The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1) (32 page)

More tears fell. “I…I…I didn’t do anything.”

My father pointed a finger at me. “Yes you did! You gave me to those animals so you could save your own life.” He walked over to me, his demeanor changing back to rage, swinging his hand up. “You are not worthy of living in this place, you little bitch.” His hand swung down and slapped me hard across the face. Stars exploded beneath my eyelids. My head bounced back and hit the wall. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I screamed, trying to cover myself as he kept hitting me. He started shaking my body roughly and I tried to move away, but he kept a solid hold on me.

I jolted up, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. A hand touched my shoulder, but I flinched back and the hand disappeared. Light was shining through the window, illuminating the room: brick, wood, and trash littered the floor. Wiping my eyes, I tried to get rid of the tears, but they kept coming. Arms encircled me, and I tried to get out of the hold, remembering my father hitting me.

“Shhh,” a familiar, warm voice whispered in my ear. “It was just a dream. You’re okay.”

I closed my eyes and reopened them. I was still in the messy room and not the steel one. Letting out a sigh, my body relaxed into Gregory's. 

“Another nightmare?” he said. 

I shook my head and bit my tongue from saying a sarcastic remark. He was genuinely being nice. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

“That’s fine,” he said. We sat in heavy silence for a while; my dream kept popping up. Did I feel guilty for leaving my dad behind?
There’s nothing to be guilty about.
I shook my head.

Gregory never said a word. It seemed he was waiting for me to say something first. As I turned around to face him, he lifted his hand, wiped my hair behind me, and gave me a small smile. “Are you feeling better?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah. Just a nightmare.”

“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him and grabbed the sides of his face and peered all around. He tried to get out of my grasp, but I held on. I looked at every inch. “That’s weird.”

He furrowed his brow and tilted his head. “What?”

My eyes widened, and I crinkled my nose. “You look the same, yet you’re acting different.” Gregory pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. “Are you the same? Is someone invading your body?” I let go of his face and smiled.

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” he said dryly. “You’re very funny.”

I clasped my hands together. “I know.”

Gregory sat back against the wall across from me. “On a serious note, do you want to talk about it?”

I looked down at my clasped hands, my smile disappearing. “I couldn’t wake myself up. I kept telling myself to wake up, but I couldn’t.”

“What was the nightmare?”

“I was in a small, cold room with nothing but a bucket. Then my father appeared out of nowhere, blaming me for killing my mother and him.” I gazed into his eyes. “Is that my way of telling myself that I’m feeling guilty for leaving them for their deaths?”

“I don’t know. It could be your subconscious showing you how you really feel,” he said seriously. “Some of it might be guilt, but some of it might be fear. You’ve endured a lot from your parents. You might be scared that one day he’ll come after you. But for now, just think of it as a nightmare. Because that’s all that it is. Try not to succumb to the guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty about. I’m sure your father had resources and knowledge of what was coming, and he could’ve gotten you to safety. But he didn’t. So don’t blame yourself. You had no control over any of it.”

I nodded. But that didn’t change the way I felt.

“I was waiting for you to wake up,” Gregory said. “I’m going out and doing a food run.”

“And let me guess, you don’t want me to come,” I said, crossing my arms. I was getting tired of being left behind to wait for him to do everything. I wanted to help.

“It’s like you can read my mind,” he said. He stood up and walked to the entrance of the room.”

“I want to come.” 

He pinched the top of his nose and was silent for a minute, keeping his back to me. “I bet you do, but it’ll be faster if it’s only one of us.”

“Then why can’t I do it?” I asked stubbornly.

I heard him take a deep breath in and let it out very slowly. “Do you want me to make you a list?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a little sexist, do you know that?”

Gregory shrugged his shoulders. “As long as it keeps you safe, I’m fine with that.” He opened the door and stepped out of the room. He turned toward me. “You should be safe here. We weren’t followed last night, but that doesn’t mean you can go skipping around outside. Stay in here and don’t make a sound. We don’t need anyone accidently finding you.”

“Skipping? You really think I would go outside and skip and pretend I don’t have a care in the world? How dumb do you think I am?” He ignored me by shutting the door in my face. 

I stood up and walked to the door, sliding the lock into place. Footsteps clanged against the floor as Gregory made his way to the front. Shuffling back over to my spot, I lay back down, curling up into a ball. I was afraid to close my eyes—I didn’t want to have that dream again. Chills skipped up my spine just thinking about it.

As much grief I gave him, I really wouldn’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had Gregory with me. A part of me was anxious for him to come back already—okay, a large part. It was dangerous for both of us to be out there, and I didn’t want to be stuck here if he ended up getting hurt. I didn’t know what it meant when the lone butterfly in my stomach made friends with others when Gregory looked at me. And it didn’t matter what kind of look it was: angry, annoyed, content, happy. I liked that he looked at me and that was the problem. Yes, I’d lust over him—anyone would—but this was going way past lust. I didn’t have time to catch feelings. For anyone.

I was thrilled that he’d agreed to teach me how to fight so I could defend myself. I hoped we wouldn’t get separated, but I couldn’t take any chances. Plus, it was time I pulled my weight. I had to be strong for myself, because I couldn’t be a victim to this horrible situation. My eyes slowly closed and as I drifted off to sleep, my parents’ faces kept floating through my mind. As the dreamland took over, I was lucky enough to dream of nothing.

I jolted awake. At first I didn’t know what had woken me, but then I heard it again. Creaking steps echoed through the building, coming from the opposite of the door. When I grabbed both mine and Gregory’s backpacks, I quietly made my way to one of the hidden corners in the room. Fisting the backpacks, squeezing until my knuckles turned white, I could hear more creaking in different areas on the other side. More than one person stood on that side. I tried to keep my breathing quiet. My heart raced, and I tried to talk myself down from having another panic attack. I jumped when someone yelled on the other side and bumped into the wall. The voice was muffled, I couldn’t hear what the person was saying, so I quietly made my way over to the door and put my ear up against it. The voices were still muffled, but I could now make out what they were saying.

“What do you mean you lost them?” a deep voice asked.

“It wasn’t them,” another guy said. “It was him. I followed the guy, and I swear I saw him go into this building. I did what you said. I radioed it in and waited until you guys got here.”

“There is no one upstairs,” a different voice said. It didn’t look like there was an upstairs when we came in last night, but I’m glad we didn’t go up there.

“Tucker, you should have taken him out before he even got here,” the deep voice said.

“What if he isn’t the one we’re looking for? And if he is and we took him out, how would we find the girl?” Tucker said. 

“Well, now you’ve lost him,” the deep voice said. He seemed to be in charge. “And we have no idea where either of them could be.”

“Sir,” the third voice said. “What if someone stayed behind and waited him out. I’m thinking he probably spotted Jackass over there and realized it would be better to escape. He might have left something behind that’s valuable to him. He might take a chance to return and get it.” Yeah, maybe like me.

I started to shake. Someone had spotted Gregory, and he’d gotten out before they could get him. But I didn’t understand why they weren’t checking this room. They had checked the whole building but this room. It didn’t make sense.

“Tucker,” the man in charge said. “You get to stay behind, and this time, if you see him detain him until we can get here. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Yes sir,” Tucker answered.

“Alright, Smith, let’s go.” I could hear boots leaving the room and after a few minutes, I was sure they were all gone but Tucker.

I stepped away from the door quietly and made it back to the corner. There was a window in the room, but it was too high for me to climb up without making any noise. I needed to think of a plan. Maybe I could sneak past the guy, or use one of the weapons I had in the backpack on him. Could I really go through with killing someone with a gun or a knife? Could I even use a gun or a knife? Maybe I could at least injure him. Unzipping the backpack, I pulled out one of the knives; I had a better chance with a knife than a gun, I had no idea how to use a gun.

An hour later, I was squatting in a corner with a knife in my hand. I kept going over different plans. They all had the same result: I’d end up injuring myself and getting caught. A loud boom came from the other side of the door, shaking the building. With both backpacks on my back, I stood up and moved from the corner. The explosion came again and again. I moved toward the door and eased my ear against it. The roars sounded much louder that time. I heard a “What the hell” from Tucker just before a loud blast when off, shaking the building firmly. Debris fell from the ceiling, covering me in dust. The building moved again as another blast went off, this time brick falling down along with the dust. Quickly, I covered my head as bricks fell toward me. My hands flinched out in pain as a heavy brick smacked me across the knuckles. The place was going to collapse. I couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door except for fragments falling to the ground. If I wanted to get out of this place alive, I had to act now. 

Just as I reached for the lock on the door, a brick smashed through the window above me. I covered my head—too late—and looked behind me to see what had happened. Gregory was perched on the windowsill with a long rope dangling through the window.
How the hell did he get to the window?

“We need to get you out of there,” he said simply.
Well, no shit
. I gave him a look, but he ignored it. 

I ran over to the wall and grabbed the rope. The building was slowly collapsing, and bricks were jutting out. Stepping on the few bricks that were jutted out, I made my way up to the window. It took a few tries to get near the window, and Gregory pulled me the rest of the way up. I sat on the windowsill and looked down. It wasn’t a very big jump—I’d jumped worse—but glass covered the ground. I looked over at Gregory, and all he did was nod, so I jumped. Luckily, I was getting use to jumping because this time I landed on my feet. Gregory jumped right behind me. He pointed to our left, and we ran down the street, keeping in the shadows of the buildings around us.

We didn’t stop running until we were a few blocks down. I gulped down air like it was fresh water. I looked over at Gregory, who was also huffing and puffing. He was holding a duffel bag on his shoulder. I wanted to ask him what was in it, but I couldn’t get words out between breaths. Gregory let us rest for a few minutes before pushing us forward. We ran all the way to an abandoned underground station and down the stairs: it was dark and musty. Neither of us spoke as we made it to the bottom, slowing down in the process. We walked the platform until we hit the end, where Gregory jumped down onto the tracks. He held up his arms to help me down, which I greatly appreciated, and we made our way in the dark. 

I was hot, thirsty, and hungry. Not to mention exhausted. We’d been walking the tracks for at least a few hours. We didn’t stop once. I wanted to stop. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I knew we had to get far away from whoever we were running from this time. This was officially tiring. I wanted to burst out in tears. I was angry. I shouldn’t have had to run for my life every second of every day. I should have enjoyed what my life had brought me. This wasn’t fair. Not at all.

“Mia?” Gregory asked, breaking through my pitying thoughts.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Are you okay?”

No. “Yes,” I said. It wouldn’t be fair if I took it out on him. He had nothing to do with this.
Except he led someone back to your hideout.
“Are we going to stop soon?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“So what happened back there?” I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. I was really trying hard not to kick him. I kept repeating in my head it wasn’t his fault, but technicality it was. “I didn’t realize someone was following me until I got to the end of the alley. I knew I should have turned in a different direction, but I knew they would search the buildings, and I had to hide you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well,” he started. “I went in and moved a giant cabinet in front of the door. It was able to completely hide the door; they would’ve never noticed there was another room unless they knew beforehand.”

“Why didn’t you just get me so we could’ve run?” I asked. It seemed like the logical thing to do.

“I thought of that, but we wouldn’t have made it out in time. I heard him call in for backup. I barely got out of the building before they arrived. It was best to keep you hidden away until I could come back for you.”

“Oh.” I could have died if he hadn’t come back. I wouldn’t have been able to move the cabinet from the door. He should have just grabbed me, and we could have chanced it. 

“I bought some explosives from a guy at the market. He sells them under the table. I threw a few at the building, giving me enough time to come around and get you. It wasn’t the smartest plan, but it worked.”