The Hideaways --- Book 2: Refuges

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Alex

Sirens. That’s what I’ve been using as an alarm clock for the past month. Cop cars were speeding down the street pass our dingy hotel, East Wood hotel. I slowly opened my eyes and saw nothing but the dull, gray room I was sleeping in. Jacob was snoring so loudly you could mistake him for a fog horn. I rolled over lazily to check the clock. 6:30 am. I closed my eyes to try to get at the very least an extra hour of sleep. Then the entire room started to shake. The glass of water next to my bed shook tensely, preparing to spill. I pulled my pillow and put it over my head. Second alarm clock. The Amtrak. It was official. I’m not going to get any more sleep. I just laid there staring at gloomy, gray ceiling.

I still seems like a dream. It has been a full month since me and my friends escaped the wrath of secrets that Winter Cross, Maryland held. My friend Kaii had by accidentally found out about this top secret drug agency and they were not happy that a 17 year old girl had discovered to much. Our families are missing and no one knows where we are. We left in a single day, to escape Kaii’s neighbors, the crazy drug dealers. We were now in Dartington, a city about two hours away from Winter Cross.

This town absolutely sucks. It is full of criminals, thieves, and every other messed up people you can think of. The only good thing about being here is that people don’t know who we really are. Probably cause we changed our names for a little while. People here know me as James Green, Kaii is Melissa Green, Claudia is Destiny Green, and Jacob is Kevin Green. Yeah we don’t look a lot, but no one here cares.

This hotel is the overall worst. When we first got here the girls wanted the bigger room, but then there was some blood on the carpet and a gun in desk, so they settled for the smaller room with the bathroom that had a dead rat in the toilet. The neighbors here aren’t much better than the drug dealers. The ones next door are a little… strange. Lets just say the day we moved in here asked for some salt for their goose roast, yeah we still aren’t sure exactly what that means, but something tells us that how loud they were, didn’t have to do anything with roasting geese. Plus the neighbors up stairs are college kids, so a majority of the time they’re drunk and way to loud when there doing stuff. Yeah life sucks.

Annoyed with Jacob’s snoring, pulled a sweat shirt on (another thing this apartment doesn’t exactly have a heater) and went out to the living room. Once again like everyday I walked into the entertainment center. The people who put in here didn’t measure it so that part of it covers the door to our room. Every time you don’t pay attention your going to run into it. I rubbed my shoulder trying to ignore the pain, when surprisingly Kaii was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Morning,” I said to her.

“Morning.” she said. Kaii hasn’t been quite right since we left. I know she feels guilty about dragging us into all this. Even though we tell her over and over again it wasn’t her fault she just doesn’t care. She doesn’t smile often, but I still I’m drawn to her. But its probably not the best time to mention this because of the situation we’re in and also our final day in Winter Cross she had kissed her old boyfriend goodbye. I could tell she missed him.

“What’s up?” I asked. She handed me the morning paper.

Winter Cross Mystery Continues

One month ago an extraordinary amount of unfortunate events took place in the small town of Winter Cross, Maryland. Mr. and Mrs. Frandle’s son Zachary is still missing along  with four other families, the Darnish, Arstin, Mariss, and Pranter families. But is there more to behind this story. Apparently a week later, Jackson Zandith the father of Chloe Darnish’s daughter (Arianna Darnish) left the town to an unknown location. Not only that, but a month ago to the day four other family members were seen leaving Winter Cross and are still missing. Can anyone in Winter Cross stay calm considering these events? More of this story is soon to come.

This has been in probably in every news report, the disappearances in Winter Cross and that one in Red Meadows. Oh well. A couple minutes of silence later Claudia came out of the room.

“Hey,” she said pouring herself a glass of orange juice.

“Hey,” Kaii and I said at the same time. Once again, silence. We didn’t talk or have fun like we used to. Oh well. Then Jacob came out, running into the entertainment center. He just kept on walking to the fridge and got the milk carton out.

This is so weird. I hate it that we don’t talk anymore. I looked over at Kaii. She had that look on her face again. Kaii wanted to talk about something serious. It was the same face she had when she told us about the files she accidentally received.

“What’s up, Kaii?” I asked.

“Just thinking,” she said staring at the table top.

“About?” Jacob asked.

“I’m thinking its time to start moving.” she said.

We just stared at her. ‘What do you mean?” Claudia asked.

“I mean we should start working on what we never finished.” Kaii said.

She meant getting to Washington. We kept missing our chance to get there. Claudia had a family friend there who works with the FBI, so we’ve been trying to get to him to give the files we stole to him.

“Kaii,” Claudia said, “we don’t have any money and no way of getting there.” This was true. We spent all our money on rent and groceries and other necessities for living.

“Well then,” Kaii said looking up, “who says we have to take a plane.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Why don’t we take buses or walk on foot or something.” Kaii said.

“Ok, Kaii. Listen to yourself! We can’t walk all the way from Maryland to Washington.” Claudia said rather harshly.

“Ok, then. How about we borrow the money?” Kaii continued.

“Who in their right mind would lend four teens money for a flight across America?” Jacob asked with a sarcastic tone.

“My cousins,” Kaii said.

This was also true. Kaii had nice cousins, that had a lot of money.

“I don’t know Kaii,” Claudia said.

“Here me out,” Kaii said, “they will be happy to help me if they could.”

“Kaii, we can’t just go barging up to their door step and ask for a lot of money!” Claudia said.

“Fine,” Kaii said. She got up and went back to her room and slammed the door.

“Take it easy on her, Claudia.” I said. “She has to many troubles already.”

“Still would you just walk up to someone and ask them for money?” Claudia said.

“Maybe if I was in need of it,” I said.

“And we are in need of it,” Jacob added.

“I say we aren’t.” Claudia said and on that note she got up and walked away to the bathroom.

Jacob and I sat there in silence.

“I say we should try and get going to Washington again,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, we should, but we don’t have the money.” I told him.

“We should ask Kaii’s cousins for the money. They won’t mind.” Jacob said.

“How are we going to prove Claudia that,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but we’ll find a way.” he said and got up back to our room, running into the entertainment center again and swearing softly.

I hope he’s right. I had a feeling we can’t stay hidden much long.