned to see Zayn diving his arm, straightening and bearing the weight. Niall was there suddenly as well taking the arm from around Rae’s shoulder and putting it around his own. Harry jerked away for a moment before Rae steadied him with a single look.

Turning, she faced Sean, who was getting back to his feet, a silent storm pasted on his face. “You little bitch,” he swore, clutching his nose that was bleeding freely. The girl who Rae had knocked onto the ground was up on her feet as well, stumbling towards Rae, but Trystan materialized, glaring full force and shaking her head no. Out numbered, the girl turned away. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Are you, Sean?” Louis asked popping up behind Rae. His tone held that sass she had grown accustomed to, and she was thankful for it. Another warmth at her side made her turn to see Liam, glaring full force at Sean. “Because it looks rather like you’re out number to me and well, it would be a real shame if the police showed up, wouldn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” he spat at Louis, hatred in his voice. “Not when Harry is all drugged up too.”

“Watch me,” Rae hissed, stalking forward the way a lioness does when protecting her cubs. She was full predator mode, and Sean was her prey as she zeroed in. Her mother’s face flashed before her. She imagined the fear her mother had, when the man like Sean must have attacked her. There was no fear in Rae anymore. There was pure hatred and bravery. “You will never come near him again, you will never come near us again. You will rot in hell like your brother, I swear it. If you so much as think about him, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Sean said nothing. Something about the way she was looking at him made it believable. When he was surely not going to respond, Rae backed up before finally turning, grapping Harry’s hand, though it was around Zayn.

Together they moved, a single family unit. She hoped, going through the crowd, that Harry realized these people loved him. She did not know Zayn or Liam very well, had not seen them often. But even so, they had shown up here. Despite Harry’s behavior, they wanted to help him. They all did. And that meant something.

Outside of the club, several police units were showing up. Rae blinked in surprise but Liam smirked as he helped Harry into the car, the officers walking past them, not concerned. Rae sent him a questioning look and he nodded once. So Liam had taken care of it.

Sliding into the car, Rae let Harry lean his heavy weight against her. It was nearly crushing, because he wouldn’t even hold himself up he was so drunk. She could smell it on him, and it smelled terrible. But he was still her Harry. Hers and no one else’s.

The door shut, he looked at her slightly, his eyes unfocused. “I didn’t do any, you know,” he slurred very slowly, tongue heavy in his mouth as he searched for the correct words. She was quiet. “The drugs.”

“Okay.”

He was quite for a moment. “I love you.”

Rae looked at him and saw that his eyes were focused now. He was looking up at her, his head like a brick on her shoulder. She licked her lips and nodded. “I love you too.”