Grey

by Kayley Barratt

  Grey

  Kayley Barratt

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Grey

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Copyright Information

  Epigraph

  PrologueMonths from Now

  Chapter 1Today

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27Two Weeks Later

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32One Week Later

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48Nathan

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52One Week Later

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54Elizabeth

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  EpilogueNathanTwo Months Later

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  About the Author

  Kayley gains her inspiration from music and conspiracies. She enjoys the simple things in life, including: drinking tea, listening to the rain, reading epic science-fiction novels and spending time with her family. She writes to create a world where she can be in control, as her life can sometimes be hectic.

  About the Book

  Elizabeth Sanchez is no stranger to a whip or beating. She was raised in a religious household with no tolerance for sin or vanity. When her abusive parents catch her sneaking out to a party, Elizabeth’s fate is already sealed.

  Forced to enroll at Cross Academy, a secluded community of Catholics and brainwashed prisoners run by a psychotic Pastor, Elizabeth soon realises that the Academy isn’t an Academy at all – but a cult.

  As she fights to be unshackled from the cult’s mind-controlling ways, Elizabeth finds herself caught between exposing a terrifying conspiracy that sees member after member disappearing from the cult forever or saving the people she cares about from a worse fate that is always around the corner.

  For Elizabeth, the mystery is just the beginning

  Dedication

  To my family, who continue to believe in me even when I lose belief in myself.

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © Kayley Barratt (2018)

  The right of Kayley Barratt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788239325 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781788239332 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781788239349 (E-Book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2018)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd™

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Epigraph

  "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all."

  — Emily Dickinson.

  Prologue

  Months from Now

  Lights.

  Bright, swirling, head-pounding lights. Some white, some red, some yellow; they surround me, torture me. They are me.

  Shades and colours, they are illusions, puzzles. They distract the weak in a time of crisis, to help them find their way again, to direct them to their mind again. But not me. Not now. Not here. The lights are not my hero.

  Take a breath, I tell myself. You’re alive, it’s not over.

  I blink at the lights, my conscious becoming stronger. And then I tilt my head, feeling my own blood swipe across my lips. I can’t remember exactly what happened to make me pass out, but I can remember the events that led me to be lying here, with my hands tightly tied behind my back and my knees crushing into the cold ground as I attempt to sit up.

  I know what’s coming. I knew I had to make this choice the moment everything transitioned from the unsure grey to the stultifying black.

  Grey was better. I liked the grey, the safest of shades. The in between of light and darkness, the contrast that keeps a heart beating even when it’s close to stopping. While inside the grey, there is still hope to be pulled into the white, to be alive again, but then, there’s also the possibility of drifting into the black.

  I am now in the black; bathed in it through layers of torn skin.

  Tainted. Decayed. Disengaged. Lost. Lost.

  The events that led to this moment are sensitive and dark. Some moments brutal, some moments beautiful. Some moments forgotten, some moments frozen forever. I must believe that I can be stronger than what is about to greet me, that I can be better than the choice he will force me to make: choosing between them. Choosing who will die.

  “Beth,” a gentle voice calls across the short distance. “It’s okay.”

  I meet his homely grey eyes that are riddled with homelessness, the eyes I have only just gotten used to seeing again after so long apart. And then, they move to the eyes of the man next to him, the electrifying green. Two strong hearts beat next to each other, beating in fear and they both belong to me.

  Everything around me is still a blur, but their faces are as clear as the clouds that part to reveal the blue sky. One heart I have loved for longer than I deserved to be loved back and another I have tied my soul with when everything else seemed hopeless. They sit together, forced to their knees, their limbs shackled by chains.

  “I made you a deal,” a shadow says from behind their bodies. “You defied me. And now, you must make a choice, Elizabeth. One must die, or they both die.”

  I hear the safety of a gun unlock and I hold my breath. After everything I have been through, with both of them, I cannot save one above the other. I cannot love one more. I cannot find the courage to voice a decision. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to be free. We were supposed to be in the white. White.

  “I’ll count down from five,” the shadow continues, “and if you don’t give me the name of which traitor you want to see more dead than the other, then I’ll send them both to hell. Five. Four. Three. Two—” I let out my breath, “One.”

  Chapter 1

  Today

  I walk frailly through the doorway of the kitchen, clutching a hot water bottle to my stomach while putting on the best ‘I�
�m really sick, I’m going to sleep early’ face I can master. My mother sits in her predictable armchair, sewing her predictable sweater that she’s been working on for around a week. My father is in the opposite chair reading through a large book, not bothered nor interested that my mother is even in the room. They sit as far apart from each other as they can; avoiding human contact is a necessity to their strange way of life.

  I start for the staircase slowly, holding on tightly to the wall to evade stepping too heavily on the floorboards. None creak, there isn’t even the smallest sound of my breath releasing from my airways; but yet she hears me.

  “Elizabeth.”

  I scrunch my face up as my mother calls my name, I twirl back around, watching as she continues sewing, not bothering to lift her eyes to make eye contact. “Yes, mother?”

  “Where are you going?”

  I instinctively curve my spine, the words that roll off my tongue come out murmured and sickly. “Bed. I’m not feeling well.”

  “Have you cleaned the kitchen?”

  “I did half of it but—”

  “So, it isn’t clean,” she says, still not looking at me. “What was the order I gave you after dinner?”

  “To clean the kitchen,” I say.

  “So, why did you only do half?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I say, angrier than I should, I can’t let it slip that I’m lying, I really need to get out tonight. “I feel dizzy. I need to lay down.”

  My mother gives nothing away with her face, she isn’t one for expressions so it’s almost impossible for me to ever know what she’s feeling or thinking. In all my life of knowing her, she has always been this way and every day of my life it unnerves me. I have never seen her laugh nor smile, I have never seen her kiss my father, I have never even seen them hold hands—it is as though they’re not even human.

  The only day that will lift my parent’s spirits, is Sunday when they force me to church, against my will. Only then do I see a difference in their moods and it reminds me that they are kind of human after all.

  She continues sewing, threading the needle with precise control as she takes a breath of admiration while staring down at her work. I watch her with an eyebrow raised, once again finding myself approaching the one-way adoption train. Sometimes, I hope for it so much, just so I can find an excuse to leave them and follow the trail of two complete strangers that could be anywhere in the world.

  For years, I would dream about finding this small, white cottage with rose petals blooming in baskets over the door, and after knocking on the heart-pounding door, there would stand my real mother; with a welcoming smile, brazen eyes and arms so loving that I would forget my entire life away from her.

  This dream was a fairy tale that never came true. For I have never felt loved in this house. I have never felt wanted. I’ve always felt second place to an imaginary being in the sky. It’s been that way my entire life. I’ve always been invisible, neglected and left wondering if there is any point to remaining alive. And then, I found a point. I found a reason. I found it all.

  “Do you know it is a sin to lie?” my mother asks me suddenly.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Recite Proverbs, chapter twelve, verse twenty-two.”

  “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people that are trustworthy,” I say through clenched teeth.

  I hate that I can reply to that so easily, but I have an eidetic memory which has brought the curse of the Bible upon me. But also, has given me the perfect chance to babble these odd verses from my mouth and to not ignite a wrath inside my mother, even though I have no care in the world for them.

  “Good,” she says. “You may rest, but tomorrow, I want the kitchen cleaned top to bottom.”

  I clench my jaw, scraping my top and bottom teeth against each other in sudden annoyance. “Yes, mother.”

  “And the bathroom still needs cleaning,” my father says in a translucent tone of disinterest. “I believe you were supposed to clean it days ago.”

  “I’m sorry, I got distracted,” I say.

  “With what?” he asks.

  Unlike my mother, my father goes to the effort of lifting his head to meet my eyes. I glare into those piercing, beady hazel holes and I catch my breath that he could look at me with such loathe. My father isn’t well kept. He wears plain, simple shirts with baggy pants and has taken to growing a musty, unwashed beard that reaches below his collarbone. His dim, black hair is either always messy and un-brushed, or flat and smothered in slick grease. He takes no pride in his appearance because just like my mother, he believes noticing oneself is an act of sin.

  My mother is just as revolting. They had me late in life so her hair is half dark brown and half grey. It’s as long as mine because we’re not permitted to cut our hair, and she has so many knots and careless loose strands that if she did ever put a comb through it, it’d most likely all fall out. Despite her impeccable hair growth, she only ever lets her hair down before she relinquishes herself to bed, every other moment of the day, it is tied back in a neat, circular bun. She wears a boring blouse and a boring blazer with boring, grey pants and slippers that are half eaten from moths. Her pale, wrinkled face contains permanent bags under her eyes that no amount of cream in the world could fix. Many have assumed that they’re my grandparents and I can’t blame them.

  “Tidying the rest of the house,” I say with a quick, sarcastic smile that doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “Did you do your assignment yet?” my mother asks. “It’s due tomorrow.”

  Just like every other thing my parent’s control, I’m home-schooled. My mother worked as a high-school teacher for thirty years before retirement, so she’s my qualified, pain-in-the-ass lecturer five days a week. Even though she’s the only teacher I’ve ever known, I’ve still passed every exam that the Board of Education has graded me on with a 4.33 GPA score. When I was younger, I read a lot. I read anything and everything, just to get away from home because it wasn’t like I had any friends to do things with. I don’t know how I adapted to being smart, I’ve never really had that influence from my parents, but gaining an eidetic memory from anything I read, has been the only thing that has kept me in their good books.

  “I did my assignment three days ago,” I say. “I told you that.”

  “Watch your tongue or I’ll wash it out with soap again.”

  “Sorry,” I say, swallowing at the memory. “Can I go now? I really don’t feel well.”

  “Yes,” she finally says and the word is like music to my ears. “See you at dawn.”

  I keep the act of feeling sick going until I’m halfway up the staircase, and then I release the hot water bottle from my stomach and a grin lights up my face. I keep a steady pace as I cross the landing, and I open my bedroom door and my pace quickens.

  I run over to my bed, hoisting up the mattress as I search for my secret mobile phone that I keep hidden from them. It’s against their rules to have any form of technology—that includes mobile devices, computers, laptops, televisions, iPods, even an alarm clock. I’m not ‘allowed’ to have any form of communication with the outside world while inside this house because this is ‘God’s’ house and God never ‘intended’ for the modern world to occur. Yet, they have electricity and gas, and they drive cars, some things are just so contradictory that it’s laughable.

  I’m also not allowed to have a boyfriend because of the temptation of sin, but I’m not accustomed to abiding by their rules. I’ve broken a few of their rules before. And the repercussions almost killed me.

  One time, they locked me in my bedroom for seven whole days with only a small bottle of water to keep me alive. Another time, because I forgot to put the turkey in the oven for Thanksgiving, they water boarded me until I almost felt my heart stop. I still can’t put my head under water because of that, even taking a shower makes me break out into panic attacks. I could take their beatings, their starvation rituals, their repression, even their forced slav
ery upon me; but what they did that day, that was the worst thing they could ever do. Suffocation is now my number one, gut-wrenching fear.

  I scroll through my list of contacts and I go straight to his name. I click call, while opening the window of my bedroom to lean into the fresh darkness.

  “Hello?” Nathan says, his voice sweet and tingly.

  “Hi,” I whisper. “They bought it. They’ll be in bed soon.”

  “That’s some incredible intel and the plan?”

  “I’ll text you when they’ve come upstairs. I’ll have to wait a while until they’re fully asleep, so I’ll let you know when I’m coming down.”

  “Okay,” he says. I can hear the loud, party-going sound of clusters of other voices in the background. “You’re not really missing much.”

  “Anything is much to me after a day in this hell hole,” I say. “You haven’t drank, have you?”

  “I’ve had one. I’m alright to drive. I’ll come pick you up, but don’t be too long because if I don’t have more alcohol soon, I’m going to fall asleep.”

  “Nathan,” I say with a hard, thorough voice. “I swear if you fall asleep before coming to get me, then I’m going to run to that party and cut your—”

  “Alright,” he laughs, over-riding the best bit of my threat. “I’ll let my imagination finish that sentence.”

  I find myself smiling as I press the phone tighter to my ear. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Hopefully.”

  “Hopefully,” I echo.

  He disconnects the call and I stare at the blank screen with a frown. I was enjoying having his voice inside my ear, it’s the only thing that ignites an unfamiliar smile on my face. Since meeting Nathan, my life has been turned upside down. I thought I was worthless, useless and had no purpose to living; until that one fine day when he knocked on the door of my house, confusing it for someone else’s and blew my world apart.