Page 36 of Creed
After a moment, Chester Grieve relented, and he sat back in his wheelchair in a more relaxed pose.
“I just wanted to check up on your progress. The contents of that journal are very important to us, and I want to make sure you’re giving it your full attention. No...” His eyes flickered over to Kayden. “Unnecessary distractions.”
I tensed, ready to fight if the man even suggested removing Kayden from me. However, surprisingly, Kayden stayed relaxed at my side. When I gave him a brief glance of my own, I found his brow furrowed, lost in thought. He hadn’t even noticed Chester Grieve’s hinted threat.
Before I could ask him what was wrong—or more likely steer the conversation in a different direction—Kayden spoke up.
“Actually, what is the point of this?”
The wheelchair creaked as Chester Grieve rolled a little closer. “The point is for you to solve the journal. That shouldn’t be hard to understand.”
Realizing the ire that he’d drawn to himself, Kayden squirmed in his seat, nervously eyeing the armed men by the door.
“I know, but, um... this is all because the Milford sis— I mean, your founder’s wives stole something from him when they escaped?”
“They didn’t escape,” Chester Grieve said through gritted teeth, properly paying attention to Kayden for the first time since we’d been kidnapped. “They abandoned their duty.”
“Right...” Kayden nodded, though he clearly didn’t agree. I tried to silently signal Kayden to be quiet, but he kept talking. “It’s just, you don’t even know what they stole, or if the journal will even help you. This seems like a lot of effort, you know, kidnapping us and everything, just to find some unknown object.”
Watching Chester Grieve’s reaction, something clicked in my mind, like a gear I hadn’t realized was stuck finally started turning.
“You do know.”
Those three words were enough to get Chester Grieve’s focus off Kayden and back onto me. I intended to keep it that way, so although this would usually be a situation where I kept my thoughts to myself, I voiced them out loud to make sure I had the man’s full attention.
“You know what the sisters stole. That’s why you’re so determined to find it. Although, you clearly haven’t told anyone else. I wonder if your people would be so supportive if they knew what this is really about?”
“It is about justice and righting a wrong that was done to this community over a hundred years ago,” Chester Grieve snapped while gesturing at the men standing guard by the door. “Take these two back to their room. I don’t want to hear another word about them until they finally have some answers for us.”
With guns pointed at us the whole time, a pair of very familiar bags were shoved onto our heads, and rough hands hauled us out of the room.
It was exactly the same as every other time they’d had to move us, with one notable exception.
There was a small hole in the bag on my head.
It had probably gone unnoticed due to the black fabric. A hole this small wouldn’t normally make much of a difference but it just happened to be positioned perfectly for me to see out of it with one eye.
I kept my head down, staring at my feet and letting myself be jostled around to hide the fact that I could see.
The wooden floorboards were old and scuffed, with dust so tightly packed into the grooves between the planks it could never be fully removed. Effort had been made to keep the floors in good condition, they were clean and there were numerous rugs dotted around, but nothing could hide the fact that it was old.
If this was where their leader lived, then the rest of the buildings must be in even worse condition.
That gave me hope. The room where we were being kept wasn’t a proper prison. It was just a basement room with a particularly stout lock. Old buildings had weaknesses that could be exploited.
I only needed one opportunity.
Once we stepped outside, I was momentarily blinded by the sight of sunlight. It wasn’t even a very bright day, more overcast than blue, but it had been days since I’d seen natural light, and my eyes needed a moment to adjust.
There were more buildings than I thought there’d be. The cult had built themselves a proper little village out in the woods. Yet, the more I looked, the more my suspicions grew. Many of the buildings were in serious disrepair, and few had clearly been abandoned. There also wasn’t as much human activity as the number of buildings would suggest.
The cult may have been a thriving community once, but they were beyond their glory days now. They probably only had half the numbers they used to have.
It was still more people than I could fight on my own. Based on the number of buildings that were still obviously in use, I estimated their numbers to be between sixty and a hundred. Ifeven just half of those people were able-bodied and capable of wielding a weapon, that was a significant fighting force.
We couldn’t fight our way out. We’d have to sneak.
I tried to memorize as much of the layout of the buildings as I could. If Kayden and I escaped, we’d need to know where to go.
