Rule Forty-Seven

The boys sat up that night, eyes glued to the snooker game on cable, and Harry found himself joining them.

They watched in soft silence, waiting for any sign of communication from Liam and Noah, but kept busy with contemplating all the different shots the professionals had taken.

“This is insane,” Louis breathes. Harry’s gaze shifts to him, watches him, and then looks at Niall.

The younger boy is staring at Louis warmly, smiling, nodding. “I bet you could play like this.”

Harry chews on his bottom lip as the exchange continues. Niall hadn’t been the same since his breakdown. His words were quiet and he’d retreated back into himself. Maybe because he realised this was only temporary - maybe because the breakdown had broken him in some different way. Harry snorts. Because he needs to be broken more.

Harry finds himself looking at Louis again. The boy is attractive, that’s for certain. His eyes, darker than Niall’s, are ocean blue with flecks of gold near the pupil. His hair is out-grown, fringe flopping to the side messily and strands of hair sticking up all over the place. Harry lets his eyes venture down to the forming mullet at the nape of his neck and almost smirks at the thought. Tattoos litter his arms, ones that he had probably gotten before he’d been introduced to this lifestyle.

“Are you scared?”

It takes a moment to register that Zayn is talking to him. When he looks up, the older boy is staring at him with worried eyes. He thinks about the answer. He could say no, could say how he’s been in this situation a lot, where he’s had no contact with them for over twelve hours. But he doesn’t.

Harry nods, lowering his eyes. “Yeah, to be quiet honest, I am. I should be used to it. I just need to remain positive, I need to trust in their abilities to save each other and depend on each other. They were doing it for such a long time before I came along, so I need to trust them.”

Zayn nods, but then frowns. The other two boys are paying attention now. “What exactly do you guys do?”

“Before I came, Noah and Liam did a lot of transportation. They moved things from one place to another for a certain amount of money without asking questions and without looking,” Harry recounts, his eyes glazing over at the memory. “The contract they did before I came was different, though. A lot like this one. They had to hold something. Someone. It didn’t go to plan, and Liam had heard about me somehow. So, long story short, they asked me to stay and I said yes.

“Now, we do a lot more than just transporting. Weapon buying, manufacturing, smuggling, the... the bad stuff. Noah doesn’t condone killing, especially innocents, so I take those contracts. I have the skill set for it, but I make sure the people I kill are people who are more harmful than beneficial.” Harry stops, lifts his eyes to lock gazes with the three boys. “We don’t break contracts. Once we sign it, once the contractor signs it, we do it. So for Noah to even consider breaking a contract...”

As Harry trails off, Niall tilts his head. “What’s wrong with Noah?”

Harry stares at Niall until he realizes the question isn’t taking a stab at her. “She has OCD. Had is severely as a kid, and with a lot of therapy, mostly from Liam, it’s not as bad anymore.”

Louis smiles then, nods. “It makes sense. The DVDs and books are all alphabetical, the cupboards are organised smallest to biggest.”

A fond smile forms on his face, and before he can say anymore, there’s a thump and a cry on the porch and Harry is moving so fast to the door he doesn’t even get a chance to check who it is.

And there she is, sprawled on the porch with Liam half on top of her. Noah looks up at him once, smiles, and then her eyes flutter shut and she falls back onto the hard surface of the wood.

Harry launches forward, yelling at the boys to help carry the two inside, and his arms shift under her body to carry her onto his bed. He presses a soft kiss to her forehead and then he’s back outside instructing the boys on how to brace Liam’s leg.

Liam’s talking before Harry can even start asking. “You were right, Niall. But the house collapsed and everything that shouldn’t have happened... happened.”

“It’s okay,” Zayn breathed. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

Harry points towards the couch, running forward to pull the cushions off and make space for the length of Liam’s body. “Lay him down on his stomach. Liam, can you flex at the knee?”

“Yeah,” he moans. He’s on his stomach now, gripping a cushion under his chest. “It’s the fibula, I was lucky, but my leg just cannot take anymore weight.”

Nodding, Harry moves to the fire place. He takes two logs and hands them to Louis. “We don’t have a leg brace here, so you’re going to make one. Fibula fractures are only dealt with in two ways - surgery and protection, and we aren’t anywhere near a hospital nor do we have the time. There should be crutches next to the fridge, and tie the pieces of wood together with two pillow covers on the left and right side of his leg. Use Noah’s pillows, there should be two on her bed.”

Louis nods, and then, as Harry had suspected he would do, completely takes over and starts telling the other boys what to do. He shares a small smile with Liam and then breaks away.

Harry wastes no time with grabbing the first aid kit and next he’s sitting by Noah, combing her hair back from her pale face. She’s sweating just as much as Liam is.

“How you going?” He breathes.

Noah’s eyes flutter open and she tries to shrug, but fails miserably. “Could be better.”

Harry smirks and then looks at the strapping on her shoulder. “Through and through?”

Noah manages to shake her head and then her exhausted eyes just watch Harry as he starts working.

He removes the bedding material and stares at the state of the wound. Harry swabs a cotton bud in alcohol and cleans up the bloodied area softly. There’s a small bruise around the blackened hole. Harry knows Noah’s pain limits, knows she can almost withstand anything. He finds a pair of tweezers, ready to pull the bullet from the hole, when Niall ducks his head around the corner of the room.

“Do you need any help?” He asks quietly.

“Come here,” Noah manages to breathe. She holds out her hand and then Niall is on the bed with her and gripping onto her hand like he’s the one that’s injured.

Harry looks up at Niall. “Make sure she doesn’t fall asleep.”

And while Harry works, Niall and Noah talk. He asks about her life, about her story, and he tells about his. They entertain each other, and Harry smiles as he realises that all Noah has ever wanted in life was a little brother, and now she has four of them.

It’s in that exact moment he decides he will never let anything separate the six of them; he makes a vow to himself.
____________

Harry doesn’t know whether it’s still night or early the next morning when he wakes. Noah is asleep on his arm after a grueling two hour ‘get-better-surgery’ as Niall had called it, and his arm is starting to prickle with pins and needles. His mouth tastes foul and the left side of his nose is completely blocked. It’s normal, really. This is how he wakes up (sometimes).

Except it isn’t.

There’s a quiet pattering of feet outside his door. And he knows it’s not Liam (Zayn had to carry him to bed, which was an interesting experience in itself), and Niall and Louis were sleeping in Liam’s room (the door was creaky, but that wasn’t what had woken him up).

So Harry’s mind is in overdrive.

He etches out of the embrace with Noah and pauses to listen at the door. The sound of the feet have been replaced with the low whirring of his computer systems.

For the shortest second he’s extremely thankful his door doesn’t creak, but as he opens it, he sees the female figure at his laptops and almost falters. Almost.

“If you’re trying to steal from us, that’s not the way to do it.”

The woman sucks in a breath and half spins in her seat. Her eyes flash as she looks up at him and then her eyes are on the ground... and he recognizes her almost instantly.

“Melanie?” She keeps at it, keeps her eyes on the floor, until Harry continues. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to find some place safe.”

“...I did,” she finally whispers.

“And?”

“It wasn’t safe enough,” her eyes become blank, go dark, and she looks over her left shoulder, fiddling with her ear. “I wanted to be safe... you make me feel safe, and I don’t even know your name.”

“But you know where I live.”

Melanie shrugged. “I followed you, I guess. Asked around a lot.”

There’s silence, and then Harry snorts. “That’s not possible.”

She stands then, walking towards Harry. He follows her with his eyes but doesn’t back down, not even when she’s pressing herself up against him.

“What’s your name?” She breathes against Harry’s neck. “I want to repay you for what you’ve done for me.”

Harry squirms, puts his hands at her hips to try and push her away, but she’s stronger than she looks. “You don’t have to thank me this way,” he mutters, “there are other ways, too, like getting the hell out of my house.”

Melanie falters, but keeps going. Pressing her lips against his, tasting along his jawline, running her hands along the strong curves of his torso.

“Harry.”

The voice that sounds gets an instant reaction from Melanie. She pushes herself away from him and presses her hands against her lips. Noah, standing at the door of his room, is gripping her shoulder gingerly. She’s staring (half amused, half angered) at Melanie - who is, coincidentally, now shaking under Noah’s glare.

“Noah-”

“Don’t,” she breathes. The word isn’t how he would have expected in the given situation, more understanding and less disappointing. “I can handle this.”

She walks up to the girl, pushes a hand under her chin, and lifts her face. “I know this is how you’re used to saying thank you in places like the one Harry got you out of, but that’s not how it works with him. He’s mine, not yours, and you don’t get to do that for him. Not now, not ever. You can’t stay here, either. We have our own troubles. We can find you a place with someone, but you can not stay with us. For the mean time, you are allowed to crash on our couch. Just don’t touch anything.”

Melanie, who remains quiet through-out Noah’s spiel, just nods. Her eyes are focused on the couch and her hands are gripped tightly in fists.
_____________

The morning comes with bright light. Noah has been awake, unable to sleep, reading one of Harry’s books on conspiracy theories. He smirks as he realises he’s rubbing off on her. His head is placed in her lap as he listens to the sound of her breathing.

“How did you know she made the move on me?” Harry asked lowly.

There’s a pause in Noah’s attention on the page, and then she looks down at him. “You woke me up when you opened the door, I heard the whole thing.”

“You think I was too harsh on her?”

Noah shrugs, stretches to put the book down on the nightstand with a wince, and then threads her fingers through Harry’s curls. “Not at all. I still want to know how the hell she found our house. If that’s what it takes for her to find us, we need to move and fast.”

Harry groans and turns his head into her stomach. “I didn’t tell you last night because everyone was around, but... but Jack Prince called straight after the shooting. He retracted the deal. He wants the boys back by the end of the week and... and if we don’t, he’s going to shoot down our house.”

When Harry looks back up at Noah, her eyes aren’t on his. She’s staring out of the window into the trees of the forest. “We’re not giving them back.”

There’s silence. And then Harry’s pushing himself up and kissing her hard and he lets go when she hisses in pain but the idea is all the same. He loves her. “I love you.”

Noah smiles down at him and then pushes Harry a little to roughly from her lap (he ends up on the floor with Noah’s laughter raining over him), and then pulls on one of his shirts.

“I’m going to go wake the others up. We need to get out of this house as soon as we can.”

When Harry finally emerges from his room, Melanie is sat at the table staring down at the food in front of her.

“You don’t eat much, do you?” Harry asks, fixing his eyes onto her plate and then back to her face. She doesn’t reply, not like he expects her to do anyway, and drops her eyes. He continues, anyway. “Which is fine, really. My sister used to do it all the time, she didn’t want to put on weight for her graduation.”

The room lapses back into silence.

“I don’t... I don’t eat unless I’m given permission,” Melanie whispers lowly, playing with her fingers nervously.

Harry doesn’t reply to that, instead pulls up a chair to sit facing her. “You asked earlier what my name is. It’s Harry. My name is Harry.” He breathes, ties to catch her eyes. “You have permission from me to eat everything that is on that plate.”

Melanie smiles a bit, but before she can take a bite from the cold toast in front of her, Niall’s loud voice interrupts the moment.

“Wey heeeeeeeey!” He yells, springing forward to grab a startled Melanie in a hug. She looks about ready to snap him in half until she realises it’s just Niall and he couldn’t hurt a fly. Then she laughs.

Harry smiles and thinks it’s one of the best things he’s ever seen when Noah taps him on the shoulder.

“Hey,” she whispers. “Did you leave an ear piece on the table?”

“What ear piece?”

Noah shows him the technology, but then snaps it back up into her grasp before he can touch it. “It’s not one of yours, is it?”

Harry shakes his head, stares up at Noah. And then follows her line of sight to the laughing Melanie, who’s opening up and smiling and being normal with Niall, of all people. Normal. She couldn’t be.