Saving Grace

Chapter Four: When Harmless Goes Haywire

Gracie ducked through the hole in the rusting fence, barely noticing when a rather sharp piece of metal snagged her pants and ripped open the seat of her fading jeans. Her only thoughts were on getting out of the bitter wind. She slipped across the icy dirt and made her way toward the back of the old rubber factory that was owned by Layton's grandfather. They'd moved the factory halfway across the county, but the property still belonged to the Gould family (not that they could've sold it even if they'd tried, the building was a hazard, it'd already been condemned, nobody wanted it). And yet, that was exactly where she was headed.

Carefully avoiding any rogue nails sticking out everywhere, she crawled through the hidden doorway she and Pi had created, and blindly made her way through the darkness she'd long since memorized, towards the perilous staircase Layton and Pi reinforced years earlier. She trekked slowly through the maze of hallways that constructed the basement of the Gould Rubber Factory. At one point it was among the sole employers of the town of Swallow Hill, but those days it held only rats, trash, and the three of them.

"See, I fucking knew she wasn't going to come," his voice carried down the wide dank corridor, drifting through the vast emptiness that was the most-likely haunted cellar.

A chill ran down her spine as a cold breeze tore through her thin black hoodie. "Give her another ten minutes," came the other one. She was almost through the part of the Haunted Hallway where the rats gathered and stared as she passed and the dust felt so thick it was almost suffocating, when her beeper began going off in her pocket, completely giving away her position to the two teenagers lounging in the room they'd called their own since before the factory even shut down.

"Gracie!" Pi practically pounced on her the second she sidled through the camouflaged doorway into a room that was so unlike anything else in the entire rundown structure. The walls were covered with Gracie's art and the myriad tables and chairs and any other open surface space were littered with drawings and comics and notebooks and paints and pencils and instruments. It was an artist's heaven.

Gracie, Pi, and Layton had spent years turning it into their makeshift studio where they could be whoever the hell they wanted to be with no fear of judgment.

Except, that time Gracie felt their heavy judgmental stares. They were guarded and furious. "You're late," Layton grumbled turning his back on her and dropping onto his piano bench.

"Sorry. Preston was being a dick," she replied dropping her backpack on the ground and instinctively reaching for a can of spray paint that had been carelessly abandoned on the messy floor.

"Are you going to explain?" Layton's voice could by no means be considered warm. His intelligent chocolate and golden/green-flecked eyes were alight with undiluted curiosity that he couldn't contain.

Gracie brushed back her wild dark brown curls and shook the mostly empty can of spray paint as she stared at a blank spot on the wall she'd been thinking about painting for a while. "Trent's blackmailing me," she blurted, opting for the straight to the point approach, as it seemed much easier than trying to stumble over her thoughts as she beat around the bush for a couple awkward minutes. Leading up to shit had never been her style. "All in," as her mother was fond of saying.

"What?" Pi's head snapped in her direction, his eyes narrowed dangerously, while Layton just stared blankly.

"He's blackmailing me," she repeated, daring a glance over her shoulder to offer the guys a thin smile. "It's been going on for over a year."

"Why the fuck wouldn't you tell us this?" Layton grumbled, clearly not believing a single word coming out of her mouth. Gracie was pretty famous for her creative lies.