Chapter Text
Liam
Liam is in the middle of having the shittiest Tuesday in the history of Tuesdays when it happens.
He’s been standing in line at the bank for almost an hour. The bank that he shouldn’t even need to be at in the first place but his direct deposit from work, which was supposed to be in his account by last Friday, somehow got screwed up. Which means he’s behind on his rent, which is just fan-fucking-tastic because his landlord already doesn’t trust him despite the fact he’s been an absolute model tenant up until now. If he had just dealt with this yesterday none of this would probably even be happening but it was just his luck that his boss chose yesterday of all days to make him work late so by the time he left the office the bank was already closed.
And even though he came straight here from work, the drive over, which normally wouldn’t have taken him more than 20 minutes, ended up taking almost 50 because some dickhead a few cars ahead of him decided it would be a good idea to run a red light and ended up getting into an accident, which backed up traffic for a good half an hour. Plus his phone is dead after he spent almost the entire drive either on hold or being passed around by the bank’s customer service only to be told that he’d have to physically come in to the bank to get it resolved. So now, not only is he bored out of his mind but he’s also soaked from head to toe because of course it started pouring on his way here and the nearest parking spot he could find was almost two blocks away. He’s seriously at his wit’s end, and to top it all off the guy in front of him smells like ass and cigarettes and he really doesn’t know how much more he can take.
He’s already counted all the paint chips on the ceiling three times and he’s getting to the point where he’s considering giving them names and backstories when the double doors to the bank burst open slamming the walls so hard that plumes of dust and paint debris rise up on both sides. A barrage of people in black Kevlar suits and black and silver masks come storming in, a few of them armed with huge guns, and everything turns into chaos. People start screaming and trying to run but there’s nowhere for them to go because the group with black masks has formed a wide arc around the room blocking off the path to the main doors while the four with guns and silver masks man the emergency exit. One of them shoots his gun into the ceiling blowing a huge hole right through Paint Chips 117 and 118 and everyone drops to the floor amidst shrieks and screams. Everyone except Liam, that is, who is frozen in shock and can’t seem to make his legs move.
“Get down,” Ass & Cigarettes Guy hisses at him from the floor. “They’re gonna shoot you if you don’t get down!”
Liam is very aware of just how much danger he’s in but he still can’t seem to make his legs, or any part of himself for that matter, move, which is not good because he needs to breathe and he can’t seem to get his body to do that either.
The man who shot his gun at the ceiling makes some sort of hand motion and two of the armed women standing next to him break off and start heading towards the door that leads to the bank’s vaults while the man steps forward with his gun now trained on Liam, leaving only one guy manning the emergency exit. He makes another hand motion and a guy from the black-masked crew steps forward, the others immediately shifting to fill in the gap in the arc while remaining evenly spaced apart, their movements almost robotic.
The two men are closing in on Liam now and despite the fact that Liam is scared shitless and 179% sure that he’s about to die he still can’t make himself move. The only helpful thought that his brain seems able to supply is that maybe if he passes out from oxygen loss first he won’t feel the pain of the gunshot.
The man with the gun who seems to be in charge steps up to him first and, with his gun still trained on Liam, the barrel now barely an arm’s length away from Liam’s face, he barks out an order over his shoulder in a gruff voice.
“Secure him. Then wait for my signal.”
The black-masked man from the arc steps forward without a word. Now that he’s closer Liam can see the man’s face more clearly and he realizes that what he thought was a mask isn’t actually a mask at all. Up close it looks more like a dog muzzle, covering the entire lower half of his face, from the bottom of his chin to just under his eyes. His eyes are cold and empty, almost lifeless, but there’s something familiar about them though, something that reminds Liam of…
“Zayn?” he gasps, his brain finally catching up with his body as he realizes he can breathe again. He looks at Zayn, waiting for some sort of response but there’s not even a flicker of recognition behind his eyes as he grabs Liam by the arm and slams him into the floor face first, yanking his arms behind his back. Liam coughs and sputters for air, trying to turn his face enough to get a proper breath in but Zayn grabs the back of his head and rams his face into the floor. There’s a sickening crack and a blossom of white-hot pain and then everything goes black.
*
When he comes to it’s to Ass & Cigarettes Guy shaking him awake.
“Hey! Wake up, kid, the police are here,” he rasps, blowing a wave of hot breath right into Liam’s face that makes him gag and very nearly vomit. The guy just pats him on the back as he coughs, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’s the one who caused the reaction in the first place. It definitely doesn’t help that Liam feels like his whole face has been split in half. He can feel his nose—which he’s pretty sure is probably broken—throbbing in time with his pulse, and his mouth tastes like copper.
Zayn, of course is nowhere to be found. According to Ass & Cigarettes—or AC as Liam’s taken to calling him in his head—the whole group was in and out in less than five minutes and left shortly after Liam blacked out, way before the police even arrived.
The first thing he sees when he steps outside is bright red flashing lights. It’s stopped raining and everyone that was in the bank is streaming out of the doors and huddling into small groups, talking and crying and hugging each other. There are four police cars, a fire truck, and three ambulances, blocking the entire street off and he’s immediately herded over to one of the ambulances by two concerned elderly women that he’s pretty sure were in line behind him before all of this happened. The paramedic that checks him over confirms that his nose is in fact broken, but it’s a hairline fracture, which she says is fairly minor and shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to heal. She cleans all the blood off of his face and resets his nose—which for some inexplicable reason is about five times more painful than getting it broken was in the first place—bandages him up, hands him an ice pack, and then directs him to the two policemen standing off to the side of the ambulance just as a news station truck pulls up.
The police ask him all sorts of questions that he doesn’t know the answers to. Were they a terrorist group? What did they want? Why did they attack you? How many of them were there? What kinds of guns were they using? Did any of them have a foreign accent? Any tattoos or identifying marks?
He tries to answer their questions as best as he can and briefly considers telling them about Zayn but then thinks better of it. The last thing he needs right now is for the police to start thinking he’s somehow involved in what happened. He’s seen How To Make a Murderer. The less he pretends to know, the better, so he lies, sort of.
“The assailant who attacked you, can you describe what he looked like?”
“Um, well, like I said before, he was wearing a mask—a sort of muzzle thing, like the kind people put on their dogs, and I couldn’t really his face clearly.”
“But you were able to see his eyes and his hair, correct? Could you tell what his ethnicity was? Was he white or black, Middle Eastern perhaps…?”
Liam knows what he’s implying, that if it’s a terrorist organization, they must be Middle Eastern because it’s so inconceivable that anyone else of any other race or nationality could be a terrorist. But he masks his disdain and schools his face into one of confusion.
“Everything’s still pretty fuzzy. He had black hair I think…or maybe it was brown. And he was sort of tan…although that might have just been the bad lighting…sorry, I just don’t really remember very well…”
“And what about the ones with the guns and silver masks? Did any of them say anything to you?”
“Not to me, no. One of the silver-masked ones—he, um…he seemed like he was sort of in charge. He was the one that ordered the guy in the muzzle to knock me out.”
“Some of the other witnesses mentioned that you asked the assailant something just before he knocked you out…can you tell us what you said to him?”
“Sorry, I, um…I don’t really remember.”
“Well, is there anything else, any other details that you can recall that might help us in our investigation?”
Liam sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I remember some of the ones in the muzzles…they looked pretty young…like—like kids. There was one girl that looked like she couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen. Most of the others were older, but they were all sort of small…skinny, I mean.”
“Even the assailant who attacked you?”
“Yeah,” Liam says softly. He doesn’t think that’s revealing too much, at least he hopes not.
The cops seem satisfied enough with his answers though. One scribbles down a few more notes into his notepad, while the other pulls a card out of his front pocket and says, “Alright, thanks for your time. If you remember anything or if you think of anything else that might help with the investigation—anything at all—you can call this number. In the meantime just make sure to stay in the area in case we need to ask you any more questions.”
“Sure thing,” Liam says, tucking the card into his back pocket.
Most of the crowd has cleared away by now, only two police cars and one ambulance remaining, along with the news crew who are still interviewing one of the bank tellers. Liam makes his way back over to the sidewalk, passing by AC who’s still being questioned by the cops but waves to Liam as he makes his way down the block. When he finally makes it back to his car he doesn’t even have it in him to be upset about the parking ticket tucked in his windshield.