The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1) (12 page)

“Who would be coming for you?”

“I’m not exactly sure.” I’m sure it was the rebels who were after me, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud. “I was supposed to find someone named Alithea, and she was supposed to help me.”

His hand softly cupped my chin and forced my face to look up into his. “Why would people be coming for you?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Probably because of my parents.”

He kept his hand on my face. It felt nice. Like hypnotizing nice. “Why?”

I took a deep breath in and then let it out. “I’m Mia Cowan. My parents are Andrew and Melinda Cowan.” I could see understanding dawn on his face. “My father is in control of Lorburn and…if something happens to my parents, I end up ruling, so those people would be after me.” Gregory just looked at me for a good solid minute. Then he let go of my face, grabbed my hand, and we were off. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to find this Alithea and get you out of here.”

“Umm…do you know who she is?” And why was he now so eager to help?

“Nope.”

My shoulders slumped. Couldn’t one thing go right today? Maybe she would hold up a sign and it would say “Mia, I’m here to rescue you,” but I doubted it. That would be too easy. We walked all over the inn area and asked around. I didn’t think it was wise to do it, but Gregory didn’t care. Blasts were starting to get closer and closer, and Gunfire was everywhere. We finally gave up the search when we saw men coming toward the inn with guns. Gregory led the way down an alley. I kept tripping over my feet, but Gregory helped me keep going. At one point, Gregory had me give him both duffels so I wouldn’t be weighed down anymore. I still had my backpack and purse, but it wasn’t hard to walk anymore. We took off running at one point when we heard screaming coming from a block away.

After a half hour of running, he took me into a rundown building. Shutting the door, he locked us in and he led the way to the very back and through another door, which he locked behind us. I looked around the small room. A bed sat in the corner, with a lamp next to it, and on the opposite side was a door that led to a bathroom. Clothes were piled on the floor next to the bathroom and papers littered the floor next to the bed, other than that there was nothing else in the room. 

“Is this your place?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. He walked past me and turned on the lamp, illuminating the room.

“So…umm…what do we do now?” I kept looking at the bed and then to him. My mind kept coming up with fun ideas, but I kept shushing it. Now wasn’t the time, and technically I was with Tyler. Unless he was dead, which would be a bummer.
Maybe when I have food and water in me, I'll feel something for what happened to Tyler.
 

“We hide out.” He went over to the bathroom and turned on the light, brightening up the room more. “There isn’t much room, but it’s better to be in here than out there.”

That I could agree with. “Shouldn’t we find Alithea?” I slid my backpack to the floor, along with my purse, and then slipped my jacket off and dropping it on the floor. I looked around the floor and decided it was good enough and sat down. My stomach grumbled in the quiet.

“It’s getting dark. We can go in the morning.” He sat down on his bed, setting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“Why are you helping me?”

He looked over at me. “You need help.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you get caught helping me, you could, I don’t know…die, and it would be my fault. I appreciate your help, but I don’t know why you’re doing it.”

He just shrugged his shoulders. “Would you rather be on your own, trying to save your own life?” I just shrugged my shoulders. “That’s what I thought. You have no one else to turn to. I’m the only one you can trust for right now. If people are looking for you, it won't be too long before they put out a reward for anyone who can find you. And around here anyone would jump a chance to get money. I won’t do that.”

Wow, there was like a whole other side to Gregory. He seemed genuinely nice. “I didn’t know you had a nice side.” 

He scowled. “I don’t. Maybe if you stopped getting yourself into trouble, I wouldn’t have to keep helping your grouchy ass.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because the bombings and guns are all my fault.” He looked ready to say something, but I cut him off. “Listen, I’m starving. Is there any way we can get food?”

He looked like he wanted to say something but just shook his head. He bent over the side of the bed and sat back up. He threw me a paper bag, identical to the one he was holding. I opened it up and smiled: a sandwich, chips, an apple, and a bottle of water were stored in it. Pulling out the sandwich, I took a deep bite and moaned in happiness.

“Where did you get this?”

He looked over me and smiled. “It was in your bag.”

I should have been angry that he’d already gone through my bag, but I was too hungry and tired. We ate in silence. We could barely hear the gunfire anymore. We would be safe for the night: I hoped. Gregory finished before me and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I rolled my empty bag into a circle and leaned my head against the wall. Now that I was full, my eyelids seemed extremely heavy. I could hear the door open as Gregory emerged from the bathroom.

“Take the bed,” he said.

I looked up at him. “I’m fine right here. It’s your place. You should take the bed.”

He let out an exaggerated breath. “Take the damn bed, or I’ll come over there, throw you over my shoulder, toss you on the bed, and make sure you can’t leave it.”

“Fine,” I gritted out. I liked the second option much better, but I would never tell him that. What happened to me hating him? Then again, he had saved my life twice, so maybe I was okay with not hating him. I stood up from my spot, my body pleading with me to just sit back down and walked over to the bed, where I plopped down. I slipped off my shoes and curled up in the bed. It was comfortable. He’d be lucky to get me out of bed in the morning. I closed my eyes as sleep invaded my brain. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His voice came from next to me. 

I felt the bed dip and him settling in next to me. My eyes snapped open, and I was face-to-face with Gregory. “What are you doing?”

He smiled. “Going to sleep.”

“The floor is that way.” I pointed behind him.

His smile grew. “I never said I was sleeping on the floor.” I made a move to get out, but he stopped me. “Neither one of us will get a good night’s sleep if we’re on the floor. And I have a feeling tomorrow will be a long day for both of us. So just suck it up. It’s not like I haven’t slept with anyone before.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Well, I haven’t.”

“Just relax and pretend I’m not here.”

I turned over to face the wall. “How can I pretend you’re not here when your mountain of a body is next to me?”

Gregory laughed a very masculine laugh. A smile started to form on my mouth before I could stop it.
Damn him
. “Stop laughing and go to sleep. I can’t sleep if the mountain shakes the bed.”

“I bet you would love it if the mountain shook the bed,” he whispered in my ear. My eyes bulged out as I heard him laugh more and move away from me. My face burned and turned the color of a tomato. I was no longer sleepy.

I stared at the wall for about an hour before I heard Gregory’s breathing even out. I turned over and looked at him. He looked peaceful and younger in his sleep. He was such an odd person. I smiled, thinking of his laugh. He had a nice laugh. I closed my eyes, smelling him in, and drifted off to sleep.

Slowly opening my eyes, I looked around; there wasn't much to see in the pitch dark. As I tried to sit up, something moved around my waist and pulled me back, my back colliding into something hard. That moved. Trying to hold my panic down, I looked around frantically but it was impossible to see. So I closed my eyes and tried to remember the day before: the attack, the running, Gregory, the inn on fire, Gregory’s place. My eyes popped open. The thing moving back and forth against my back was a chest, to be more specific, Gregory’s chest. I had two options: one, I could slip out of his embrace—somehow—and make it clear this was very inappropriate under these circumstances, or two, I could pretend to go back to sleep and curl up and absorb his heat. 

I froze as I felt him move closer behind me. His warm breath skated across the back of my neck; goose bumps popped up and attacked my body. I knew I should really, really get out of this situation—he had been a jerk most of the time I’d known him—but at the same time, he had saved my life.
How much do you actually know him, though?
I shrugged my shoulders in response to my question and instantly regretted it as his arm pulled me closer. How much closer could I actually get? I didn’t want to know.
Liar
. I scowled at myself.

“Why do you keep moving?” Gregory mumbled into my hair, causing more goose bumps to let loose.

“I got ants in my pants.”

Gregory laughed. “I could help you get rid of them.”

I pushed his arm away and crawled out of his embrace, trying to keep my heart from thumping out of my chest. Did he just really say that? “Only if you want your hand chopped off.”

“Aw, you’re no fun,” he said. I slid out of the bed and hit the wall. Face first. I bounced back, and the backs of my knees hit the bed, which pushed me forward and I tumbled to the floor. I could hear his laughter all the way down here. 

“Stop laughing,” I grumbled. I crawled on hands and knees until I hit the door to the bathroom. As I slowly stood up, I moved my hand around the wall until I hit the switch. Light illuminated from the bathroom and I had to cover my eyes as the bright light penetrated them. Slowly, I opened one eye at time until I could take the lights. I turned around to see Gregory with an arm across his eyes and smirked. “What time is it? There are no windows. Is it morning? Is it night? When should we go out looking for Alithea? Do you think I’m still in danger?” The questions poured out of me.

“Do you always ask questions this early in the morning?”

“Yes.” I asked questions all of the time. Just because it was morning didn’t mean I wouldn’t ask them. I looked around the small room, grabbed my duffel bag that was sitting next to the wall, and brought it in with me as I closed the door behind me.

“It’s six,” Gregory yelled from the other side of the door.

“Why did I get up so early?”

“Does it look like I live in your body to give you information about what it does and why?”

I ignored his question and unzipped the bag, pulling out a pair of black pants and shirt. Slipping out of my current pants, I changed them with the new pair and then rolled up the dirty ones. After I took off my shirt, I looked down at my body; my bruises were getting uglier, with a mixture of green in the mix of blue. My fingers trailed across the sore spots, back and forth, and thankfully, they didn't hurt as much as yesterday, but they were still sore. I picked up the new shirt and had just put it over my head when I heard the door open. Hurriedly, I tried getting my shirt back on, but it got stuck on my ponytail I’d had up since last night; My arms were dangling above my head, my hands trying to grab the shirt.

“Need any help?” I could hear the amusement in Gregory’s voice.

I scowled. “Nope, I can get it,” I should have locked the door. I felt the heat of him before I felt his hands on the shirt, untangling it from my head. He helped me get it over my head and stepped back, his eyes roaming over my body, and his body stiffening as he got to me stomach. Quickly, I covered myself with the shirt as best as I could but I knew it was too late. “If you don’t mind, go take a hike.”

“Your body has bruises on it,” he said.

“Umm…can I say you are still asleep and this is all a dream?”

“The bruises on your body are from the same person who gave you the bruises on your face, aren’t they?” His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

What could I say? “It’s nothing.” I turned around to the sink and turned on the water. Bending down, I searched through the duffel bag until I found a smaller bag; grabbing it I pulled it open and took out my toothbrush and toothpaste. I lathered it up and started brushing, ignoring the lasers hitting my back.

“It isn’t nothing,” he said. “Why are you protecting this person?”

Because he was still my father. I spit out the toothpaste and rinsed out my mouth and set the items back in my bag and took out a brush. “It would be pointless. He’s probably dead.” I tried to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to think about my parents and what might have happened to them, so I ignored it as I brushed through my hair and put it back into the ponytail. When I turned around, he was still staring at me with a horrifying expression on his face. Tears suddenly popped into my eyes, but I didn’t avert them. “I’m running for my life. I have no idea who is after me. Or, I at least have an idea. I have no idea if I will survive. I have no idea if I can even trust anyone. My parents are most likely dead, and I’m the next target. I have no other family. I don’t even know what to do next. Yes, I have bruises covering my body, but as I see it, that doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is whether I can find a way to survive or not. So please don’t ask me again why I have bruises covering my body. You don’t know anything about me. And I don’t owe you an explanation of my life or how I look.” Thankfully, the tears never fell from my face; they had started to dry up. One thing was for sure: I didn’t want to cry through any of this. I needed to be tough. I didn’t know if I was in shock or denial. All I knew was I was tired of him asking questions about the bruises. Even if he’d only asked once before this.