~I'll be by your side,

Anytime you're needing me, oh yeah~

SEPTEMBER 2ND

Niall still had his earbuds in, and was grateful that he was done with his part of the job. All of the tools got picked up off of the floor and he grabbed the handkerchief from his suit pocket. Perfect for wiping fingerprints off of safes. Yes, he knew that this would most likely get rid of all of the other evil people's fingerprints too, but he had to worry about himself, first and foremost.

As he walked to the third safe, he passed the service door. Through the gap, he could see Luke preparing to leave, and there was Zayn who saw him and waved. Shrugging, Niall figured that some part of the plan must have gone haywire for Zayn to be in the truck.

Moments later, the front doors were in front of him. There was no one else in sight. All of the guests were out front, panicking in the driveway and on the lawn, but none of his teammates. "Perrie!" Hands cupped around his mouth, screaming her name. "Palmer! Hailee!" Those were the three that Niall was supposed to leave with. The four of them, in a car, zooming out of there. "If I go for the truck, it'll be gone when I get back," He moaned in agony. "Okay, Louis and Simon are still here. I'll wait for them."

Like most members of the team, Niall was clueless as to what the "panic room" portion of the job entailed. But that's where he was headed when Bella and Gigi came around the corner, armed and ready to kill. And there was no way that they didn't see him. The extended eye contact came to an end when he screamed. "Someone help me!", and booked it away from there. "The psycho twins are going to rip my throat out!"

A different voice startled Louis in the panic room. It was distant, but Niall was in trouble. And he had probably never been in a fight in his life. "Damn it," Simon sighed, feeling similar to Louis. "It's always Niall." Seeming to sense the urgency, he advanced towards his brother, who didn't move the gun away from Louis this time. "Back to my monologue. I think that we need to stop this. This little game."

Nicholas' blood pressure rose, hearing the condescending tone Simon was using. "No way. This is our life."

"No. It's your life." He left room for dramatic pause, and Louis was surprised by the elegance of his acting. Simon couldn't be this composed in this tense of a situation. "And you're taking it too far. Your ledger is...gushing! Gushing red!'

"Do you think I care?"

Simon broke for a moment, letting his anger shine through the cracks. "We're done, Nicholas! We're done!" Infinity began wailing, responding to Louis' intense grip on her. Eleanor's turned her hands to fists, still thinking about all of the different ways that she could rip Nicholas' throat out. "Louis?"

"I'm your number one." was the response. "Never needed to be anything else." It was hyperbole. After this job he'd be everything he'd wanted to be before Simon came into his life. A good father. A husband. An Adidas model. A playwright. There was time for all of that. But for now, he was reassuring Simon that whatever happened, he'd be there for him.

Simon came to stand in front of his brother, a mere two feet away. The gun finally switched to him, but no one in the room moved. "You don't think I'd kill you?" Both of them could see the racing pulses of the other as they faced off.

"We're brothers," He noted. "I love you." Another dramatic pause. "But you need to be stopped." Moving forward, the barrel was pressed to his temple.

The second that it was, Louis made his move. Eleanor was staring at him already as he turned his head and promptly tossed Fin in the gap between the two. Before making sure that she was safe, he ran towards the duo. His plan was to wrestle the gun away and give it to Simon, so he could do as he wished with his brother.

Nicholas' last warning was true, however. When Louis began to move, the gun moved in a wide arc across the room, firing with bangs that made Fin scream and scream and scream louder. Simon punched his brother square in the nose, startling him enough to loosen his grip on the gun.

Simon Cowell grabbed it and fired the rest of the clip into his brother's chest. "Game over, Nicholas."

He was dead before he hit the floor, and the next thing that hit the floor was the gun. Simon pulled his lips into his mouth, holding in his tears. Then he turned, to make sure the others were okay. The last thing to hit the floor was Louis, who was stumbling backwards until he fell into a puddle of his own blood.

Some of Nicholas' shots had made their mark.