Hold: Hold & Hide Book 1 Read Free Page A

entrance. 
    One foot in front of the other, right behind Brayden, I pushed myself forward until I found myself walking between the arched gate and entering my home for the next year. We walked on a brick path surrounded by greenery, little white flowers, and a freshly cut yard of grass. I switched my bag to my left shoulder and took one last glance of the sky, hoping it wouldn’t be the last. Two men stood at the ornate wooden doors, holding them open as we walked inside the building. 
    First impression: beautiful. Way more beautiful than I imagined. Not that I spent time imagining it too much. 
    Brass chandeliers with dangling crystals reflected specks of light throughout the entryway and a set of amazingly gorgeous steps stretched out in front of us, like something reserved for royalty. The room smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, warm and inviting. Bookshelves adorned the walls, fitted with colorful spines from top to bottom and complete with a ladder reaching its way to the top. Not too bad, I thought. Inspiring even. 
    I noticed the twins in front of me were given a small slip of paper before they trailed up the stairs. As I got closer I saw red ink printed on each one. Numbers. The man handing them out said, “Odd numbers to the right, even numbers to the left.” I took mine, realizing Brayden was already up the stairs and walking toward the left. I glanced at my slip as I continued forward. 413. When I reached the top of the stairs I turned right and followed the crowd toward the back of the hall. Each door to my left was closed with no signs on them. Another man stood at the end of the hall, waving everyone up the stairs and saying, “200’s are the next door up, 300’s the next, and so on.”
    We continued up the spiral staircase, our heels clapping against the wood as we held the railing and stared ahead. A few people disappeared behind the first door. The 200’s. I kept going until I reached the fourth floor. Before entering the door I peered up at the ceiling and counted three more floors, making seven total.
    “You going in or what?” A guy shoved me to the side as he walked through the door.
    I shook my head and entered the fourth floor, surprised to find a brightly lit hallway with no one else in sight except the guy who pushed me. He went into room 401. The next door said 403. Then, 407, 409, 411, and finally 413. My door. There were no numbers between and only two doors after mine. 433 and 439. I tried to figure out the pattern, but gave up and twisted the knob while giving the door a gentle push. Nothing happened. A girl walked by me, scanned her wrist on a censor next to the door, and walked inside her room without acknowledging me. I held my wrist to my own censor. The door clicked and I finally entered, shutting it quietly behind me.
    The open window carried a warm September breeze into the room, fluttering the sheer white curtains in its way. Everything was white. The bed frame and its quilt and sheets. The walls. The small dresser and the chair in the corner. White, white, white. Even the wood floor was painted white. What surprised me more than that, however, was the large television mounted across from my bed. Definitely didn’t expect to watch television here, especially considering how limited the availability was back home. Each household in our province had a television, but it only functioned one day per week with pre-programmed channels and shows. None of our electronic devices allowed video usage either. Dad said when they were kids even their phones played movies and videos of random people doing random things on the Internet, but phones had also become a thing of the past. Something I only saw in photographs. Now we had wrist watches or necklaces to access the news and communicate with others. I kind of liked it. So many photographs of the past showed people looking at their phones instead of each other. I was happy not to have an extra distraction in my life. 
    The television