~Awh, goodbyes are bittersweet ~

AUGUST 4TH

Running in a dream is like trying to move in water. Limbs weighed down by pressure and no way to tell if you're making progress other than by the changing of the scenery. Well, as the trio ran down the fifth floor hallway of the late Declan Seward's apartment building, it felt like that. The smoke made it feel like they were wading through a battlefield. And they were. Bullets bounced off the walls, and the sounds of screaming were most likely Zayn's. He was terrified - they all were - because death was just a couple of feet away.

Declan latched on to Niall's arm, running behind them, not afraid of the gunfire. With a firm grasp, he fell to the floor, and the gun was on him. "Dec!" He squeaked out, freezing up.

"Niall!" Harry screamed, noticing that his friend's presence wasn't behind him. Then he turned to wade back through the fog. There was no chance that anyone was going to be left behind.

He wasn't going to die without a fight. Niall kicked Declan's leg out, sending the weapon flying across the room. Then the two of them were engaged in a brawl on the ground as the sound of the bullets got closer and then stopped. Giggles followed, and the smoke was starting to thin.

"Niall!" Harry's voice screamed, and he could hear Zayn asking for them - crying out for his friends and hoping that they hadn't been hit. But so far it seemed like the psycho twins weren't the best shots in a bunch of smoke. He stopped when he finally saw Declan trying to choke Niall, who was a squirming little worm and kept slipping out of his grasp.

He made eye contact with his tall curly friend, who was frozen, standing there. "Harry! Help me!" Then he started throwing punches at Declan, who took them as if he was made of steel. Time was frozen for Harry, who only briefly registered all of the factors coming together. The psycho twins had to be waiting for their smoke to clear, but they had to know that they were still on the floor. That didn't leave much room for them to exist. Declan's hands were scrounging for the gun, and Harry could clearly see it by his own left foot. If he was to get it, any one of them could die. And there was no way that they could complete their mission objective and get Declan to work with them. Zayn slammed into him, calling his name, but not reaching the same conclusions that Harry was.

Finally, Niall bucked Declan off of him as Harry reached for the gun. As the assailant rolled over and looked up, reaching for the weapon, it fired with a loud noise. After that, the first thing that registered in the silence was a glass-breaking scream. It was Harry, in recognition that he had just killed a man. Blood and brains splattered on the ground, and Niall nearly slipped as he stood up.

Harry stumbled backwards, a numb feeling like ice spreading through his body. The scream was still dying on his lips as the other gunshots started, and Zayn flattened him against the wall. Then he was prying the gun from his hand and wiping it off on his shirt. No fingerprints, no evidence. "Niall, let's go!"

He jumped across the hall, and they each took one of the curly one's hands, leading him down the stairs. One by one, stumbling downwards. Neither of them tried to check his facial expression, but they would have seen something that would have made the situation all too real. And they still had to escape from the psycho twins before they could reflect on the fact that Harry had just killed Declan.

Niall had scratch marks on his face and a torn shirt. A black eye and bruises on his throat from almost getting choked. All he could think about was Harry. He was hoping he'd gain his senses in order to drive them out of there. "Car, car, car," Zayn kept repeating, trying to convince himself of their next steps.

"He's dead?" Harry questioned with an empty look on his face as they exited the building.

"Yes," Niall said, wiping blood away from his eye. "Can you drive?"

He didn't answer, and maybe that was for the best. As Zayn tried to shut the door behind them, the rental car exploded, and there was a wicked laugh from someone a hundred yards away. A guy this time, not one of the twins. He had a detonator in his hands, but no other weapon. "Stealing a car, stealing a car, stealing a car!" Zayn grabbed Harry's hand back up and looked around.

"Harry, jack a car!" Niall screamed, wanting his friend to be responding to stimuli. "Please, Harry! We're going to die!"

"Keys," He said in a quiet tone, pulling a pair of keys out of his pocket. Looking over at Zayn, he softly added, "In case he tried to run."

Zayn took the new information in stride. "Blue car, blue car, blue car." Niall shot him a glare, hoping that he stopped it, but the both of them continued working together to get Harry into the driver's seat.

"He'll get us out of here, I'm sure of it," Niall said, getting into the passenger side. "Come on, Harry." There was silence, and they saw his hands shaking on the keys in the ignition. "Harry, Harry!" The outer door that Zayn had shut moments prior opened to reveal the twins, in full black with guns, reloading and laughing. "Harry!"

The car was thrown into drive as he came to life. Not full Harry with all of the synapses in his brain connecting, but enough to let him tap into his god-tier getaway drive braincells. Zayn visibly relaxed, while Niall stayed on edge, hands gripping the fabric of the seat. He began to shake after a while, seeming to become transfixed by the dark blue of Harry's arm cast as he sped around corners and never winced from the pain of his healing bones. There was probably a much more present emotional pain. Niall was lost in his own thoughts - of having found an old friend and then really lost him in the same day.

No one spoke or uttered a noise. Not even Zayn, who needed the constant accompaniment of electronics to keep him sane, turned on his phone. Eventually, the city began to turn to empty field and grasslands, and no one had any clue where they were headed. When there were no cars, the one they were in came to a screeching out.

The two of them turned to look at Harry. "What's up?" Niall turned in his seat.

"Get out of the car. Both of you."

"What?" Zayn frowned at him in the rearview mirror.

Harry extended his arms to full length with his hands on the wheel. Shoulders scrunched, he opened his mouth and started screaming. Niall looked at him like he was crazy, and it was Zayn who realized that he wasn't going to stop until he got what he wanted. A childish tactic.

"Niall!" Zayn opened the back door and the two of them stumbled out of the car. Then Harry drove off down the road, leaving them behind in the dust.

On the side of the road, Zayn had his own little mental breakdown, kicking a large rock repeatedly. Occasionally he grunted and let out a little scream. Niall sat on the ground and pulled his knees up to his chest. When Zayn hopped away on his right foot, whining about hurting himself, he moved to sit on the rock that his friend had been kicking. "I left my phone."

"I've got mine. I'll call a cab to take us back to the hotel," Zayn set his backpack on the ground - the one thing that went everywhere with him. A good thing too, since the rental car had been blown up, and he could've lost all of his belongings. After holding the device in his hand for just a moment however, he stopped moving entirely. "It's dead!"

He wasn't the one to get angry, normally. The emotions running on high was most likely due to the stress of trying to be killed twice in two days. Zayn was a calm person, never in the field, not one to be in danger and to live in fear. Niall had lived with a fear of being caught for years, and beyond that, had been in prison, where he could reasonably die every single die. But now he was shutting down in grief, and he began to sob.

Zayn paced for a good twenty minutes while his friend sniffled. Finally, he took a seat on the ground and rested his head on the side of Niall's thigh. "I'm so sorry, Niall. We should've been prepared."

"There was no way to know that Dec would be violent. He wasn't when I knew him."

More silence followed as Zayn tried to think of a decent reply that wouldn't make his friend start crying again. "Harry's going to think you're mad at him."

Niall gingerly placed his fingers on some of his scratches and bruises from the fight. "He was protecting me. It's ok. Dec was trying to kill me. So I don't know how much of a friend he really was. Harry's more of one for saving me."

It was hard to tell how much time was passing. When the adrenaline began to leave Zayn, he felt pain in his thigh from a bullet graze - all thanks to the psycho twins. Niall looked to be on the verge of passing out - and probably needed medical treatment. They had no bandages, no alcohol, and no pain relief medication. Both of their stomachs growled, and there was no city in sight from the rock that Harry had left them by. And there was no telling if or when he was coming back.

Cars passed down the road, until eventually one stopped. A nice white SUV with a mom-type figure inside the car. The sun was setting and soon it would be dark. "Do you two need a ride somewhere?"

"Yes we do! Our friend kicked us out of the car! Thank you so much!" Niall spoke for the both of them, and quickly approached towards the car. Zayn put his backpack on and slid into the backseat next to his friend.

"Thank you," He mumbled.

"Sounds like your friend isn't much of one," The woman said cheerily. "Where should I take you too?"

"The nearest town, I guess? Any restaurant. We're not from around here," Niall and the woman talked while Zayn looked through his bag aimlessly, hoping that it wouldn't be too long of a drive.

When the car pulled up outside of a diner, Niall gave her a twenty dollar bill and insisted that she keep it for her kindness, and Zayn just stormed ahead inside, got a booth, and plugged his phone into an outlet. "Maycie was pretty nice, you know. But you're antisocial," Niall mocked him.

"When my phone gets a charge, I'll text Harry where we are and he'll come to get us eventually." He kept tapping the screen every three seconds, waiting for 1% battery, while Niall simply rolled his eyes.

"Just two waters," He said to the waiter standing there. "Unless you have iced coffee. I could really use some after this day."

"How about iced tea?" The waiter countered, glancing over at Zayn huddled like a hunchback by the outlet.

Niall's lip curled up. "Just a water, thank you," As he left, Zayn finally perked up and started typing on the screen. "We need to call Simon and tell him what happened."

"How do we put into words what happened today? That Declan's dead and Harry killed him and now we're in Nowhere, Pennsylvania and missing our flight home! Yeah?" The anger came through very evidently in his voice, and Niall's eyes welled up with tears. He had been keeping it together for a little while, but he couldn't handle his usually calm friend yelling at him. "I'm sorry, Niall. I'm not mad at you. It's been a long day."

"Going to the bathroom. Order me something with chicken." Head down, he left in the direction of the restrooms, and Zayn opened the menu. It had been a hard day on all of them, and there was no need for him to lash out. Guilt radiated through him, and so did pain. Blood covered the side of his jeans, and he was lucky that "Maycie" didn't notice. And that the waiter didn't question Niall's messed up face. Maybe that was another reason he had gone to the bathroom - to hopefully clean up a little bit.

"There's the waters for you," The waiter said, sliding the glasses down on coasters. "Did you want to order now or did you want to wait for your friend?"

"He'll have a chicken sandwich with fries and I'll have a cheeseburger and salad, I guess?" Then he was alone and staring at the odd decor and wondering if it would kill anyone to give him a shot of vodka and a cigarette. Unfortunately, his pack had fallen out during the chase earlier in the day.

Niall came back after a while, with red eyes and a clean face. He couldn't wash off the bruises or the scars from the cuts and scrapes, however. Then the two of them ate without talking, except for Zayn to mention that Harry had read the message but didn't reply. After eating his burger, he laid down on the seat and promptly fell asleep. This greatly worried Niall, since Zayn never slept. Ever.

That left it up to him to watch out for Harry, pay the bill, and make sure that no one would kick them out before their friend arrive to come get them. There was more than enough time to analyze everything that had happened that day, and over the last several days, really.

It was nearly closing time when a car laid on the horn outside. Zayn stirred and Niall peered through the blinds next to their booth. Sure enough, it was Harry behind the wheel of the car. But it wasn't Declan's car - the one that they had stolen when they made their escape. He honked the horn again. "Zayn! Let's go!"

The two of them walked out of the diner and towards the car, getting into the backseat. Harry simply handed Niall his phone, which had a slew of missed calls and texts from Simon, as Zayn's phone did too. Like before he had kicked them out with a scream, Harry's face was blank, but inside, he felt like he was being torn apart.