the song for this chapter is Crossfire by Stephen

Tate

     Abel and I sat on the bed for I don't know how long, going over different options, different theories, trying to put together a puzzle that we did not have the pieces for. 

    None of what we came up with made sense. None of this made sense. Why was my dad, who, from what my mother had told me, was a quiet, friendly man, who loved poetry, involved with software that an organized crime group was so desperate to access?

    And just as Abel had said, why did my dad, and whoever else built the software, make it so hard to get into? And who were they trying to keep out?

Abel and I jolted upright as the door to the room was suddenly flung upon.

Speaking of wanting to keep people out.

"What the fuck are you two chatting about?" Harry asked, walking into the room, with a bag slung over his shoulder.

My bag.

     "Where did you get that?" I asked dumbly, pointing towards my grey duffle.

"Oh this? I got it at the mall! Isn't it just adorable?" He teased in a high pitched sarcastic tone.

I scoffed at his answer.

"I got it when I got you," he shrugged, placing it on the floor by the bed. "I didn't want to deal with you complaining about not having clothes or your skincare or any other annoying shit that I don't give a damn about."

       I stayed silent, pressing my lips together tightly. While I'm glad he wasn't yelling in my face, or not so subtely reminding me that he could kill me at any moment, he was still just as infuriating right now, with his sarcasm and mockery. 

He looked amused at my expression, crossing his arms over his chest, pursing his lips together before they spread into a smirk. 

   "So, did you get her to finally fess up Abel? Or do I need to take over?" he asked smugly, taking in the disgusted look on my face, only further fueling his efforts to be an absolute ass. 

     "Actually Harry, we did find something. We found out that you were wrong," Abel replied in a very matter of fact way.

It was my turn to be amused now, as I drank in every drop of Harry's pissed off reaction. I could tell being told that he was wrong was something that he was not fond of.

"Wrong about what, Abel?" He asked, and there was no hiding the annoyance in his voice. 

"About Tate," he started, gesturing to me. "Whatever evil mastermind you thought she was, well, she isn't."

Harry scoffed at Abel's remark, moving closer to my side of the bed, causing me to lean back out of instinct. 

"Evil, maybe. Mastermind, not so much," he replied cooly, staring at the empty space next to me, and then making eye contact with me. All I could do was stare back at him.

"Well? Move over," he demanded. I was about to reply with some smart ass remark before I saw the metal barrel of the gun still attached to his belt. Perhaps Abel's human decency to me had caused me for a brief and fleeting moment to forget where I was, and who I was with. 

     Regardless of his sarcastic comments and dark sense of humor, Harry was still Harry. He was still the man who had kidnapped me, and he was still the man who had showered me with countless threats just a few hours before. He wasn't Abel. He wasn't going to bring me grilled cheeses and tell me that everything was going to be okay, he didn't care if I was going to be okay. All he wanted from me were answers, and once he got them all, I didn't doubt for a second that I'd be taken out with the rest of the trash.

    I scooted over obediently, my body stiffening as Harry sunk into the mattress next to me, the heat radiating off of his body and onto mine, and it genuinely shocked me that a person as cold as him had the ability to produce warmth.

   "What did she tell you?" He asked, and I had to ignore the urge to scoff as he talked to Abel as if I weren't even there.

Abel opened his mouth and then promptly closed it, and I could tell he was trying to find the best way to tell the information I had revealed to him, and what had been revealed to us.

  Once he seemed to have gathered his thoughts, he began to speak.

"Okay, so, first of all, the name Bridges that was attached to the software was Tate's dad, not her." He started, glancing up at Harry to see his reaction.

   "Oh, so her dad is the liar then, not her," he remarked coldy.

My gaze fell to the floor, and I clenched my fists tightly, not sure if I wanted to cry or to punch Harry straight in the face.

I think I wanted both.

"My dad is dead," I spoke softly.

I peered up at Harry, and for a brief moment, his face held what seemed to be guilt, but it quickly vanished.

   "Sorry," he mumbled, and I couldn't help to think how foreign the word sounded coming from his lips.

   The silence was deafening,  and I was extremely grateful when Abel decided to break it.

"Her dad was murdered," he began quietly, and I saw him glance up to make sure I was okay, I smiled weakly and nodded at him, urging him to continue.

  "Tate and I bounced questions back and forth, trying to find anything that would possibly lead back to her dad, and perhaps a passcode. She told me a story, and it involved a poem- her dad was a writer, with a great love for poetry- and it turns out the password was the author of that poem."

   Harry let out a breath of relief.

"Great, so we're done here," he remarked, looking down at me.

I edged further away from him, and I had a feeling that what he was "done" with was me.

"No. No, we are not," Abel replied firmly, causing Harry to tear his gaze away from me.

 "What do you mean? We have the password! Let's call Whit and just get this whole thing overwith," he exclaimed.

"We have one password, Harry," Abel answered hesitantly.

"Abel, you better start making some sense," Harry spoke in a warning tone.

Abel just sighed and handed Harry his laptop, letting him read the riddle we had found.

We all sat in an uncomfortable silence, while Harry stared blankly at the computer screen.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," he whispered. 

He looked up at Abel with desperation in his eyes.

"You seriously can't just do some computer shit and figure this out?"

"No Harry, I cannot. We have to find out what the answer to this riddle is, in order to access the next one," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

"What do you mean the "next" one?" Harry asked, and it looked as if he were going to snap at any moment.

"We don't know how many more we have to answer. It could be one, it could be a hundred. We don't know, and we won't know until we figure out the first one."

Harry diverted his gaze over to me, looking at me with disdain.

"And let me guess, we need princess over here to figure it out."

I shrunk back under his stare, not understanding why he was acting so annoyed. As though kidnapping me inconvenienced him, and not the other way around.

"Yep," Abel replied, and when I looked at him, I saw that he was fighting back a smile, and I knew he was happy. And I was too. Well, as happy as I could be, because for the time being, Harry, or anyone else who so desperately wanted to access the software, couldn't kill me. 

   Harry didn't say anything for a while. He sat, staring at me, as if he were trying to read my mind and solve the riddle that I myself didn't know the answer to, so he could just be done with me already.

   After a few minutes, he stood up and faced us.

"Dinner is ready," he spoke calmly, and began walking towards the door, but I knew he wasn't going to leave without one smart ass remark.

  "Oh and Tate, you might want to change out of your pajamas, you look a bit dissheveled."

I waited until he had closed the door before turning to Abel.

"Asshole."

He laughed and patted me on the back.

"Agreed, but at least now he knows he can't get rid of you yet, which I know still isn't the most comforting thought, but hey, it's something, right?" He offered, giving me an uneasy smile.

I chuckled a bit. "Yeah, it's something."

He grabbed my hand and gave it a light squeeze.

"We will figure this out, Tate. All of it. Not just the riddles, but you. I told you, I'll help you get out of this."

I squeezed his hand back gratefully.

"Thank you, Abel. Now, if you'll excuse me, I better go make myself look less "dissheveled,"" I joked, causing him to laugh a bit, before grabbing his things and walking towards the door.

"Well, we will see you in a second for dinner!" He chirped, before closing the door behind him.

I groaned at his words.

"We."

There were still two more of them to meet.

A sigh escaped my lips as I stood up and made my way over to my duffel bag, I picked it up and dropped it back down onto the end of the bed.

As I unzipped it, my eyes widened to find my underwear placed right on top. I felt my cheeks redden at the thought of Harry pervertedly going through my underwear drawer. I shook the thoughts from my head and moved them to the side, shifting through the mess of clothes for a while to see all that Harry had shoved in there. I pulled out a pair of grey leggings, setting them on the bed, then reached around the bag a little more until I found a plain white shirt and a cream jumper, which had a row of embroidered daisies right in the center of it. 

    I made sure that the bedroom door was locked about twelve times before finally changing into the fresh set of clothes, folding my pajamas back neatly, and placing them back into the duffel. The jumper I was wearing was huge on me, and ended right about mid-thigh. 

  My mother always teased me about buying my t-shirts and jumpers about three sizes too large, but I quite liked the way I felt all cozy and swallowed up by them.

My eyes widened as I continued to go through the back, my hand falling upon my toiletry bag. I quickly unzipped it and found what I was looking for. My perfume. I spritzed a few sprays of it on me, and smiled as it fell down onto my body.

    I didn't care about smelling good for the boys, I just wanted to smell something familiar. 

Amongst all of the confusing thoughts battling in my mind, I just wanted something, something as small as the smell of my perfume, to comfort me. I breathed in the smell of jasmine and bamboo, and closed my eyes, to have another one of my temporary escapes from reality. 

   After I had my brief little moment, I grabbed a pair of socks and trainers from my bag, slipping them on and bracing myself to go downstairs. 

I could stay here holed away in this room, but I knew I'd have to face the rest of the guys eventually, and quite frankly, I just wanted to get it over with.

And so, after a few deep breaths, and a mental peptalk, I made my way over to the door, pulling it open and exited the room for the first time, ready as I would ever be to face my fears.

   The house was massive, and I wondered why they had chosen such a large place to hide me away as I slowly edged down the large wooden staircase. The lower I got, the louder the voices of the boys became. My heartbeat sped up a bit with each step I took, and when I reached the bottom, I followed the voices until I found their source.

   As soon as I stepped foot into the kitchen, all eyes were on me, and despite being completely clothed from head to toe, I felt naked.

"Well if it isn't our golden ticket!" One of them remarked. He had dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes and was sat next to Abel, who gave me an apologetic smile.

  "Tate, this is Niall," Abel sighed, and Niall gave me a cheeky grin. "And this, is Will."

My eyes trailed over to the person he was referring to, and I was intimidated, to say the least.

He looked to be the same height as Harry, but much more muscular if that was even possible.

He looked like he could break me like a twig, without even breaking a sweat. And something about the way he was looking at me, like a lion looking at its prey, was making me want to turn around and go right back upstairs to lock myslef in the bedroom.

   The only open seat was in between Abel and Harry, and while I was thankful that Abel was on one side of me, I dreaded being close to Harry again.

I slowly walked over to the table, feeling like an animal in an exhibit as they all watched my every move, and pulled out the chair, taking a seat. 

   There was a large bowl of pasta placed in front of me, and I felt my stomach growl as I looked at it.

"Well, are we going to just sit and stare? Or are we going to fucking eat?" Harry suddenly snapped, and for the first and most likely only time, I was thankful for one of his rude comments.

   Everyone snapped out of their trance and began to eat, and I gently picked up my fork, wanting to bring as little attention to myself as possible, even though I knew that was impossible, as I was literally the elephant in the room. 

    I was quite relieved that no one was interrogating me, and that I could actually just eat in peace. The boys were talking about things that I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around, and honestly, I didn't want to. All I wanted was to eat my food, and go back upstairs and go back to avoiding the new reality I had been so abruptly thrown into.

       Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

I kept eating my food, but all of the boys were frozen, causing me to put down my fork.

"Did Whit say he was coming over?" Will asked, and I wondered who he was talking about, but my thoughts were interuppted by Harry's deep voice answering him.

"No."

"Did Whit say we should be expecting anyone?" Niall asked in an odd tone, and I furrowed my eyebrows and looked at Abel, but he too was focused with a stone like expression, waiting for Harry to say something.

   "Yes." 

Without saying anything, Will and Harry stood up, and reached down to pull their guns out of their holsters.

I instincively began to gasp, when I felt a hand clamp over my mouth. I looked back to see Abel shaking his head at me desperately, mouthing "Be quiet."

   I nodded, although he didn't remove his hand.

Will and Harry calmly exited the kitchen, and it was painfully silent. It seemed like the silence went on forever before we finally heard the front door open.

And then came the gunshots.

My eyes began to well up with tears and I was shaking. Abel scooted his chair closer to mine, his hand still firmly placed over my mouth, the other one lightly stroking my hair and whispering that everything was going to be okay. 

Niall was frozen too as he intently listened to the commotion. I glanced down to see that his hand was on a gun as well, although it looked like he would really rather not use it. 

There was screaming and shouting, and amidst the gunfire, it was difficult to tell who it was coming from. 

    Suddenly a figure emerged from down the hall, and then another, and I couldn't make out who it was yet, all I heard was their heavy breathing as they came closer to us.

   I whimpered into Abel's hand, which was becoming wet with my tears, not knowing who we were about to be met with.

And then finally the figures stepped into the light, and relief washed over us all. 

I never thought I'd be happy to see Harry, but at this moment, I was. 

He and Will had faint splatters of blood on them, their chests heaving after all of the commotions they just faced.

  Harry looked to us, and I saw a sense of urgency in his eyes, which only caused the fear I had just felt to wash over me in relentless waves as he opened his mouth to speak.

"We need to go. Now."

AN: SHITTTTTTTTTTTT GUYS WHAT JUST HAPPENED OMG?!?!?!?!?!?!? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN?!?!? I hope you guys liked this chapter, and I will have the next chapter up soon! Maybe even by tonight! Don't forget to vote and comment! Ily all! xx