The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1) (10 page)

“I have everything packed and ready for you to go,” she said as she smoothed down my already smooth comforter.

“Where am I going?” I said slowly, making sure even a deaf person could understand the words.

“Somewhere safe,” she said. “Things are getting out of hand, and people are getting angry. They’re coming, and they won’t stop until everyone is dead.”

“I’m sorry, what?” What was she talking about? Who were coming? Who did they want dead? Was it the rebels? Did she know about them?

She waved her hand in front of her. “You won’t understand. You’re still too young to understand.”

“Hey! I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in just a few months. I’m pretty sure I can comprehend anything you have to say to me.”

Agathy sighed and started pacing back and forth. “People are angry with your father. Some are changing sides. There are people who are talking about getting rid of everyone who comes from the council, starting with Lorburn’s Leader and family. They want a new ruler. And the man who started this all is such a cruel person. He will turn Lorburn upside down if he gets to rule. We'd be living in terror. No one would be safe. It's important to get you out of here before they arrive. Otherwise, you'll end up dead.”

I stared at her. Silence sliced through the room. Maybe I couldn’t comprehend anything she was saying. Could I go back and say I didn’t want to hear any of it? “Why kill me?” It had to be the rebels.

Agathy gave me a sad smile. “Because once your father’s dead, you’re to rule Lorburn.”

“And this man who wants to rule would have to kill me first?” Maybe getting me out of here was a good thing. “I can’t leave my family behind.”

Agathy scowled. “Mia, I have always felt like you were a daughter to me. I watched you grow up into the beautiful woman you are today. And I have had to watch your parents beat you one too many times. You need to think of yourself if you want to survive.”

“Bu—” My bedroom door opened. 

My father walked in. He looked me up and down and glowered. “Where are you going?”

I shut my dropped jaw, which had popped open when he’d walked through the door, and looked down. My coat, hat, and gloves were still on. “I was just going to sit out back for a little while. Play in the snow.”

My father’s jaw tightened. “Aren’t you too old for that?”

“I will get her out of the coat, sir,” Agathy said. She helped take off my coat, and I slid my hat and gloves off. Thankfully, I’d been in the house long enough for my fingers, ears, and nose to warm up so they no longer looked red. Well, at least I hoped they didn’t look red.

“I want you downstairs. We have company.” With that, my father gave me one last glare and left. Agathy had set my coat, hat, and gloves down onto the bed. 

“Come on, come on. Let’s get you downstairs.” Agathy pulled me through my bedroom door and lead me downstairs.

“When am I supposed to leave?” I asked. I didn’t see how it was possible for me to leave the house without anyone noticing.

“Shh,” she said. “We’ll talk about the rest later.”

She led me into my father’s office. There were at least twenty people in the room. Not only were my parents here, but so were Tyler, George, Mandy, Sarah, and their families, plus others I’d seen around before. Members of the council were there too. My father stood in front of his large mahogany desk, my mother standing next to him. Everyone else sat across from them, looking up at them. Only a few people, including Tyler, had turned when we’d walked in the door. I avoided eye contact with Tyler, I knew what my face looked like, and I didn't want to see his reaction. Agathy gripped my arm, and we both went to the last chair in the back. Giving me one last squeeze, Agathy left and closed the door behind her. When I looked up at my father, he did not look like a very happy person at the moment. Then again, he rarely ever looked like a very happy person. He caught my eye and glared before moving his attention and rearranging his facial features when he faced everyone else. His face was devoid of emotion. 

“I have a few announcements.” His eyes raked across the room. “They will affect everyone in this room.”

Everyone in the room exchanged nervous glances; this sort of thing had never happened before. If there was an announcement, my father would just send out letters, never personally invite people to his home. Tyler caught my eye, and I could see his eyes graze over me, shock flashing in them. Casting my eyes away, I lowered my head and watched my hands as they fiddled with my shirt; I could feel the burn of humiliation creep up my face.

“The first announcement,” my father said. “There is a war coming.”

Everyone gasped at the word war. We hadn’t had a war in centuries. Wars were not well known. We learned about the long-ago wars in school, but we had never experienced any in our own lifetimes. Since then, things had changed, leadership had changed, rules had changed.

“What kind of war?” a deep voice asked.

“Someone who hates the way we run Lorburn has started his own army,” my father spit out. “People who hate us have decided to join his army to fight against us. We have soldiers everywhere, but it seems that these rebels have more.”

“Who is the leader?” another voice asked. I looked over to the man next to me, where the voice came from. He looked familiar; he had short blond hair and sea-blue eyes and looked only a few years older than me. I knew I'd seen him before, but I couldn't put my finger on where. 

“Kieran Roderick,” my father said.

“That can’t be,” one of the ladies said, others agreeing with her.

I looked up at my father. He looked grim. They all knew this man. But how? How could they know the leader of this new army?

“How can you be sure it’s Kieran?” the man sitting next to me asked.

“We have Intel that has pointed to Kieran,” my father said. “Which now brings me to the next announcement. Obviously Kieran will want to break Lorburn apart and become its next Leader, which is why it is important to have my successor begin learning how to lead.”

My head perked up at that. I was the one who would inherit Lorburn when my father passed away. My father's face was carefully blank as I gazed up at him. His eyes moved around the room and locked on a pair in the front row: Tyler's. Looking back and forth between my father and Tyler, I put two and two together; blood drained from my face.
But haven’t you always liked Tyler?
 

“My daughter Mia will be marrying Tyler Slattery. I have already talked to his family, and they all agree this will be the best for Lorburn,” my father continued, but I didn’t hear anything other than white noise. I should have been happy that he would pick Tyler, someone who I’d had a crush on for a very long time. If he had announced this yesterday, I would have been ecstatic. But I wasn’t happy. Maybe it was the fact that Tyler would rule Lorburn that made me unhappy. Or maybe it was the fact that my father gave me no warning before the meeting. Or maybe it was because I didn’t get to pick the person I would marry. But the only words that repeated in my head were
He put you in harm’s way.
As much as I liked Tyler, I couldn’t help but remember that Gregory was right: Tyler picked a fight with someone so much bigger than him, and I ended up getting in the way. Would he do the same thing if we were married? Would he put himself above me and always protect himself? I could hear people talking, but I couldn’t pinpoint actual words. I liked Tyler, but I couldn’t help but be worried about my future with him. Maybe we could grow to love each other.
Maybe we can’t
. I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. I looked over, my eyes connecting to my neighbor's.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“How do I know you?” I should have answered him, but there was something so familiar about him. I knew him. 

He smirked. “We met a few years ago. You were only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but you loved my scarf.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember a scarf. I shook my head. Nothing popped up about a scarf. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes for only a second, but then his smirk grew. “That’s okay. I’m Alex.”

The name didn’t ring a bell. “Nice to meet you.”

“So, are you okay?”

I bit my lip and looked down at my lap. Was I okay? I wasn’t sure. I looked back up at him to find him studying me. I nodded my head. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said. He gave me one last glance, his gaze lingering on my bruised cheek, and then turned his attention up front. I turned forward, my eyes roaming the room until they connected to a very disgruntled pair of eyes: Mandy. She looked like she was ready to chop me up and feed me to the poor. I glanced away. She would definitely hate me forever, but I honestly didn’t care.

If there was an attack coming, like Agathy seemed to think there was, how could Tyler and I get married? I didn’t turn eighteen for a few more months. Because of the law, I couldn’t marry until I was at least eighteen. You usually have to wait until twenty, but under certain circumstances, it could be moved to eighteen. So was Agathy just really worried for something that might happen years from now? But if that was the case, why was she packing my stuff now?

“Mia?” Tyler’s voice broke through my thoughts. I looked up, some people started to leave while others chatted with each other.

“Hey,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Was he angry that we were matched together? Was he disappointed that he got me instead of Mandy?

“Can we go talk somewhere private?”

I looked over his shoulder to find my father watching us, a smug smile on his face. “Why don’t we go into the library? No one really goes in there.”

Tyler smiled. “That sounds great.”

I got up from my chair and exited the room without saying a word to my father. As I shut the door to the library, I took a deep breath and let it out. Turning from the door, I watched as Tyler walked from bookshelf to bookshelf, admiring the books.

“Your family has a lot of books,” he commented while he picked one up at random.

The last time I was in here was with Aileen, she had been looking for something, and I wondered if she had really hidden something in her long ago. “They’re really not my type,” I said. 

“What kind do you like?” Tyler put the book down and sat in one of the deep brown leather armchairs while I stayed standing next to the door.

“The older kinds, from a different time period,” I said. “The ones about mysteries, fantasies, and romances.” 

“Typical girl,” he said, smiling.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you figure?”

“All girls are into romances,” he said, crossing his arms. 

“But I also like fantasies and mysteries. You know the books about solving murders or the books about fairies.”

He crinkled his brow. “Fairies? Murders?”

“Have you never been to the city’s library?”

He laughed a nice, soft laugh. “No, I haven’t.”

I wasn’t sure I understood what was funny about that. “Okay then.”

“Okay what?”

“Until you read one of those books, you can’t say I’m a typical girl.” I chewed on my lip. 

He raised his hands in front of him. “Okay, okay.” His eyes raked over my face, his smile dropping. “I’m sorry about last night.”

I looked away from him and sat down against the door. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is,” he said. “If I hadn’t pushed you into going, you would have never gotten hurt at that bar.”

“What?” 

He brought his hand up and motioned toward my face. “I didn’t realize you were hit until I saw your face tonight. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to argue and tell him that it was my father, but what would have been the point? He probably wouldn’t have believed me. Plus, it was nice that he apologized. “It’s fine.”

“All of them are bunch of criminals.” He crossed his arms.

“Who?”

“The poor. They're all criminals, and I think they should all be punished to show an example.”

“They are not all criminals. There are some bad people there just like there are some bad people here.” 

“Were you not in the room?” He pointed toward the door. “They have created an army to try and take over. How can that not be wrong?”

“I didn’t say it was right. All I said was that there are still some good people out there.”

“Like who?”

“Well, I—” 

My words were cut off by a loud crash followed by screaming. I looked at Tyler, who had a look of panic slapped across his face. I stood up, creaked open the door, and peered out around it. Smoke was coming from down the hall, as people were running by and screaming. It wasn’t until I heard the guns go off that it dawned on me that this was what Agathy had been afraid of. Shutting the door, I turned around and faced a petrified looking Tyler. 

“Something’s wrong,” I said. I had to clear my throat a couple of times. “I think we need to find a place to hide in here.”

“NO!” he said. “We need to get out of here.”

“And go where? Out there where we can hear screaming and gunfire? I don’t think so.” I needed to find Agathy.

When I stepped closer toward Tyler, a loud blast went off behind me and I flew forward; my head slammed into the floor, my vision darkening out. Plaster from the wall behind me came fluttering down on top of me. My ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear anything but the ringing. My body ached, and I desperately wanted to get up and move, but something pinned my legs down. I coughed a couple of times to get the dust out of my mouth while my vision started to clear, but dark stars still floated about.

“Mia?” I heard Tyler yell out. I could hear him coughing. I tried to turn my head toward him, but something was on top of me. 

“Help,” I coughed out. My ears were still ringing, but I was slowly starting to hear more and more: people were screaming and guns were going off. I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t budge. I wanted to scream out, but I didn’t want to get the wrong person.

“Oh my God,” I heard someone say. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Tyler said, “but I don’t think she is.” Must have been talking about me.
How nice of him.

I felt a hand on my forehead. “Mia?”