Whispers

Rae hadn’t lived at home for a week. She and Trystan had grabbed their things and set up shop in Zayn and Liam’s shared apartment. Zayn and Liam were the only two people out of them all who lived in an apartment building that was under password and swiping cards. There was also a security guard who kept tabs all hours of the day. It was a safe place.

The girls had taken over the spare bedroom in their flat. It had a single bed, but it was big enough for the two of them to rotate around one another comfortably, acting as a single moving unit. Rae and Trystan had never been so in tune with one another. The boys had been impressed at how functional their friendship continued to be.

Leaning over different names and addresses, Rae looked up as Niall and Zayn walked into the flat. Liam and Harry were at a computer, looking up the names and places that Rae was reading out to them. The list she read from was constructed in Harry’s scrawl, small and elegant. Louis and Trystan were asleep, having stayed up late having what Louis kept calling a ‘stake out’.

“How did it go?” Rae asked, flicking her tired eyes back to the sheet of paper. She had trouble sleeping. It wasn’t that she was afraid. It was mostly that she kept thinking how she had been so stupid to not see Finn’s alliance before. The signs were there if she had looked hard enough. “Did you take great pictures of Niall in front of Big Ben?”

Niall made a disgusted sound as he vanished into the kitchen. Liam cast a cursory glance after the blonde boy. Rae smiled, knowing that Liam was dying with how messy Niall often left the kitchen. “Oh yeah,” Zayn said, removing the large camera that was around his neck. He slid it onto the coffee table where Niall’s laptop was set up, the sleek silver design suffering from an inked design Rae had scribbled across it in marker. Niall enjoyed it, though. “We’ve got plenty pictures of all his stuff moving from place to place. Made sure to get faces as well. What about you lot? Have you got the faces and names we can match up?”

“Almost,” Harry answered. Rae looked at him. He ran a hand over his tired face. He was in a long-sleeved shirt with black sweatpants and a black beanie hiding his curls. Rae thought he still looked good, though the exhaustion was clear in his face. They were all tired. They had been working on their project for a week. “We’ve got a few more. How many, Rae?”

“Three.”

Harry nodded slowly as Liam printed out a sheet of paper, adding it to a thickening pile. “Three left. Then maybe we can take a group nap. Talk about feelings. That’s how sleepovers work, right?”

It was well past midnight. They had all taken to staying all over the floor in Liam and Zayn’s apartment. Harry and Niall had stayed at Niall’s the previous night, but it looked like they would be draping the couches with tired eyes and soft snores. Well, Niall’s soft snores. Harry was mostly quiet at night, having to put in headphones to drown out Niall’s sleepy speech and noises.

“I hope you’ve picked up the ice cream,” Zayn yawned, slouching down on the couch. He tossed his feet up on Rae’s knee, tucking himself into the back of the couch. “I can’t have a sleepover without ice cream.”

Niall walked in the room, a frown on his face. He thrust his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “There’s ice cream in there?” Everyone let out an audible groan. He shrugged his shoulders, ignoring them and walking over to the coffee table. He sat on the floor, opening a bag of crisps and crunching into one as he opened his laptop, connecting the computer to the camera. “I’ve got an ongoing file set up,” Niall said through a bunch of crunching sounds. He was tapping away at his computer. “Can’t hack it and can’t trace it. I spent hours on this thing so it’ll be ready to configure and send.”

“You’re sure about this?” Liam asked. Harry was clicking away at the mouse, his face extremely close to the computer screen. Rae crossed off a name on the list as he gave her a thumbs up, signaling he had it. “You promise they won’t be able to trace it? It’s got to be an anonymous tip.”

Niall gestured at himself and said, “You wound me. Of course I’m sure about this- I made the file. I think I can send an untraceable file to the authorities, Liam.”

As Liam and Niall bickered over the legality and safety of the situation, Rae read off the next time and address. “Kalin Dumont, 4567 Fleet Street, apartment three.”

Sighing, she leaned against the back of the couch. The TV a black screen but music drifted from it. A song by Sublime, one she couldn’t name. She closed her eyes slightly, wondering when it would be okay to move back into her house. Or if she could just go visit her dad without Harry pouncing on her and saying it was a bad idea.

In Harry’s eyes, they were in some sort of war with Leon. His lunch had resulted in a very cold stand off, neither one of the two budging. Leon had made it clear that he wouldn’t accept an apology and some sort of truce between them, and Harry made it clear that he wasn’t going to keep living his life like a bad action movie.

When they had all gotten together, they decided that they were going to take matters into their own hands. There were ideas and strains of thought from all them that came together for one cohesive goal: take down Leon’s empire, break down his foundations, set up the final frame.

It all felt very strange to Rae. At first she had made jokes that they had all turned into some sort of strange take down team, but as she opened her eyes and glanced around, she thought that maybe that’s what they were for the time being. They were all working at going through Leon’s contacts, figuring out where his movements were, what his strengths and weaknesses were.

Going to the authorities directly was a bad idea. Harry had insisted they not go straight for the most obvious thing to do. Leon had all sorts of way to weasel his way out of court dates and making people drop charges. He had gotten out early in the first place, hadn’t he?

If Leon was going to go to prison and stay there, they had to ensure that he had no way out, no one to bend the rules and no one to do work on the outside for him. Good behavior wasn’t going to get him anywhere anymore if all of the concrete proof they were gathering did anything.

Once Rae had read off the last two names to Harry, she toss the list to the ground. Niall was chewing on his lip, chin set into his hand as he stared at his computer screen, clicking and typing away. Rae had no idea what he was doing and she didn’t care. He had insisted that he was going to create some giant file to hand over to authorities anonymously when it came down to it. She wasn’t really sure what it entailed, just that he was working really hard on it.

Gently moving Zayn’s feet off her knee- he was sleeping now- she stood up, stretching. Harry moved as well, letting Liam take over the computer. It was like both of them were two parts of the same shadow, moving across the dark living room, heading into the light of the kitchen.

Spilled coffee stood out like black tar against the white marble countertops. Rae was faintly thankful that she hadn’t gone with her original idea for white when they had redone the kitchen when she and Trystan had first moved in. Dishes were set neatly in the drying rack, making her wonder if it had been Trystan trying to keep it clean so Liam wouldn’t yell at Niall.

Without saying anything, Rae began making herself a cup of tea. She was pulling contents out of the cabinets for it when Harry’s hands went around her waist. She paused, letting him pull her away from the cabinets as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, winding his arms around her small frame. He was all warmth and cologne, the slightest smell of soap on him from a shower.

Calm ran through her veins. Rae used to think that Harry was like a shot of adrenaline to her. He made her heart speed up and he had made her hands shake. But as he held her there, all sweaters and warmth and smells, she thought that maybe he wasn’t adrenaline after all. He was sedation, that fuzzy, comfortable kind of feeling that instilled a sense of peace. Harry made Rae feel like she was somewhere between sleep and a dream.

“You want to sleep on the floor with me tonight?” he asked, lips against her ear. She shivered as hit breath hit her, warm and sweet. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to figure out a response. The fact that he stilled made her tongue tied every now and then frustrated her. “We can shack up like people staying in a hostel. We can pretend we’re traveling.”

Rae smiled. “Niall even snores like people in a hostel.”

“He actually isn’t horrible,” Harry insisted. It made her smile increase. Harry covering for Niall was one of her favorite things about him. He always treated Niall like he were something delicate, and Niall hated it most of the time. “Give him a tap once and he’ll pipe down.”

“I guess staying on the floor wouldn’t be so bad. Where are we pretending that we are? Paris? Italy?”

“What about Thailand?”

Rae craned her neck to look at him. “Thailand?”

He nodded, grinning at her. “Ever since The King and I, I’ve wanted to go there. See what it’s like, you know? Or maybe even go to Egypt.”

“Those are two very different places.”

He squeezed her. “I like variety. Except when it comes to you. I just like you.”

“I like you too.”