The Divide (The Divide Series Book 1)

by Kaitlyn Kroner

  “So, tell me about yourself,” he said. Thankfully, he was done laughing.

  “Why?” I asked. “So you can laugh at me more?”

  “I wasn’t laughing at you,” he said. I turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I was laughing, but you should have seen yourself. Your hair was everywhere. You have two red circles on your cheeks—from the cold—and your eyes were so large I thought I was looking at a doll.”

  “You’re a jackass,” I said, turning forward again. “I don’t know what kind of dolls you’ve seen, but I’ve never seen a doll whose hair was blown out.” Gregory had this special way of annoying and pissing me off at the same time.

  “How am I jackass?” he asked defensively.

  “You just insulted and laughed at me. That’s how you’re a jackass.” I would've tried to walk faster, but I only had so much energy, and the tank was almost running on fumes. His hand grabbed my good arm and pulled me to a stop. He turned me around, and I glared up at him.

  “I didn’t insult you,” he said. He frowned, his eyes searching my face. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”

  I gulped. Tears sprang to my eyes and I couldn’t stop them; they came out of nowhere like a freight train. The more they started to gather in my eyes, the more embarrassed I got. I could feel them hovering on my eyelids. Gulping a few times to try and get myself to calm down—I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry—I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Thankfully, the tears started to dry up, never hitting my cheek. “It’s fine. I’m used to being picked on. It’s just with everything going on, I was just hoping…I don’t know. We should get going.” I started to turn, but Gregory wouldn’t let me.

  “You were just hoping what?”

  “I don’t know, that you’d treat me with decency. I know I’m not the greatest-looking girl out there, but hearing someone laugh at the way you look hurts, especially when you grew up listening to it from everyone. I’ve had to hear my mother tell me that I was the ugly child over and over again. It was like her favorite sport when she was drunk. Mia, you will never be as beautiful as your sister. Mia, why can’t you make me proud? Mia, no one will fall in love with you. Mia, when you have children, they will look like trolls. And I don’t want to have trolls for children. Do you know how horrifying it is to have nightmares of trolls coming out of your body instead of humans? I’ve had to listen to girls make fun of the way I look and constantly put me down. It hurts. And of course I can’t say anything. If I ever said anything, it would just cause more problems at home.” I looked away and backed out of his grasp. I hadn’t meant to word vomit. Why had I opened my mouth? My mouth usually got me into trouble or created awkward situations. I blamed it on my lack of energy. Whenever I ate next, I’d tell him that I was just delusional and he shouldn’t listen to anything I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Gregory said. I nodded my head. “And you’re wrong, you know?”

  “How am I wrong?”

  He smiled. “Because you are stunning.” He flashed his pearly whites as I glared.

  “You’re so stupid,” I mumbled as I started walking forward. Gregory laughed and caught up to me.

  “So tell me about yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Tell me about your childhood,” he said, looking over at me. I just shrugged my shoulders. “Do you not remember your childhood?”

  “I do, I just don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say it wasn’t the best,” I said. I didn’t want to divulge too much of my childhood to him. “What about yours?”

  Gregory smiled. “Fine, I’ll go first. My childhood was fantastic. I have three younger brothers: Michael, Johnny, and Caleb. My family moved to Minonia two years ago. I’ve been working with the construction crew since I was sixteen. It’s a good job. I get to work with my hands, which I enjoy doing.” He winked at the last part. I rolled my eyes in response. “I found my own place a few years ago. No one ever went into that building before or after I moved in, so I never had to worry about people stealing my stuff. Though I still had a hiding spot for the important stuff. I have some friends I hang out with and get a beer with. You know, the usual.”

  “Why didn’t you move with your family?” I asked.

  “My father and I had a falling out,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Since I shared, now it’s your turn.”

  “I never agreed to that.” He crooked an eyebrow at me, and I shook my head. “Okay, fine. I’ve known Agathy all of my life. She’s taken care of me since I was very little.” I smiled remembering Agathy. “This one year, on my birthday—I think I had just turned five—she woke me up really early and gave me a small birthday cake before anyone else was up. We shared the cake—it was chocolate and strawberry. The frosting was the best part though. We ate the whole thing, then she let me go back to sleep. It was a secret between the two of us.”

  “She sounds great,” Gregory said.

  “She is—I mean was,” I said. A frown tugged on my lips.

  “Hey, she would be proud of you,” he said.

  I looked up at him, my eyebrow raised. “Why?”

  “Because you’ve made it.”

  “With your help,” I said. I hated to say it, but I knew I would have never made it this far without him.

  “She would have been proud that you trusted someone you didn’t know to help you.”

  “You think so?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He bumped his shoulder into me, a smile on his face.

  I winced. “Wrong shoulder.” He just smiled and continued walking. I rolled my eyes at his annoyingly cheerful attitude that had come out of nowhere. Maybe he’d been abducted and something else possessed his body. It was possible. He had smiled twice in less than ten minutes. Maybe I could get along better with this possessed Gregory.

  We walked for a few minutes in silence. I hoped he was right about Agathy; that she would be proud of me. I’d always wanted to make her proud. She’d been there for me since day one and helped me recover from the terror I grew up with. I glimpsed over at Gregory. He had his hands back in his pockets, and the smile was still attached to his face. I wanted to know more about him. “My sister passed away when I was twelve,” I said, breaking the silence.

  Gregory looked over at me. “I’m sorry. How did she die?”

  I flinched at the word. “She got really sick one night. I heard her throwing up in the bathroom.” I could remember that night like it was yesterday. “She was covered in sweat, and her hands were clenched around the toilet seat. Agathy was trying to get her to eat some toast, but every time she nibbled on something she would throw it back up. I tried to help, but Agathy kicked me out of the bathroom. After a few minutes, I opened the door and sneaked a look. I saw my sister throw up a lot of dark, red liquid—blood.

  “I miss her terribly. She was my best friend. We only had each other. We used to fall asleep together after we made up crazy ghost stories. I was terrified of the dark—kind of still am—and she always turned a flashlight on in the room so I wouldn’t be scared. We used to play hide-and-seek in the house and steal cookies from the kitchen while running from the staff. She was my rock.”

  “I’m sorry, Mia,” Gregory said. I watched as he moved his hand toward mine, but at the last minute he shoved it back into his jeans pocket. “How did your parents take it?”

  “They were angry,” I said. I could remember the exact expressions on their faces. “They wouldn’t let me go to the funeral. Said I was too young. I was angry with them. I just didn’t understand why they didn’t want me to attend my own sister’s funeral.”

  I'd been so angry when they told me I wasn’t allowed to go. I’d screamed at them and tried to run past them to the front door; I’d planned on running away and finding a family that would take me in and love me. Of course I hadn’t
run fast enough, my father had grabbed my arm, dislocating it for the second time in my life, and thrown me into my room. He’d then decided to discipline me while my mother had just watched with a drink in her hand. It had taken me over a week to be able to move. Agathy had helped me with showers and walking around. He had broken three ribs and my ankle. Bruises had covered my body, and they hadn’t even called the doctor. Agathy had called a private doctor to look at me one night when my parents were out. They’d never known how much Agathy helped.

  “Your parents are awful people,” Gregory said, breaking through my memories. Shrugging my shoulders, I continued walking, I didn't want to talk about my parents. I didn’t want him to know just how weak of a person I was. That I couldn’t even stand up for myself in my own house. “Did you ever tell anyone?”

  I looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever tell anyone about the bruises?”

  I looked away, but I could feel his eyes on me. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Gregory stopped and grabbed my arm, preventing me from walking. “I’m not stupid. I saw the bruises on your side and face. The bruise is still waving off your cheek. I know you know I know. I also know those bruises didn’t come from those ‘friends’ you were with at the bar the other night. So, why didn’t you tell anyone?” He quoted the word friends with his fingers. Oh, look, the notch on my anger meter just went up.

  I pulled my arm from his grasp and started walking. “I’m not talking about this.” I didn’t want him to know how bad it was. I should have kept my mouth shut and never told him about my sister.

  “They killed your sister, didn’t they?” he asked.

  I stopped walking and spun around. “What? No, of course not! She was very sick. She’d been sick her whole life.” I couldn’t believe he would have the balls to say that. My parents might have had hatred toward us, but they would never take it that far. I knew deep down that my parents loved us. They just had a very shitty way of showing it.

  “Right,” he said sarcastically. “Did they tell you that, or did you just come up with that on your own?”

  I gaped at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. We're not talking about me, my life, my family, or anything else anymore,” I said.

  “Then why did you bring up your sister?” he asked.

  “Because you asked me to share something about myself with you, and I stupidly did it. If I had known you were going to be a gigantic ass and judge my parents, then I wouldn’t have said anything,” I shouted.

  “No, I don’t think that’s it.” He started walking toward me. “I think you brought it up so you could finally let go of the burden of the secret of how horrifying your parents truly are.”

  “Now you’re just being stupid,” I said angrily. There went another notch. I turned around and started to walk away from him.

  “Way to be mature,” he said from behind me.

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. Crossing my good arm across my chest, I stubbornly marched ahead. Eventually, Gregory passed me—mumbling something about how stubborn I was—and kept a few paces between us. I didn’t know where exactly we were, so I was fine with him taking the lead. Neither one of us spoke to each other. It was going to be a very long trip.

  I didn’t know how long we’d been walking; I was exhausted and the pressure in my head started pounding in my eyes, I needed to rest and eat. My legs kept cramping up, and my feet were screaming in protest. Neither one of us had spoken since our last conversation, even if I wanted to talk, I didn’t think I would be able to. My throat was painfully dry and it was no longer cold out. The sun beat down on us and sweat drenched through my clothes. At one point, I had to tie my leather jacket around my waist so I could cool myself down. A few times, my feet slipped on some rocks and I fell to the ground. The first time I did, Gregory tried to help me up, but I ignored his outstretched hand and crawled my way back up. The last few times though, he kept on walking. My hand was cut up from the rocks, my good arm always shooting out to break my fall. It started to sting terribly the last time I fell, and I had to brush out dirt and rocks and stickers; that was when it started to bleed. So I decided to put my jacket back on, that way I had the protection of the long sleeve.

  It was windy, but only hot air puffed in my face. I didn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten or drunk anything. My mouth was parched, and my lips were chapped. My bottom lip had split open, letting blood trickle into my mouth. I was covered in dirt. At one point, we’d had to fight through a windstorm, and we’d come out looking awful. I wanted to go back to when it was cold, but it was just getting hotter and hotter the farther we went.

  I wanted to shower. I wanted to eat. I wanted to sleep. I just didn’t know which one I wanted most. My head hung down as I watched my feet shuffle through the dirt, which I started doing the last time I fell. Watching my feet was the best chance I had to keep myself from falling. My left arm dangled loosely by my side while my right arm was hanging in its sling. I had no energy to actually pick up my feet, so I listened as they shuffled against the ground.

  When I wasn’t listening to my feet move, my mind flashed pictures of my home. I wanted to be home so badly. I had always told myself that anywhere but home would be paradise. Well, I had been wrong. So terribly wrong. I was running for my life with a guy who got on my nerves and I got on his nerves—he was probably regretting agreeing to come along with me. We had our moments when we got along, but how could we survive when we wanted to wring each other’s necks half the time? Maybe we would be better off splitting up when we hit Inonia, I would still pay him for taking me this far. Maybe he could show me some fighting moves before he left so I would have a way of defending myself.

  My chest tightened just thinking about that. I didn’t want to do this alone; I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was just running, but at some point I’d have to stop; I’d have to fight. And it would be better to have someone by my side than to do it by myself. It bothered me that I needed to rely on someone else, and it bothered me that I’d actually miss our bickering back and forth. But what bothered me the most was that I was so preoccupied with Gregory that I hadn’t even considered what my parents were going through, and I wasn’t quite sure if I cared enough to know if they were alive or dead. How ungrateful of a child was I? Shouldn’t I have wanted to figure out if I would ever see them again? Would I ever want to see them again? The questions kept repeating on a cycle in my head. Those questions didn’t bother me nearly as much as the one that kept popping up: was it wrong to hope they were dead? I missed my home terribly, yes, but I didn’t know if I missed them. I missed Agathy greatly, and my heart ached painfully every time I thought of her. But when I thought of both of my parents, I honestly didn’t feel anything. It was like a void. Did that make me a terrible person? Was I just in denial? Shock?

  “Mia,” Gregory yelled from up ahead.

  I looked up. Gregory was a great deal of distance away, and I hadn’t realized I had gotten so far behind. “What?” I croaked. I coughed, my mouth too dry to yell. He’d have to wait until I caught up to him.

  Gregory stood there, watching me as I slowly walked toward him. My legs wanted to give out. Every time I took a shaky step, I knew I would be going down. But I didn’t. Thankfully, I made it to him before collapsing. “What?” I asked, covering my eyes from the setting sun.

  His gaze searched my face, his brow wrinkling. He frowned as worry flashed across his. “I didn’t realize you were this bad.”

  I didn’t even have the energy to get offended by that comment. “Huh?”

  “We only have a few more minutes left to walk. We’re almost there. See—” he turned and pointed forward “—those buildings over there? That’s where we’re headed. We’re almost to Inonia.” I couldn’t tell if he was trying to reassure himself or me.

  I wanted to jump up and down, but I had no energy. “Okay.”

  “When we get there, we have to try to blend in,”
he said as he started walking. I followed grudgingly, trying to motivate myself to keep walking. I was almost there; I could do it. First stop would be to find somewhere to sleep, eat, and bathe. I would say goodbye to Gregory and find my way to safety.

  I almost cried out in relief when we finally came within reach of a giant glass building, but I figured that would draw unwanted attention toward us.

  “We need to find a place to stay,” Gregory said. He molded into the corner of the building and looked around it while I looked at the ground and talked myself out of sitting.

  “I was thinking,” I rasped out. “We should go our separate ways.”

  Gregory glanced at me; his face tightened as he narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “Well, obviously we don’t get along and don’t enjoy each other’s presence, so it would make sense for us to go our separate ways,” I said, looking into his furtive face. “And to show you how nice I am, I’ll give you half the money I have as a thank-you.”

  Gregory rolled his eyes and turned his attention back around the corner. “I don’t want half of the money, and we’re not splitting up. Those men we narrowly escaped on the train will be here and are most likely out looking for you as we speak. I’m surprised they didn’t have men search from here to where we jumped out. Plus they already know you’re with a male, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew who I was. Like it or not, it’s best if we stick together. Also, you couldn’t survive on your own.”

  I wanted to smack him. “But why would you want to stick with me?”

  “Because if I don’t, you’ll end up dead.” He turned to look back around the corner.

  If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have kicked him from that insult. But instead, I pushed that insult into a little box at the back of my mind, so when I was more awake, I could yell at him. “I can take care of myself.”