The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1) (31 page)

Gregory helped me to the ground and shoved my hair back. “Mia, look at me.”

I looked everywhere but at him. Whatever was happening could be contagious, couldn’t it? And it would be bad if we both ended up dead. Gregory shook my right shoulder.

“Mia, look at me now.” I flinched at his sharp tone and looked up into his eyes. “You’re panicking. You just need to get your breathing under control. Everything will be fine. So take a deep breath with me.” Gregory took a breath in and let it out, and I did the same. I followed his lead. We breathed in and out for five minutes, but it felt like hours. My body seemed to finally calm down. My chest slowly eased out of the tight hold, and my shaking seemed to stop. I was able to breathe again. A few more tears slipped from my eyes. Gregory swiped them gently from my face. “Are you back?”

I smiled feebly. “I think so.”

Gregory stood up, helping me up too. He took my hand, and we started to walk again, much slower this time. “So tell me something.”

I felt exhausted. I could feel my eyelids get heavy.
Drained and officially crazy
. “Tell you something?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I want to know more about you.”

Keeping my focus on what was in front of me, my brain working slowly, I thought for a second. “I had a favorite doll.”
It’s so sexy to tell a man you used to have a favorite doll. Maybe next time you can tell him you wet the bed until you were ten.
I ignored myself.

“A favorite doll?” he asked.

I looked up at him. I could see a slight smile on his face. “Yeah. I got her on my fourth birthday from Agathy. My parents never believed in giving presents, or even love for that matter. The doll was the first gift I ever received. I named her Madeline, after my favorite book.”

"Madeline?"

"Agathy had some of these really old books from a very long time ago—the library back home didn’t even have any of these books. Anyway, one of them was called Madeline, and it was my favorite. She let me keep the book, and I always read it, even now, well, before everything had happened. I didn’t care how old I was when I read them, I loved the book. Madeline had become my hero. When things got bad with my parents, I would hide myself in the closet with the doll and the book and just hold on to both. Like I was holding on to my life.” I frowned. I would never see that book or doll again.

“What’s wrong?” Gregory asked.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s just that I won’t ever see that doll or book again.”

“You never know,” he said. “It could still be there waiting for you when we get back.”

I nodded my head not saying a word. “Tell me something about yourself.”

Gregory was quiet for a few minutes. I started to think he wouldn’t say anything, but he surprised me. “I had a dog once. I found him as a puppy when my family moved away. He was the only thing I’d cared for in a long time. He was so scrawny. You could see his bones through his skin when I found him. I fed him and gave him plenty of water. I named him Angus; he had this strength in him that kept him alive. He shouldn’t have been able to survive, but he did. He was a fighter. He had this rich, golden brown fur, and his eyes were as blue as the sky.”

I smiled. Angus sounded sweet. “Where is he?” I didn’t remember seeing him at Gregory’s place.

“He’s dead,” Gregory stated. A frown formed on his face.

I gasped. I wasn’t expecting that. “I’m sorry.”

Gregory shrugged his shoulders. “It’s fine. It taught me not to care for anything but myself.”

I nodded. I ignored the giant drop in my stomach, which was probably my heart, and cleared my throat. I hated when my body acted weird when he made comments like that. “So, how long is this alley?” It felt like it was never ending.

“We should be getting close to the end,” Gregory said.

“Good.” I tried going for nonchalant. “I’m ready for some sleep.”

Gregory just nodded his head, lost in his thoughts. The end of the alley was deserted, along with the streets we were now looking at. The buildings were falling apart. Gregory and I walked forward, then went left and walked for a while before coming up to a half-collapsed building. Gregory let go of my hand and glanced through the window. I looked behind us to make sure no one had followed us. It appeared we were in the clear.

“Come on,” Gregory said as he walked through the door of the building, I reluctantly followed. Why were we staying in this building? It could kill us while we slept. I crossed over the debris of wood and bricks one leg at a time. I had to duck under wood beams. A couple of times I tripped on a brick, but I always managed to keep myself upright. Gregory led us to the very back of the building, and the farther we went, the likelier we were to get crushed to death. At least no one would find our bodies. Gregory opened another door and went through, and I stayed right on his heels; he closed the door behind me and sat down in front of it.

“We should probably stay the night,” Gregory said, rubbing his face.

I looked around the room. It was dark outside but even darker in here, I could barely see. I went to the wall opposite Gregory and moved down slowly to the floor. I stretched out my legs and kept my eyes on my feet, which were sore and needed a rub. “I was thinking about something.”

I could feel Gregory’s eyes on me. “What?”

“I was hoping you could show me some fighting moves.”

“You want me to show you how to fight?”

I looked up at him. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Well, I think it would be good for me,” I said nervously. “I need to learn how to defend myself, especially since we seem to always be in the middle of a fight. What would happen if something happens and we get separated? I need to be able to save myself.”

“I agree,” he said.

I stared incredulously at him. I thought he’d say no and we’d have to fight about it. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You need to learn to defend yourself.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

He gave me a tight smile, causing my smile to dim. “No problem.”

I looked back at my feet. I wished I could read his mind.
No you don’t.
Yes I did.
No you don’t
. I had no idea what I wanted to know. 

Slipping off my backpack, I set it down next to me then slid down to my side and lay my head on it. Hoping I could catch some sleep, I closed my eyes—knowing sleep wouldn't come anytime soon. I wanted to say something, anything. “I care about you,” I blurted out. I slapped my hand over my mouth.
Way to go.
That wasn’t supposed to be said aloud. That wasn’t supposed to be said at all. What was wrong with me? Deep down I knew I cared about it him, even if it was just a little bit. I squeezed my eyes shut and crossed my fingers, hoping he was asleep. My whole body was strung tight as a bow, waiting to hear what he would say, if he would say anything at all. I heard him let out a long breath. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all and pretend he hadn’t heard anything. That, of course, would hurt just as badly as if he just plainly rejected my statement.

“Mia,” he said. I held my breath, waiting to be hit in the stomach with a bar. “I care about you too.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t want to care about you,” he said. My heart started to race as my stomach dropped. Not something I wanted to hear, but he kept talking. “You’re annoying and whiny. I just wanted to help you get somewhere safe and away from me. I didn’t want trouble. I knew if I stayed around you for very long, I would find myself feeling bad for you, eventually something close to caring. I haven’t cared for anyone since Angus. I would take random girls back to my place.” I definitely didn’t need to know that. “And they’d always try to be the one to get something more out of me. I’ve closed myself off to everyone, until you. You were on my mind way before I helped you escaped. Ever since you bumped into me that morning, I just couldn’t shake you. I tried to ignore it. Then I saw you in that dress outside of your house, and I couldn’t stop staring at you. You have no idea the effect you had on me. Then it wasn’t until I caught sight of you in that bar, with those idiot friends of yours, that I knew I was done. It was like you kept haunting me. I tracked you from the minute you stepped into that place. I don’t even know what compelled me, but I changed seats just to have a better angle to look at you. And I was terrified and pissed off in that moment as I stared. You had this look of a broken person. Someone who was just done with life and ready to give up. I just didn’t understand how someone from your social standing could look so broken. I’d never noticed it from the times before. 

“Then, the next day, when I saw you with the bruises, I wanted to go apeshit on the person who did that to you, which confused me even more. Then I understood why you were broken and barely hanging on for dear life. I understood why you wanted to get away. I understood how much you hated those people. But once I got to know you more, I knew you had to be the one to run Lorburn. You're smart, considerate, and understanding. You want to see a change, and that’s what this Nation needs. That’s why I think you need to go back and claim your spot. I understand how much you don’t want to go back, because of the memories and fear. But one day you'll have to confront those fears, or those fears will ruin your life, and you don’t want that to happen.”

I was speechless. I didn’t think I had ever heard him say so many nice things at once before. About me. Everything he’d said went straight through my heart. The good and the bad. He saw through me. I was broken, but now I was slowly on the mend. “Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“But don’t let that all go to your head,” he said. “You’re still the biggest pain in the ass, and you make me want to slam my head against walls at time.”

I smiled and placed my hands over my heart. “My heart.”

I could see him shake his head. “Smartass.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be the person you cared about if I didn’t make snide remarks.”

Gregory laughed. His laugh, beautiful to hear. So masculine, so free. “We should probably get some sleep.”

“Shouldn’t we take turns to watch?” I asked as I positioned my backpack as a pillow.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “No one followed us.”

“How can you be so sure?” I shivered thinking of my dream of the shadowed person.

“Don’t worry.” 

I closed my eyes and listened to his breathing, my own evening out. We’d officially moved past whatever we were before and were now friends. It finally felt good to say I had a friend. We annoyed each other and yelled at one another, but what friends didn’t?

“Get me out of here!” I screamed, pounding on the walls. I didn’t know where I was, except I was in a small four-by-four room, the walls and floor made up of steel. A bucket was the only other object in the room. I didn’t know what had happened. I couldn’t remember how I’d ended up here. Flashes of running filtered through my mind, but I couldn’t remember who or what I was running from. I sat on the freezing, solid ground, the cold seeping into my pants and tank top. I hugged my knees to my chest, trembling.
Need to get to Gregory.
The thoughts kept floating up like bubbles in my head, but I couldn’t recall who Gregory was. My heart was trying to tell me that he was someone important, but who was he? Even if I could remember who Gregory was, how would I get to him? There were no doors to let me out of this room. How had I gotten in here? Tucking my head in my arms, I tried to keep my breathing even, and I rocked back and forth, not wanting to panic.

“Mia, are you ready to talk?” My father’s voice filtered through the air.

My head popped up and I gasped as I stared at my father, who was standing in front of me. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be dead. Dead? He looked exactly the same as he had when I’d last seen him, which was when? His light brown hair was gelled back, and his brown eyes glared into mine. He was still tall and well built. The only difference was a horizontal scar across his throat. “Dad?”

“Mia, I asked you a question,” he said while jabbing a finger in my direction. His nostrils flared, and his lips were pulled back, baring his teeth.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I said, my voice wobbling.

“Are we really going to go through this routine again?” he asked. He leaned his back up against the wall and sighed. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” I looked around the empty room, trying to figure out what was going on, but came up blank. I couldn’t remember anything. It was like someone had stolen my memories.

“Why did you kill your mother, Mia?” He shook his head. “How could you be so cruel?” His demeanor changed. He was no longer enraged. He was more somber.

Tears formed in my eyes.
I didn’t kill my mother, did I? He’s lying! Now wake up!
But I was awake. I shook my head. Nothing made sense. My father slowly paced around the tiny room. Tears cascaded down my face. “I didn’t do it.”

My father just shook his head. “Yes, you did, and you know it. You killed her right after you slit my throat.” He pointed to his throat, which was now dripping with blood. “Did you have fun doing this?”