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Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Keep an even pace.

Ignore the pain, it doesn’t affect you.

I repeat these mantras to myself as my shoes slap against the black pavement, loud and hard and painful.

I probably shouldn’t be exerting myself so much so soon, but the word liability echoes around my head over and over again, repeating like a skipping record.

Do you know what they do to liabilities? They kill them.

I begin to round the last bend of the path, and at the end, Liam is waiting there with a stopwatch and wearing an all-black tracksuit. It’s early morning and the chill is strong enough to leech the heat from my fingers.

I speed up a little before I reach him and let out a sigh of relief when he passes by in a blur. I’m glad I didn’t fucking pass out or anything; my entire body certainly feels like it wants to. I feel like I aged seventy years.

Slowing, I rest my arms on top of my head, mentally telling my body to stop it’s bitching, a two-mile run is nothing.

Liam strolls up beside me, looking perfectly rested and calm, smiling slightly. I’d punch him if I didn’t love him so much.

My adrenaline rush, fast and pumping through my blood, wards off the pain almost as well as a painkiller, providing a moment of bliss. Gotta love those fucking endorphins.

“Time?” I ask, holding my breath before Liam answers. His eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are pursed, like he doesn’t want to tell me. I roll my eyes. “Don’t hold back, just tell me so I know how hard I have to punch the bag when we get into the gym.”

“17 minutes, 40 seconds.”

“Fuck.” I used to run a nine-minute two-mile.

Liam raises an eyebrow at me in a look of condescension and concern. “You curse a hell of a lot more than you used to.”

I recoil. “Yeah, well, things are different that they used to be, aren’t they?” Rolling my head around on my neck, I begin jogging down the path toward the Training Center, my muscles screaming for a rest.

Liam jogs effortlessly beside me, not even breaking a sweat. Damn him.

The sun begins to break over the line of trees, painting the sky the color of an artist’s palette. It’s really amazing how breathtakingly beautiful just the sky could look; it’s amazing how seeing something other than a wall for months on end could change the little things.

“You really shouldn’t be pushing yourself so hard, Phia, it’s not good for you.” Ah, Liam. Despite being nineteen, he’s really a fifty-six year old man on the inside.

“If I want to be useful, I can’t be a vegetable for another month, Li. I have to get back in shape if I want Langley to ever send me on a mission again.” I take a deep, staggered breath, effectively breaking my breathing pattern. “I need to do this.”

Liam sighs but doesn’t answer. I can feel his disappointment rolling off of him in waves, ebbing like the tide of an ocean I’d very much prefer to drown in.

***

“Sophia, you can quit now. Hit the damn bag another time and it’ll explode.”

I hiss air through my teeth as I aim another punch, pounding the bag into Tack’s stomach.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, holding the bag away from my glove. I level a glare at him.

“Come on, Tack. A couple more rounds, please?” I spit out my mouthpiece and squirt some water into my mouth, swishing it around a bit.

Tack pushes some of his hair from his face, something he didn’t have to do last time I saw him. “I’d prefer not to be rushed to the hospital for internal bleeding, Soph. Daz is done with being a blood donor for me. Cursed me out for ‘exploiting twin privilege’ or some shit like that.” He smirks and steadies the punching bag, wiping chalk on his shorts.

Sweat streams down my face in rivulets, matting my hair to my neck. I grab a clean towel from a rack and pass it over twice, wincing from the contact to the tender parts of my face. The bruise there was no longer visible, but the skin is still sensitive.

The layout of the Training Center isn’t overcomplicated. There are treadmills and other kinds of workout equipment, dozens upon dozens of punching bags, knife throwing and other basic survival skills, and boxing rings scattered around. It’s a physical fitness heaven.

Or in my case, hell.

“What about a little hand-to-hand, T? Sparring? I need to brush up on my skills a little bit. I feel like a grandma.” I chuckle lightly, but it’s empty and a sad excuse for a chuckle, and Tack doesn’t miss it.

“Soph, I’m pretty sure you’re good for today. You’ve been out since what, the ass crack of dawn? I heard Liam banging on your goddamn door before the sun was up, and it’s nearly four. Have you even eaten anything?”

I cringe at the mention of food, my stomach constricting angrily. I hadn’t even considered the thought of food until just now.

Tack’s normally happy face pulls into a concerned frown, his eyebrows furrowing and creating a divot in the skin between them. “Sophia, you can’t skip meals like this. I mean you just—” He stops himself abruptly, refusing to let the words in his mouth see the light of day. He sighs. “I think you should cool it on the training for a little while, wait until you feel normal again.” Tack turns and places his gloves on a counter, resting there for a bit before speaking again. When he does, he blatantly avoids eye contact. “I’ll meet you in the mess hall, alright?”

I nod wordlessly and watch his silhouette drift away as he leaves.

Then I turn and walk as far as the empty hallway leading up to the showers I nearly collapse onto the floor from exhaustion and pain. My muscles are screaming, my joints ache and my brain rocks around my skull like a boat in rough waters. I can feel each and every individual bruise; every scar sliced into my skin and ever burn placed on my back by the angry butt of a cigarette.

I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this please just let it end please just---

“Sophia?” The British accent speeds up my heart while simultaneously causing it to combust before I realize it’s not the accent I expected to hear. I straighten up immediately and wince, releasing my death grip on the wall before managing to turn around. I don’t even bother trying to plaster a smile onto my face.

“Tomlinson,” I croak out, adding a mental shit for getting caught like this.

“Alright?” He asks, looking slightly uncomfortable. There’s a towel wrung around his neck

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a heavy day of work outs.” If I could force myself to believe this lie, I could have convinced Louis.

But the words that leave my lips are false to my own ears.

“You don’t have to lie to me, you know that right?” He speaks slowly, a light picking up in his eyes, like he’s got something figured out. “I’m just the new foreign bloke, the first time I saw you was passed out in a hospital bed, where the first thing you did when you finally came round was crack a joke. You have nothing to live up to with me, you see?” He’s a hell of a lot smarter than I give him credit for.

He’s also one of the best undercover artists I’ve ever seen.

“Let me guess, using some of that manipulation technique on me?” Louis’ eyes go as wide as saucers before a grin splits his face apart, his laugh sounding genuine and echoing off the desolate hallway.

“I knew I pegged you as the clever one for a reason. You’re a lot like Har-” I cut him off with a glare.

“Yeah, I’d prefer not to mention that asshole, if you don’t mind. I know he’s your friend and all, but frankly I don’t give a fuck.” Pain still screams through my bones, but I don’t have to pretend with Louis. I know that now.

“I’m sorry for him, the lad doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up sometimes. Don’t walk yourself off the plank because of his behavior.” Louis apologizing for he-who-must-not-be-named reminds me of a mom apologizing for her toddler.

“If I walk off the plank it won’t be because of him,” I mutter, and Louis pretends like he doesn’t hear it. Then I pull a complete one-eighty. “So, Tomlinson, if I’m going to be straight with you, I currently feel like shit. I feel like I’m being passed under the wheels of a semi-truck. I need pain drugs, preferably now, preferably a gallon of it.”

Louis chuckles and wraps an arm around my elbows, helping me walk the rest of the way to hospital.

On the way out, I get the strangest feeling that someone’s watching me.

***

“Leave me the fuck alone! Don’t touch me!” I scream the words I didn’t back in my prison, feeling hands slithering up my body and cold lips pressing to mine. Of all the ways to die.

I see the knife glinting as it drags across my throat.

I scream, and then my back hits the cold hardwood floor of my dorm room.

I’m alive. I’m here. I’m not in that prison, I was saved. They found me.

They found me.

I have to calm my breathing, and I count numbers in my head to have something to focus on. I pull the curtains open, and the dim early morning light filters through the room, orange and purple cutting into the dark nothingness.

The clock on my bedside table reads 4:54 am, blinking in green neon numbers. I eventually make my to the bathroom, observing my pale and haggard face. My dark hair is disheveled, falling into cold blue eyes that look dead even to me. Cold sweat layers my face like a thick blanket, and I grimace. The harsh light does no good for me, whatsoever.

Louis, by sweet-talking the nurses in the Emergency Ward, managed to lift a couple of painkillers for me. I pop one of the capsules into my mouth and chase it with a glass of water Olivia had set out for me.

I could stand a run. It might bring some color back into my cheeks. A tan wouldn’t hurt, either.

In the growing light of my room, I wrestle on a white tank top and black shorts, lacing up my worn-out sneakers with shaky fingers. I throw my hair into a ponytail and fasten my stopwatch to my wrist as I leave when I nearly trip on what seems like a dead body outside my room.

But no, it’s not really a dead body.

It’s a fucking sleeping Harry Styles.

A sleeping Harry Styles who is waking up.