The Hollows In Our Freedom | 'Hollows' Book Ⅲ

Chapter Forty-Two

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T h e   H o l l o w s   I n
O U R  F R E E D O M
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I stared at him for a few moments, watching him raise an eyebrow at me, my heart racing in my chest.

"Yes we did, I timed everything to the second; we left the Ball at quarter to, and we started to leave at 11:42." He explained, even flipping the sheet around and pointing to the times to prove his point.

I frowned, "but...why did we do that?" I asked him.

Like me, his expression suddenly turned thoroughly confused. "What do you mean?" He asked.

I shook my head, taking the sheet with the mission timings on into my hands. "Why did we leave at that time? We weren't supposed to." I was mainly just talking to myself, but Jace responded nonetheless.

"I think it was more of a natural thing—you gave Jameson and Sky this look, and then we started moving."

I stared at him. "Because it was twenty to. We left at twenty to midnight, I know we did."

Jace shook his head, pointing to the sheet. "Not according to this, which by the way, was perfectly timed." I stared at the words on the page, hardly even listening to a word he was saying.

When I remained silent, he asked, "how did you know it was twenty to?"

Still frozen, I responded, "my watch."

"And are you sure your watch was correct?" He asked, making me discard the sheet instantly and throw him an annoyed glare.

"Of course it was! Do you think really think I'm that stupid?" I rose my voice, channeling my worries into anger and mushing them up into a ball and firing it at Jace.

"Well one of us is wrong." He said, leaning back in his seat. After a few moments of silence, he asked, "were we supposed to leave at 11:40?"

"Yes!" I replied, almost ripping out my hair.  I reached out, shuffling through the papers and producing the plan, shoving it in front of Jace.

He glanced down the page, and then his expression turned grave.

"We left at the wrong time."

I couldn't control myself; I let out a string of profanities, having no idea how it comforted me. I guess it was like how some people scream to let out their emotions—I just swear.

I grabbed the plan and the real timings from Jace, comparing the two.

"We were five minutes out." I began, "we were five minutes late...to everything following that moment. Meaning..."

"...meaning that we were five minutes late to the house."

I gulped. "Shit."

Jace placed a palm on my arm, and that's when I realised I was shaking.

"At least now we know–"