Look out for the <>! This is really Gray's father's song. Anyhow there isn't many chapters now! It's been excited to see the end in this story. 

Stella POV 

Walking down a flight of stairs, I tried to think of places they would keep a prisoner. I had been walking halls for what felt like an hour already. With no plan and no idea of where he would be, I felt like I was walking in circles, walking aimlessly, hoping to stumble on something that was useful.

A group of kids that looked younger than I passed me, laughing, paying no attention to me. Even though they weren't looking at me, I still looked at the ground, hoping I wouldn't draw their attention. However, over the past hour, this wasn't the only group of kids I passed that ignored me. I wondered if that was normal, because Jackson was completely different. The first day in Jackson, I was the talk of the school. Walking around the halls here, it surprised me that no one stopped me.

I didn't question it, though. I was glad no one paid attention to me because I had more important things to manage. Soon Else would be back and she would realize I was gone. She would come looking for me, maybe even throw a search party, and I needed to find Gray before she found me.

Sweat bubbled up on my forehead, reminding me I still wasn't feeling 100% back to normal. I dabbled my forehead and rested my back against the cold stone wall. In the empty hallway, I quickly checked my shoulder to see that only around my shoulder was blackened.

"That Darkling scratch is going to leave a terrible scar on your shoulder," a voice rang out.

Panic rose within me as I pushed off the wall and looked around for the source of the sound. Quickly, I laid eyes on a man with a blackened hand. He was dressed in a suit and tie, making me believe he was a professor, but as he walked closer to me, there was something that told me he wasn't who I originally thought. Maybe he was a guard, but not a professor. He was the only person who paid attention to me, meaning he was looking for someone like me.

I took a step back from him, worried he would turn me in. Else must have sent him to track me down before I had a chance to get Gray. Looking for the closest exit, I tried to plan my next move until his blackened hand sparked electricity.

"You must be Stella."

I shook my head as I took a step back from him. I would deny that fact until the end. If he just let me go, I could continue on my quest. But with his hand sparking, I was afraid he would use it against me, then send me back home before I had a chance to save Gray.

"Relax, I am not going to send you back to Jackson just yet. I have one more thing you can do for me."

I took another step back from him, as I didn't understand what he was telling me. One more thing? I had never met him before, so how could I help him again? "What is that?"

He smiled as he stuffed his hands into his pockets casually. "How about we break out your boyfriend?"

"Grayson?" I didn't even bother to correct him because all I wanted to do was find him.

He nodded as a group of students passed us, paying little attention to us. One made eye contact with him before turning back to their friends, as if that were more interesting to them.

Silently, I drew lines in my mind. The only reason why this man would be interested in breaking out Gray is if he was connected to him in some way. No one else cared about him in this place, so I couldn't help but think the man in front of me was his father. But Gray told me he was evil. Gray hated him, but if he was so evil, then why was he interested in freeing Gray?

Questions flew across my mind like jets in the sky before landing on some kind of made-up answer I came up with. Whether or not his father was evil was a different story. Something told me I needed him if I was going to get Gray out and I needed to work with him. "You're Grayson's father, aren't you?"

He smiled as if I got it right. "I am. My name is Graywick. So how about we get him back into your arms."

That was exactly what I wanted to do. "Where is he?"

He looked down the hall as if the answers were there. "In the basement."

"Where is that?" I asked, ready to go there right now to save him.

"Not so fast, girl, we need a plan. Breaking him out will not be so easy."

I met his eyes again and something within them told me he already had a plan ready to share with me. As his eyes sparkled like the Christmas lights, my dad hung on the house. I realized he came to me for a reason; I was so important in his plan. "So, what do you want me to do?"

"I'm so glad you asked that because the upcoming steps need to go exactly to plan."

I nodded as I swallowed a lump of fear in my throat. Something told me not to trust him, but I had no option to follow him. He knew this place more than I ever would, so if I were to get Gray out, I needed him.

Silently, he looked around the hall with a frown, then pulled me into a room and closed the door. In the privacy of what looked like to be a classroom, he turned back to me. "Ok, listen. There is a guard at the door of the basement. I will need to get rid of him before you go down to free him."

"What are you going to do to him."

He smiled as if the answer was that simple. "You don't need to worry about that. But what you need to worry about is what you are going to do once Gray is released. Things will be crazy as soon as Gray is out, but you do not need to worry about that. All you will need to do is get out, go to the gate and get back to Jackson."

I nodded as I expected things would be a panic afterwards. I had seen enough movies to know that alarms would go off once Gray was out. They would come after us, but we just needed to move quickly to outpace them. He wanted us out, but I wondered what he would do. "Are you not going to Jackson with us?"

He shook his head. "I will be here. There is some unfinished work that I need to do."

He said that with such spite, I couldn't help but worry for a split second about what he had planned up his sleeve. As scary as he was, I knew there was nothing I could do. Gray was my only priority and whatever Graywick did afterwards was his own business.

"Gray will be in a cage which is protected by a spell. I will break the spell, freeing Gray, but it's your job to get him out of there. Gray will know how to get out of the castle, and you can't waste any time after that."

I nodded as I paid attention to his words. Gray didn't trust him, but everything he said to me, I trusted. He wanted to free Gray for reasons I didn't understand fully, and I trusted that. He spoke with such determination, as if getting Gray out was the only thing he cared about currently, making me realized maybe he cared more about Gray than anyone here.

"You will have to run through the woods, you will hear noises, but don't stop. Don't let Gray stop not until you make it to the gate." Graywick sighed as he pulled out a pocket watch from his dress pants. "Are you ready?"

<>

I nodded again. I couldn't be more ready.

"Good. I like your eagerness." With that, he opened the door and walked down the hall.

I followed on his heels as he took halls until finally; he made it to a long dead-end hall with a guard standing in front of one of the doors.

The guard stood with a frown, tapping his foot against the floor as he looked at the time on the wall. There was a look of boredom on his face, making me believe he didn't want to be here.

"I got this next step," Graywick whispered to me as he quickened his pace to get to the guard.

I nodded, knowing there was nothing I could do to get the guard away from the door.

Graywick walked up to the guard and smiled politely at him.

Slowly, the guard realized who was standing in front of him. "It's you," the guard gasped in shock, as if he couldn't believe it. I saw the fear in his eyes as he backed up against the basement door, trying to make space between them.

"In the flesh." Graywick wrapped his hand around the guard's neck as sparks flew from his fingers. The guard shook violently as if being electrocuted and after a second, his body was dropped to the ground. His lifeless eyes looked up at me as if warning me I would be next if I wasn't careful.

I covered my mouth, fighting tears from my eyes as I stared at him for a second. Gray told me he was terrible, I didn't want to see it, but now he killed the guard, and I was with him. What did that make me? Was I his accomplice?

With a heavy sigh, as if he was bored with the whole thing, Graywick picked up the dead guard and dragged the body to a room across the hall from the basement door. Covering his evidence, Graywick then opened the basement door and threw a small item he pulled out from his pocket through the door.

The item caught on fire as it hit the ground, but all I could think was the body shoved in a room to be the basement. "You killed him."

He rolled his eyes at me with a frown. "You kids are all the same. No wonder why Grayson loves you." He looked down the hall as if expecting something to happen. "Now, Stella, pull yourself together, we don't have much time. The spell is tripped, go down and get him." He pushed me softly down the stairs, coaxing me to move on.

As much as I wanted to run away now, I was too close to Gray that I couldn't get out. I shook my head to clear it, then ran down the stairs and looked around the hall for any clues on where he would be. "Gray?" I called out, hoping he would hear.

"Stella!" he responded almost instantly. "I'm here."

I followed the sound of his voice and wondered into a small room to see a metal cage with Gray standing in the middle of it. "Stella!" he called out as he looked at me with worried eyes.

"I'm here to get you out," I said as I looked around for how to break him out.

A second later Graywick walked into the room and looked around the space, trying to find something. "Stella, watch out!" Gray said with concern.

I turned to see Graywick as he flipped a switch, shutting the spell off. "Oh, son, she's with me. Stella has really been a champ at this plan, but enough talking about that. You two should go now," he said, then wasted no time as he ran out of the room, moving on to his next step in the plan.

I tried not to linger on what he planned to do, telling myself it wasn't nothing I should be worried about. To clear my mind, I turned to Gray, who stared at me in shock. His look made me wish I could read minds. It worried me that maybe he was judging me, but he didn't understand, I couldn't break him out without Graywick's help.

"You are ok? Like really ok?"

I nodded as I felt my strength slowly return. I was feeling better with every passing minute. "I'm ok. Whatever you gave me worked," I said as I showed him my shoulder, which only had a black scratch on it.

"So my father didn't lie."

I shook my head. "He wanted me to get you out of here. He didn't lie about that either."

He frowned for a second, then shook his head as if not wanting to dwell on those thoughts. Silently, he walked out of the cage and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer than he had ever before. "I really thought I would lose you."

I wrapped my arms around him and nodded into his shoulder. I didn't think I would make it through myself, but he did it. I was here because of him. "It's ok. I'm here. Let's get out of here and get back to Jackson."

He frowned, as if something was wrong. "I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? Gray, we need to leave. Graywick told me we had to get out of here."

"And because of that, I need to stay. I let him out, I caused this mess and I have to stay to fix it."

I couldn't help but frown. I was so close to freeing him, but he didn't want to. Anger sparked within me like a lit match. "Gray, don't be insane. We need to leave."

He shook his head as the lights flickered above us as someone screamed in the distance. "Graywick is making his move."

And that was why we needed to leave. Get out of here before we got caught in the crossfire. This place didn't care about either of us, so we shouldn't care about it. But he stood his ground as if this was the only place he actually cared about. "Then we should go."

"You know I can't."

I frowned. "No, I don't know. Please tell me why you want to stay in a place that gave you little regard."

"Because this is my home." And with that, more screams filled the air.