025

        chapter song; bulletproof (foamo dubstep remix) was seven votes away from reaching my goal last chapter, so thank you for everyone who voted! <3 

        There weren't anymore questions asked. Harry had to figure out what he wanted to do without me. I forced myself to swallow every last insult and the angry testifying I had within me. It begged to leave my body, but I refrained from letting myself waste my breath anymore. 

        I had my bowl of cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Harry worked at his computer nearly none stop, and I had looked through the files on my own. 

        We hadn't spoken to each other at all since yesterday morning, which makes things much more uncomfortable than they have been for a bit now. I tried not to left it affect me. But the way my body reacted to his whenever we were in the same room would nearly drive me insane. 

        Tonight, I decided to do my laundry. It's about time I did something other than worry and be upset over things I clearly had no control over.

         It failed me once I had gotten in the shower, and realized that my clothes and towel were all left by that room near the kitchen. I closed my eyes and groaned in frustration. 

        I stepped out of the shower, skin still glistening from the water and the growing goosebumps beginning to surface on my skin. I attempted peek my head out from the bathroom, glancing up and down the hallways for any signs of Harry. 

        The light of his bedroom was turned on, and the door was closed. I thought if I could make it to that room quickly, I'd avoid any awkward encounters. On the tips of my toes, I rushed down the hallway with my hands over my bare breasts. 

        I felt like laughing at myself once I reached the room. What would anyone ever say, seeing a naked girl running like a gremlin down the halls?

        Breathless, I turned the door knob and entered the room. There were folded towels on a shelf, and I took one down and began to dry myself and then quickly wrapped it around my hair. My dried clothes were in the dryer, and I quickly picked out a pair of purple underwear and some random white bra I found.

        It was the quickest I had to getting dressed to an extent where it was appropriate. I then quickly searched for a shirt, but didn't have time to give myself when I heard a car door slam just outside the house. 

        From my crouching position, I raised my eyebrows and forced my hearing to a point where it might have hurt before the sounds blew holes through the silence. Before my eyes, glass began to shatter on all the windows. They burst and shattered, the couch filled with holes, materials flying around in the air as I fell to my knees again, shrieking my throat dry. The towel slipped from my head onto the floor.

        I closed my eyes tightly. Bullets after bullets after bullets penetrated the house. The glass burst and pieces of it fell upon my skin. I walked on my hands and knees, already feeling the tears of absolute terror stinging my eyes. 

        "CATALINA!" 

        My head snapped up as I leaned against the kitchen island, crouching and bringing my hands over my head. I cried out Harry's name like a coward, because after all, without him, I would have been dead. 

        A sense of comfort warmed me for a few seconds as through the loud, exhausting noise of bullets, Harry's image appeared in front of me. He crawled rapidly towards me, wrapping his arms around my smaller frame and setting me in front of him, sitting himself against the island to protect my body from the bullets. 

        He clenched his jaw and held his gun tightly in his right hand. "I'm going to take you to the basement while I take care of this. I need you to be safe." He shouted over the sounds of endless firing. 

        I nodded my head frantically. I felt his nose brush against my cheek lightly, feeling as if the gesture was endearing. But knowing Harry, his last thoughts were on an accidental gesture. "What about you?" I asked, beginning to sniffle. 

        "We don't have time to worry about me. My main priority is you." 

        Harry crouched and stood low on his legs, grabbing my waist and pulling my chest to his. With his arm hooked underneath my knees and around my back, we rapidly approached the basement door. With one hand on the door knob, and the other on my lower back, Harry easily placed me on the first step and I did as I was told. 

        I peered up at him and he briefly glanced at me, loading his gun and I was surprised when he leaned in close to me and whispered, "I'm coming back. Just hide for me, Dollface." 

        The door closed on me, hiding me from Harry. There were holes in the door anyway, so whatever light from the house was left unharmed shined through the bullet holes on the wooden door. I inhaled shakily and sprinted down the stairs, leaving the lights completely turned off in here except for one. 

        I walked to the wall and slid down, hearing the bullets still soaring through the air. My heart was in my throat, practically praying that Harry would be okay. What if he's already dead? And they're on their way down here to take me? 

        I shook the thoughts away and threw my head against the wall, staring up at the dark ceiling. I closed my eyes and prayed, prayed, and prayed. Over and over again, I repeated a plead for Harry's safety. The skin on my arms all had goosebumps surfacing across them. I gulped and began to bounce my leg in anxiety. 

        With my breath escaping at a severely fast pace, I hooked my hands together tightly and tightened the grip the longer I heard the bullets go off above me. I jumped when a particularly close bullet went off just a few feet from the door. 

        For what seemed like hours, when really long minutes, I sat there and held onto whatever faith I had in Harry. He's good at this, I told myself. He's been doing this for years. Harry's the best at what he does, and no one else, not even my father, questions this.

        All at once, a car screeched loudly and the bullets seemed to decrease. I stopped all my frantic movements and listened. A gasp flew through my parted lips when the door from the basement slammed open. 

         I saw the outline of his curls, a loud grunt following my suspicions that it must've been Harry. My heart stopped once I saw him stumbling down the stairs, kneeling down with a slight groan. He dropped his gun to the floor and sat against the wall across from me near the bottom of the stairs, eyes shut tightly as he held a heavily bleeding wound on his arm. 

        My eyes briefly examined the horrid amount of the crimson liquid covering his fingers and as it dripped lower his arm, I let my eyes fall wide. I knelt and crawled over to him with more terror engulfing my chilled body. 

        "Harry." I breathed out, kneeling before him with my hand placed on the side of his neck. I searched his body for any more wounds before realizing that the only one, and major one, was on his arm. 

        The paling skin worried me the most. It seemed he has lost a large amount of blood, and the more it remained untreated, the quicker his organs will stop working and a many more medical terms that I can't seemed to remember reading about now because my head was filled with so much concern. 

        Harry pealed his eyes open, but by the obvious loopy, tiresome state he was in, I could tell he was forcing himself. He gulped and made eye contact with me. He inhaled, his jaw tensing as he softly breathed out, "I...I might...pass out, Catalina."

        I shook my head, ready to start lugging him up the stairs if I had to. With obvious worry dripping from my fast, frantic words, I whimpered out, "Don't pass out on me, please."

        "It's not...not like I want...to." He began to breathed slowly. "I know you can...just do whatever you...can to get this bullet out of my arm." The way he was slowly letting his eyelids drop scared me, and I couldn't have him passing out on me from the severe amount of blood loss. I needed to get going.

        Suck it up, I snapped at myself. I pressed my lips together and avoided the tears trying to escape the barrier of my eyes. "I need to get you upstairs, Harry." 

        I know what to do. I've studied and read hard enough through all these things. I can fix this. Harry nodded slowly, quite lazily. "I can make it...to the couch upstairs." 

        "Are you sure?" 

        "Yes, we can't...waste time." 

        Harry groaned and hissed at the pain when he went to stand and accidentally moved his arm. Fucking man could stand in the period of time where at least nearly 1/6 of his body's blood is on the verge of being lost. I wrapped my arms around his waist, urging him up the steps. 

        He fell onto the couch a minute later. I breathlessly watched as he lied there, still breathing fortunately. I checked his pulse, and realized his skin was really hot now. Moving frantically, and thinking really fast, I stressed and struggled to do every procedure. 

        I leaned forward, kneeling beside him. I brushed his curls from his sweaty face and quickly said, "Stay awake as much as you can." 

        I heard him swallow, and with a nod of his head I began to zone out, deeply focused in getting the bullet out. 

        I ran to up the stairs and furiously threw every useless thing across the floor. In the cabinets, I found tweezers and disinfecting alcohol. With a released sigh, I roughly grabbed those two items from the shelves and sprinted down the hallway. 

        From the laundry room and placed the items upon the dryer, trying to find a cloth to tighten around his arm for the blood to resist flow down his arm, to the freshly open wound. While I was at it, I threw on a shirt and once finding what I needed, I flew through the kitchen. Of course, not without grabbing a  roll of paper towels. 

        The items fell to the floor beside me as I knelt down again and checked Harry's pulse again by his wrist. When I found that he was still responding, however more tired than last time, I continued to take peeks at his paled face while trying to keep my hands from trembling. 

        This is so much pressure. I don't want to hurt him, but it's inevitable. Tying the cloth around his upper arm, I hoped that it would at least stop blood from flow to the open wound as much, and maybe begin to clot faster.

        "This is going to hurt like Hell." I warned him painfully. I wiped down the thin point tweezers and the area around the wound. I pressed my lips tightly together, nearly wincing at his reaction when I moved the tore skin and muscle and sunk the tweezers inside. 

        Harry tightened his eyes and groaned loudly. He breathed heavily and tightened his hands into fists. I got chills and winced out, "I'm so sorry."

        He shook his head rapidly. "It was going to...hurt anyway. You're doing great, Dollface." He quickly breathed out. I felt as if he kept calling me that now familiar nickname to use it as encouragement. It worked, to say the least. 

        I tried to make it as fast as possible. When I finally tugged out the shell and the bullet itself, I used a paper towel and wrapped the lethal thing and placed it on the floor next to me. 

        Beads of sweat traveled down Harry's tatted neck from his face, his defined jaw glistening from the perspiration. I wiped his face off as gently as I could, trying to reduce the amount of discomfort. 

        I wiped the area around the wound again to disinfect it once more, afraid that if it gets infected, we'll be in much more trouble. I unwrapped the cloth from his upper arm, sighing in relief when the blood didn't rush out the wound again. Yet, I didn't think of how I'd wrap it and seal it afterwards. 

        "Does there happen to be medical bandage anywhere around here?" I asked him gently, peering down at his face. The good news was that the wound stopped bleeding as much as it was before, and all I needed to do was seal it up now.       

        Harry paused and quietly rasped out, "There is in my stuff. I figured I'd get shot at some point."

        I stood up and rushed to his bedroom. When looking through his luggage, I stumbled upon a picture frame. The odd thing was...it was empty. There was no image inside. But not giving it any mind, I placed it somewhere else until I succeeded and found the medical wraps. 

        When I wrapped it around the wound, I soothed it down with my fingers as gently as I could. I examined his face, and his droopy eyes. He was exhausted. I'd expect his energy to drain quickly. 

        It was bold of me to coaxingly stroke his cheek when he's verbally able to tell me to quit it. But, instead, he tiredly gazed at me and sighed. 

        I pulled away my hand, more concerned with his health than his beautiful eyes that watched me carefully. "You need to rest." I told him quietly.

        "I really can't. Not now more than ever." 

        My lips pressed into a firm line and my eyebrows furrowed. "I'll take care of everything. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. Protecting me is enough, but it doesn't give me the right to let you harm yourself while doing it. You took a bullet for me."

        Harry looked away from me with no words leaving his mouth. He paused and stared at the ceiling for a couple of seconds. "I said I'd take a bullet for you, wherever --- whenever."

        "I know you did," I added softly.

        "It's just not safe." 

        "You need to stop with that. I promised I'd call for you whenever I need you, and right now I don't need you to protect me. I need you to sleep." I persisted. 

        He finally sighed and nodded his head. I was more than pleased that he agreed. He can't neglect his own body's needs at a time like this. He needs to rest more than ever, and I need to take this as advantage to prove to him and myself that despite not being a fighter, I'm as good as I'll ever be being a thinker.

        I was nearly about to stand when Harry's uninjured arm raised and his hand grasped my chin. Our eyes met, pale green clashing with the light, bright green in mine. His eyebrows furrowed as he stared longer. 

        "Thank you," he slowly said. Unlike the tea incident, he meant them. 

        I gave him a faint smile and nodded. He let his hand drop and he rested against the couch. I took one of the pillows and placed it behind his head, pleased when I saw that he was beginning to fall asleep. 

        All around me, I stared and glanced at the mess. Bullet holes, fallen pieces of objects and torn wallpapers and paint. I sighed heavily and shook my head. I hate these circumstances so much. It gives me chills thinking about the reality and the possibility that we could be killed at any point. 

        I stacked furniture against the front door, moved shelves as quietly as I could before the broken windows. With a bead of sweat traveling down my face, I lugged the heavy couch across from Harry's and stood it against the kitchen window. 

        The curtains had holes blown through them, but I covered parts of the windows with them anyway. 

        I sighed and brushed my hair back from my face, standing in the middle of the mess both literally and metaphorically. 

        note// Q: what do you think happens next? (;

        and i got asked how long i plan on writing this, and i actually don't know bc this plot is really extensive so it's probably gonna be long as shit.