Harry's POV

There was a definite stinging in my muscles. I wasn't even sure if I could pick my head up. I strained to move my fingers, and even that hurt to an unknown degree. I felt so weak and pathetic.

With every ounce of strength I had left, I managed to reach out and grab my cell phone. I had to let Sperling know—

No. I couldn't.

I couldn't tell her anything. I couldn't lift myself out of this position. The only way I could help her was to hurt her, and I had already done enough of that.

Bria was right in saying that I used Sperling. Who was I kidding? The only reason why I went to Sperling in the first place was because she was vulnerable. I saw a weakness and I took advantage of it. I never wanted Bria in jail—not until now, at least. Sperling exerted so much energy to help me get what I want and all I did was put her in danger.

I couldn't risk anything; I wanted her safe. I wanted her family safe. There was no way I would disobey Bria for Sperling's sake. Bria had changed so much—the only thing remotely recognizable about her were her eyes—still a warm honey brown—but even her voice had changed; cooler than the north winds and unfazed by remorse.

I racked my brain for possible solutions to my predicament but could produce nothing. I couldn't be nice to her or she'd come back and look for me.

This is the problem with lying, I scolded myself, there really is no way out. Pick yourself up, you piece of trash.

I moved my arms, heaved the weight of my torso up, then clung onto the handle of the door as if it were a life support to keep me upright. I massaged my shoulders, trying to get the blood circulating again.

The only thing I could think about was Sperling.

It wasn't long before I could move my legs. I got up after picking up my things, my knees weak and threatening to give way to the weight of my body, but paused to admire the photograph of a sixteen year old Sperling—just as pretty, just as sweet—and the smile she could ignite in me even after everything that just happened.

I had been careless; had I not saved all of those photos on my phone or kept the picture on my wallet (perhaps even taken it in the first place), neither of us would be in this position.

I had to choose between killing her under the surface or having her die for me. Frankly, I couldn't care less what happened to me.

I needed her to be okay.

***

I'm not sure what came over me but after searching the building I was in for nearly twenty minutes, I concluded that Sperling went back to the hotel. If I went back straight away, I would most likely succumb to her and would've probably used up the condom, as Bria suggested.

But I couldn't. I had to stay away from her for her sake.

So, naturally, I found myself at a lonely corner of a bar, drinking at a steady pace until the clock struck twelve midnight (stupidly, I should add, for it made everything hurt that much more than it initially did).

"Nous fermons," snapped the bartender, "C'est mardi, non? Allez chez vous! N'avez-vous pas une épouse?"

"Sorry, I don't speak French," I said. He nodded his head, snatched my drink up and poured the rest down the sink. So much for the city of love. I left a meager tip on the counter and left, stumbling on my steps down cobblestone paths and regretting every advancement I made towards the hotel.

You have to do this. You have to leave.

I thought back to my friends in prison—what in the world would they think of me now?

I trudged up the stairs, wanting to take as much time as possible to reflect back on what a waste I was. This is all your fault, I kept repeating, you're absolute trash.

My phone read 12:46 AM. I stood outside Room 2113 and stared at the brass letters drilled into the fancy door. Every piece of me knew full well that she was behind the barrier, and I was about to break her heart.

I pulled the key card from my wallet and slipped it into the card reader, hearing the door click before twisting the knob slowly in hopes not to wake her from sleep.

The problem was that she wasn't sleeping.

I opened the door to find Sperling hunched over a cluster of dresses in a distracting, short nightgown. Her head snapped up to meet mine, and a smile cracked upon her face.

"You will not believe what I found!" she said excitedly, rushing over to give me a hug. She tugged on my hand and dragged me over to her spot on the floor and giving me no time to say anything. "So I went into the dressing room and found a rack of PHX dresses and at first I didn't see anything wrong with them, but I picked one up and they seemed...I don't know...heavy? So I...well I tried them on and I realized that the stitching on the dresses was all off—they were rigid and far too tight. I cut open one of the seams and a bunch of these"—she turned and handed me a cigarette tray filled with minuscule fragments of what looked like computer chips—"poured out of the little pockets. I cut open the rest of the dresses and sure enough, all of them were filled with these...mini motherboards or something."

She reached behind her and plopped several sandwich bags filled to the top with the little electronic pieces.

"That's not even the best part," she continued, getting up and bringing her computer over. "I tracked PHX's shipments and it turns out that these dresses were supposed to fly over to New York for the fashion week there. Since it's for a fashion show, airports and Customs won't even screen the shipments, and once it's in the U.S. it'll be easy to ship it wherever they want. If I activate a couple of them, I'll be able to find out exactly where they're going. God, I'm so excited—I ordered some champagne to celebrate and I thought maybe you and I could—"

"Stop," I snapped. She paused midway climbing onto my lap. My chest hurt so much; she did this all herself—she uncovered the truth about PHX's dresses, and even went as far as to find out where they were headed, but I had to do what I was about to do. "Honestly, quit while you're ahead."

"What?" she asked quietly, her smile quickly fading into a look of concern. "I thought...I don't know...I thought you'd be proud of me?"

I am.

"I'm not. You're going to get yourself hurt."

"You're the one that asked—"

"Well just forget about it," I pushed her off of me and grabbed as many bags of the trackers as I could before opening the window to our room.

"Harry, stop!" she exclaimed, but I had to be ruthless. The cold air of the night nipped at my fingers as they opened the little baggies and let the chips drop to the damp Parisian concrete.

"It's for your own good."

"You can't tell me what's good for me and what isn't! What the hell has gotten into you?" she barked, forcibly turning me to face her. Her cheeks were red with anger and her frown was something I hadn't seen on her before. "Is this about Evans? We're so close to finding her and if you'd just let me—"

"I've already found her, Clarine," I interrupted. She swallowed her words at the sound of me saying her first name.

"You...you called me Clarine?" she whispered. She sounded so hurt; I knew that if I said any more, I'd probably be able to stop her heart from beating. "Are you drunk?"

"I'm not drunk," I protested; indeed I wasn't, but I desperately wished I was. "Let me tell you something: you know this? Whatever we had? It was fake, Clarine, all of it. Why the hell would I break out of jail only to crawl back to the police? You were vulnerable; you were weak and I needed someone to give me shelter. Better yet, you had all the resources I needed—"

"Harry, don't—"

"—And led me straight to her. You were an asset, Clarine. Nothing more."

Her lower lip quivered and tears welled up in her eyes. She'd sooner kill me with her sadness before Bria could kill me with electric shocks.

"I can smell the alcohol on you; I think you should go to sleep, honestly, just sleep it off—"

"Don't tell me what to fucking do!" I shouted, getting frustrated at the fact that she still had the room to put aside what I had said to her. The only thing was that none of what I had said was a lie—I had changed, most definitely, and by the time we had returned from Vegas I was madly head over heels for her, but in the beginning all I did was use her. "I slept with you to get you to trust me. Everything I did was to get you to trust me. Don't you fucking get it? We were never a thing. You and I? We don't exist! I used you. Things just got messy when you started having feelings for me, and of course your family had to meet me—"

"You don't mean that," she cried, letting her tears fall shamelessly from her eyes. "Harry, please just go to sleep—"

"—And you know what? The only person I thought about while we fucked was Bria," I snarled, adding that detail in for good measure. "I was the one that proposed to her. I broke out of jail to get back to her. Everything I did was for her, Clarine, not you."

I hated myself more than anything in the world, but I had to make sure she wouldn't look for me ever again. I could tell she was trying her best not to crumble to pieces in front of me, but she was starting to wipe her eyes more often than I could count.

"I think you should leave—"

"Don't tell me what to do," I huffed. My eyes scanned around the room and saw her gun laying on the desk by the television. I quickly darted over and snatched it into my hands, cocking it and pointing it at her. At that point she clamped her eyes shut; I saw her pinching the skin on her wrist, as if to wake herself up from the horrible nightmare she was stuck in. "I don't want to see you again. If you so much as think about looking for me"—I figured I'd steal a few lines from the woman who placed me in this position in the first place—"I'll kill your family, and I'll kill you—"

"Harry, please! Listen to yourself!" she sobbed.

"Shut the fuck up! Don't you fucking think that I won't do it! I know exactly where you live and I have everything about your family at my disposal. Go home and stay there, Clar—"

Before I knew it, I felt her foot kick me right in the groin. Pain shot through my body as I dropped the gun and fell to my knees, groaning and groping around for something to hold onto.

"You're under arrest," she choked. I looked up to see her aiming her gun right at my forehead. "You have the right to remain silent—"

"Clarine—" I started, staggering to my feet.

"—Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law—"

"Clarine, stop—" I demanded. Her gun followed me as I stood up. She wasn't going to shoot me—I knew that much.

"You have the right to an—"

And that's when I did it.

I hit her. Slapped her straight across the face. I needed her to hate me more than I hated myself. She toppled backwards and clasped her cheek, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes.

"I'm sorry," I apologized instantly; it spilled from my mouth over and over like a prayer of repentance. "Sperling, I—"

"Get out," she growled. "Get out! Don't you fucking come back! I hate you! You can be god damn sure I won't come looking for you, you fucking piece of shit!"—she started grabbing things around her and throwing them at me, starting with the TV remote—"I never want to see you again!"—the table lamp—"Don't you fucking touch my family!"—the alarm clock—"I hope you die! Burn in hell, asshole!"—and finally my luggage—"Have fun with that fucking bitch!"

She shoved me out into the hallway and locked the door, still yelling multiple profanities through it. I stood there and listened to everything she had to say—I figured I owed her that much—until she suddenly just stopped. Just stopped yelling. My eyebrows furrowed as I carefully pressed my ear to the door to hear Sperling crying.

And I just stood there and listened to it.

I had nothing to say for myself. I didn't know where Trevor Paxon would end up, but he was as good as dead in terms of the Sperling family. I didn't even know what she would tell her family; frankly, she could've told them whatever she wanted. She didn't deserve to have me hurt her like this over and over again.

I reckoned I stood outside the door for nearly ten minutes just listening to her weep. If I said anything now, it would only cause turbulence later on. I tugged at the collar of my shirt, picked up my luggage, and took the elevator down to the lobby.

"Checking out, sir?" the receptionist asked, her French accent thick and lathered on like molasses.

"No...well I am, but my girlfr—my—er—my partner isn't. I'm just paying on her behalf."

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't—"

"I'll pay you double," I interrupted, "triple, even. Just...just let her stay. I insist. I can pay you in cash if you want—I can stop by the bank—"

I didn't have to say much more. She pointed at an ATM machine at the corner of the lobby after showing me the bill (a painful one hundred euros which multiplied to three hundred euros due to my offer). I handed it to the receptionist, who sent me off with a cheerful grin and a rosy glow in her cheeks because of the bonus she had just received.

I made off with nothing more than the image of Sperling—dressed up (or down, rather) for me, climbing into my lap and just as excited as I was that she had figured so much out—etched onto the back of my eyelids. I heard her voice ringing in my ears, I felt her touch burn into my skin; I felt her everywhere and the magnitude of my yearning for her could not compete with the amount of hatred I possessed for myself.

Just then, a shrill ringing came from my pocket. I pulled it out (half hoping that the screen would show a picture of myself kissing Sperling on the cheek with the Thames in the background) and read the screen: Unknown.

"Hello?"

"There's a pub two blocks left from your current position. Go there and wait."

The call ended. I pulled my phone from my ear at looked at the end time on the screen: 0:05 min. Well then.

I took a couple steps in my designated direction when I felt a crackling underneath my boots. I looked down and saw little shimmery pieces of metal on the ground.

The microchips.

I bent down to take a closer look at them; it seemed that all of them—thousands upon thousands of them—resonated one person's name, and I couldn't seem to get her off my tongue.

However, just a few feet away, I noticed something else that made me choke on the foreign feeling of guilt hanging in my throat. Could anyone have imagined it? Harry Styles—infamous con artist, notorious for breaking out of jail and being impartial to feelings of any kind—crying?

On the wet concrete lay a familiar key chain I had purchased in London. The sad little bear with a union jack t-shirt was drenched in rainwater in a puddle on the side of the road. It looked like an orphan dumped on a doorstep waiting for someone to adopt and make a home for it.

It reminded me of myself to an extent—she took me in and made a home for me without any obligations.

You're trash, I repeated, absolute trash.

Paris' night air stung me and, for good measure, made me strain against the cold. I waited outside the pub, receiving cruel stares from the people walking around me, until a black Mercedes pulled up in front of me. The door opened and the man who I recognized to be Hergé greeted me.

"Bonsoir, monsieur. Bienvenue à Phoenix."

"I don't fucking speak French," I bit back. I still hadn't forgiven him for holding me against a door and running a fist into my stomach in that damned room back at the fashion show. I saw his jaw clench before he scooted aside.

"In," he spat. I complied only because I had nowhere left to go; Sperling was out of reach, Bria had me wrapped around her finger, and this meat head could pummel me into the ground and let me wallow among the neanderthals buried deep within the earth.

The car sped off into the night. As we passed the hotel, I sent my silent goodbyes and hoped for the best. Hergé's voice played like a tape on repeat in my head:

Bienvenue à Phoenix. Bienvenue à Phoenix. Bienvenue à Phoenix.

Fuck.

***

i decided to finish this chapter off becaUSE I GOT ACCEPTED INTO A UNIVERSITY (simon fraser university but yall probs dont know where that is unless you google anYWAY) AND I WAS OFFERED AN ENTRANCE SCHOLARSHIP OF $5K ((bc im a fuckin nerd and my admission average was 96% overall omfg im such a loser lmao idec)) IM JUST REALLY HAPPY SO I WROTE THE REST OF THIS YAY

but yo man dont you hate dramatic irony? where you know something a character doesn't?? frick i wanna just pick sperling up and kiss her omfg i feel so bad for her AND IM THE AUTHOR.

idk when you can expect the next update (within the week, i promise), but it'll be in bria's pov ^^

and im soz idk how to make harry sound mean like in my head he's just so sweet and the thought of him being an asshole doesn't even make sense to me BUT YA HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE RLY MEAN AND COLD IN THIS CHAPTER OK IM SAD NOW

dedicated to @rosesaretaken for helping me with more french and fixing up my silly mistakes in the last chapter! (she's the french translator of Psycho and does a superb job, i love her so much xx)

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