Coalescence ➳ H.S.

Epilogue

Rachel's POV

I waited and waited in the hall of the hospital just outside the operating room, scribbling what I could recall from what the man had told me to write down on a piece of note paper in my bag. It had been nearly four hours since he was admitted, and things weren't about to get any better. The others at the beach were all pronounced dead at the scene. I brushed it away from my head, concentrating on what the man had told me to write down.

Clarine Sperling
Girlfriend??
Met at a bank
Went to Vegas
Smells like pine needles and mint
Likes honey puffs??
Blonde hair
Small — 5'2"
Police officer?
Meeting for gelato?

He didn't give me much to go on, but it was what I could extract. Harlow came from a corridor shortly after to notice me picking at the skin around my fingernails—a sure sign that something was bothering me.

"You know him or something?" he asked, making his way over to me and sitting down. He nudged his head in the direction of the operating room to indicate whom he was referring.

"No, I just...he told me to write something down for him," I replied quietly. Harlow inhaled a deep breath, then let out a slow exhale.

"He's...well he won't be able to walk again, that's for sure. He'll be out in a day or two."

"A day or two?"

"They found little electronic fragments in his bloodstream, and a spike in magnesium. He's gonna have a blood transfusion soon. He's lucky—the girl slowed the bullet down long enough for it to lodge right into the spinal column—"

"Did we get any more information on what happened?" I asked, interrupting his description—Harlow never had much of a filter for his mouth. Besides, I was dying to know anyway.

"I know just as much as you do, Rach. But he's the Harry Styles."

"Styles? Really?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't have guessed, huh? He looks so different."

"He does, yeah."

"You know, they're talking about lessening his sentence. It's down from ten years to four, apparently."

"Is that so?"

"The police said something about uncovering some big international thing. Don't know much about it though."

Both of us sat in silence for a bit. The Harry Styles? He made headlines for days with his breakout, and now he was pleading to be thrown back in jail in return for Clarine Sperling's safety.

"Rach, we're both thinking the same thing," Harlow suddenly said, shifting in his seat.

"We are?"

"About Styles back at the beach. That was fucking awful."

"What was?"

"How he was talking to her. Like he though she was actually just...just sleeping or something. Fuck man, that's just...I don't think I'll get over that. I mean, I've been a paramedic for as long as you've been a nurse and I've never seen someone so...so..."

"In love?"

"I was gonna say distraught, but in love works too."

Harlow was never good at making situations any lighter.

"Hey, do you think I could talk to him once he's conscious and stuff?"

"The police will probably—"