The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1) (27 page)

“You’re not getting out alive,” Jake said. “Kieran always gets what he wants.”

Gregory shrugged his shoulders, but I stopped him. “Jake has something that communicates with the people downstairs.” Gregory let go of my hand and went to Jake. I heard another grunt as Gregory smashed something.

Gregory walked back over, grabbed my hand, and opened the door. “Let’s go.”

The hallway was completely darkened when Gregory opened the door. “Why is it dark?” I whispered as we made our way out of the room and Gregory shutting the door behind us.

“I cut the power,” Gregory said. “I figured it would be easier this way.” I nodded my head, doubting he could see me. 

Screams traveled up from downstairs, along with bangs and groans. Aedan’s men must have gotten here and were fighting back. We slowly made our way down the stairs, keeping our backs to the wall. My hand started to sweat in Gregory’s as my fingers dug into it, helping me keep my hold on him. “How are we getting out of here? The front door?” I asked, peering down the stairs. The door stood wide open. With all the chaos around us, no one would even notice us slipping out.

“No,” Gregory said. As we got to the last step, he turned us into the room closest to the stairs and shut the door. “It’s too dangerous for us to walk out the front door. There might be fights going on in here, but I bet there are still men set up outside.”

“Oh,” I said. I never thought of that. “So how are we getting out of here?”

“We are still going with the plan Mrs. Wibert set up.” Gregory moved across the room, pulling me with him.

As a thought occurred to me, I tugged on Gregory’s hand, stopping him. He glimpsed over at me, his eyes roaming my face. “Are you okay?”

“Aedan keeps cameras up to watch the comings and goings of the house.” I looked up at the ceilings, trying to find the small black devices, but with the room being so dark, I couldn’t find any.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “When I cut the power, the cameras stopped working.”

“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to go so far only to find out we were being followed.

“I’m positive. Now let’s go before anyone decides they want to come in here.” He moved us to the bookcase and let go of my hand. I quickly wiped my hand on my pants, trying to get as much sweat off as possible before he touched it again. 

Gregory tore through books until finally stopping when five flipped out sideways like a flap. I tried to peek over his shoulder, but I could barely see anything. Gregory skated his hand inside the bookshelf. After a few moments, Gregory pushed on one of the sections of books, and a secret passageway opened up to us. I beamed up at him. If we weren’t on the run for our lives, I would be truly amazed. This must have been the tunnel Mrs. Wibert had talked about. Gregory motioned for me to go first, so I stepped in. A blast of cold, musty air hit me in the face, and I almost smiled. Almost. I stepped further in and looked behind to watch Gregory pulling the shelf back to conceal us.

“Is there any light?” I squinted around, barely able to distinguish anything. 

“In a sec.” He shut the shelf completely, came toward me, and grabbed my hand. “We have to go through another door before we can have any light.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to keep up with his long strides. “How far do we have to go?”

“Mrs. Wibert said it was a little ways down.” Gregory started to pick up his pace. “She said it wouldn’t be safe if we had a light on in this part of the tunnel.”

“Oh,” I said. We both walked in silence for a little bit. Well, he walked—I jogged. “So, where did you go?”

“Huh?”

“Yesterday morning when you left,” I said. “Where did you go?”

Gregory raked his hand through his hair. “Mrs. Wibert had me hide out at one of her maids’ house. The maid was happy to do it. She was planning on leaving tomorrow as it was. She fed me and gave me a bed to sleep in. I was lucky.”

“Oh,” I said. I wanted to feel terrible that he had to hide while I stayed behind feeling betrayed. If he had let me in on any details of the plan, I may have a felt a twinge of guilt. But I didn’t. I still felt a little peeved by the secrecy and the way he acted.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“When can we slow down?” 

“Once we get to the other door, we can slow down.” He gripped my hand tighter. “We have to put as much distance between us and them as possible.”

“But I thought Aileen said no one knew about this tunnel.” I could hear myself whine.
Very mature, Mia.
 

“She thinks no one knows, but we can’t really rely on what she thinks,” he said. “I have a feeling Mr. Wibert knows more about this place and just pretends he doesn’t. But once we get to the other door, I’ll be able to block it.”

“How?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

I shook my head and kept up with him. Twenty minutes later, we made it to the other door. I wanted to hug the floor and never get back up. Putting my hands on my legs, I tried taking deep breaths. Gregory opened the door and ushered me through and then shut it behind him. Pulling down the lamp that was hanging next to the door, he lit it and handed it over to me while he locked a bunch of locks and finally moved a metal cabinet in front of it. He grabbed the lamp, and we started walking forward at a much slower pace. We began speaking at the same time.

“How far will we be walking?” I asked.

“Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about back there?” he asked.

We looked over at each other, and I raised my brow. Gregory spoke first. “Mrs. Wibert said it’s about a day’s walk down here. It'll take us straight out of the city and right to the station. It should be about nightfall by the time we get there, so we should be able to catch the last train without any notice.”

“Okay,” I said.

“So,” he said, looking at me. “Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about back there? Or are you going to ignore my question?”

I kept my head down. Did I really want to start a fight between us? “What are we?”

“Huh?” he asked, clearly confused.

“We bicker and only get along half the time,” I pointed out. “I know only very little about you, and you know very little about me. So my question is, what are we? Are we friends? Acquaintances? Because it would really be helpful to know before we continue on.”

“Does it matter?” He growled. 

“Yes,” I said, matter-of-fact. “It does matter. I don’t know if I trust you. I don’t think I ever fully trusted you. If we’re in this together, there should be trust. And lately, we’ve really only been living day by day. So once again, what are we?”

Gregory shook his head, clearly annoyed. He didn’t say anything, but I kept my mouth shut, waiting for him to talk. It was ten long, silent minutes before he finally opened his mouth. “I don’t know what we are. But seeing how Kieran knows both of us, I’d say we are both in deep shit. So, it would be best to stick together. Help each other out.”

He had a point. Kieran now knew who he was. And Gregory did save my life three times, so it looked like kicking him out of my life would be a bad idea. “I agree. And I think we should start all over.”

Gregory scrunched his brows. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s start over,” I said. “Let’s pretend we never met and this is our first time. Let’s forget about what happened in the past and just look forward.”

“That’s a stupid idea.”

I sighed loudly. “Why is it a stupid idea?”

Gregory smirked. “Because no matter how much you want to start over, we’d never be able to. Plus, I like remembering all of the times you’ve fallen flat on your face. It’s quite comical to see.” Gregory laughed, and I turned my glare toward him, pelting him with invisible knives. “You know, you’re quite cute when you get angry. It’s almost fun to get you to this point.”

I ignored the lone butterfly fluttering in my stomach. “You’re such a jackass,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile. 

Gregory reached over and pinched my cheeks. “What is that? Is that a smile? I don’t think I’ve seen one on that face before.” 

I shoved him away from me and shook my head, trying to fight the smile. 

After a few hours of walking, Gregory finally let us rest. I sat down and leaned up against the wall.

“Here.” Gregory handed me a bottle of water.

I took a long gulp and drank the rest in the matter of seconds; I was so parched. I drank the water greedily without realizing that we might be sharing. I looked up to see him drinking his own bottle. My stomach growled. It wasn’t a quiet growl—it was a wake-my-neighbors growl. Gregory looked down at me and smirked, handing me half a loaf of bread.

“Where did you get the water and bread?” I asked. I bit into the bread, moaning in delight. Wishing I hadn't drunk all of my water so I could have something to wash the bread down, I took another bite. It was like Gregory read my thoughts, because he tossed me another filled bottle.

“Take it easy on that bottle,” Gregory said as he opened his new one. “There are only a couple left. Mrs. Wibert had left a backpack of food and water for us at the second door.”

I hadn’t even noticed Gregory carrying a backpack until now. He sat down next to me, his knee bumping up against mine. “She must have been down here when I went to kitchen for water the first time.” Gregory looked at me questioningly, so I explained, “I had woken up from a nightmare and made my way downstairs to get a cup of water. Every time I had a nightmare when I was younger, Agathy would bring me water to drink. She would say, ‘Drown your nightmares, my dear.’ I’ll never forget that. Anyway, I went downstairs and got some water. When I went back upstairs, I noticed the time, but it didn’t hit me right away that you were late. It took me until I went back to bed, noticing that I was still wearing shoes to bed that you were late. So, I made my way back downstairs again to run away on my own, thinking you were never going to show up, and Jake and Aedan caught me. Jake went off to the kitchen, and Aedan stayed back to talk to me. That was when I noticed Aileen walking behind him. She eventually grabbed a large vase and smashed it over his head. She must have been coming from here when she got back. She must have overheard us.” Gregory just shrugged his shoulders and ate on. “I’m glad you thought to look around for a backpack.”

“She told me she would leave supplies,” he said between bites. “I guess your backpack is filled with weapons, money, and fake IDs?”

I looked up at him in shock. “How’d you know?”

“Because mine is the same,” he said with a smile. “She must have thought about food and water after she gave you your backpack and remembered to put it in mine.”

“I’m so happy she eventually remembered.” I smiled. She’d really helped us. I hoped nothing happened to her. “Did she tell you who we were meeting up with?”

“Yeah,” he said, dusting his hands off. “Someone named Emma Farraday. Do you know her?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“I don’t either, but Mrs. Wibert said Emma knows we’re coming. So I guess when we get there, we wait to see if someone approaches us, and hopefully it'll be her.”

I didn’t like that idea. “What do you think happened to Aileen?” I was afraid to know the answer.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t see her when I came in. We just have to hope that she was able to escape in time.”

“Okay,” I said, frowning. She had helped us so much that it was painful not to know if she’d gotten out in time. “How long are we resting?”

“Just a little bit longer,” he said. “We need to make up time and get to the station before the train leaves. Otherwise, we will be in deeper shit.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up. I did a few stretches, trying to avoid looking at Gregory’s amused face. He just didn’t understand how hard it was to keep up with his long legs. My short legs hated me at the moment, but thankfully they were cooperating. We started walking again in silence, both deep in our own thoughts.

By the time we made it to the end of the tunnel, I was drenched in sweat, my legs burned, and my stomach was eating its way out of my body, but I was so happy to be out in the fresh air. It was dark out, and since we were both dressed all in black, we were hard to notice. We walked toward the station, which was crowded with people. The train had just pulled up, and people were coming and going through the train doors. I noticed a few soldiers in blue walking around the station, so I kept my head down and held on to Gregory’s hand. Gregory gave me a surprising, supportive squeeze and guided us to one of the lines to enter the train. People were slowly making their way on.

“What are we going to do about tickets?” I whispered.

“I already have them.”

I nodded and faced forward. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and tingles ran up my scalp. It felt like someone was watching us, but I didn’t want to turn around to look.
Paranoid much?
We were only a few feet away from the entrance when we heard the yelling and screaming. I peeked over to see a man and two women being dragged away by soldiers, fighting and screaming. I looked over at Gregory to find his face set in anger. It was our turn to get on the train, and it took a few pulls to get Gregory to move forward.