Free Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) by Amy Braun Page B

foot, watching it thump over the floorboards, glaring at the ground and losing himself in misery again.
    “Sawyer–”
    “Did you have a secret compartment in your room?”
    That took me aback. “What?”
    Sawyer slowly dragged his foot back against the floorboards again. I watched the heel of his boot catch and jump over an uneven crevice between them. I let go of my knees and crawled over to his foot, pushing it aside and using my torch to look at the boards. The slit was no larger than the width of my index finger, but I knew for certain it hadn’t been in the house when I was growing up. My parents would never leave something so obvious for me to trip on.
    Sawyer shifted so I could reach for my belt. I had left my messenger bag back on the Dauntless, figuring all I needed for this expedition were a belt with some screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and my own personally designed flashbangs and torches. I took a screwdriver from my belt, slid it into the crevice, and pushed up.  
    The board screeched, but lifted. Sawyer curled his fingers under it and helped me pry the board loose. He set it aside and peered with me into the open space. The dull glow of the torch’s light revealed a simple, leather satchel layered with dust in the hollow crevice. My pulse began to race. I shoved the torch into Sawyer’s hands and grabbed the leather bag. I propped it on the floor and unlatched its tarnished gold clasps.
    It was filled with papers, notebooks, and charts.
    Heart pounding, I grabbed a small, red leather notebook from inside the satchel and flipped it open. The pages were delicate and yellowed, but I recognized my mother’s cursive handwriting. I skimmed the book, stopping when I came across the sketch of a machine. It didn’t look much different from the tubes Garnet used to contain the electricity he stole. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d seen this design and stole it from my parents. Only, in this sketch, there were two of them in this single design. Each tube stood erect on a dais, an arch of electricity connecting them. Above the bolt was a long, jagged tear like a shredded wound, a harshly drawn patch or blackness that looked like it had been sketched with aggression. Or fear.  
    It took me a moment to discover what it was. When I did, the air seemed to escape my lungs.
    “The Breach,” I whispered.
    Sawyer shuffled closer, illuminating the pages with the torch so he could look with me. “Are you sure?”
    “It has to be.” I nodded automatically, still transfixed by the sketch.  
    “Then what does that thing do?” He pointed to the machine drawn underneath the sketch. “Do you think it’s supposed to be their machine for closing the Breach?” He sounded just as breathless as I did.
    “Possibly, but I’m not sure,” I admitted. There were no notes on this particular page. “It looks like a conductor, and a massive electric charge trying to force the Breach to close.” I looked away from the journal, thinking for a moment. “That could be the same kind of force that opened it in the first place.”
    “What do you mean?”
    I looked at him. “The whole point of the exploration was to find new territory in Aon and help with overpopulation. What if the explorers and scientists knew there was another dimension that was closed to us? What if the explorers found a weak part connecting our worlds, and took the Discovery team to force it open? That would explain why they wanted so many engineers and Electricians on the crew.”
    His brow furrowed in concentration. “I remember they were supposed to be traveling with a heavy Sky Guard unit.” He seemed to come across a dark thought, and looked at me with wider eyes. “You think the Discovery invaded the Hellion world? Hellnore, or whatever Riley called it?”
    “It’s possible,” I concurred. “I won’t know until I read more.” I flipped through the notebook while Sawyer rifled through the satchel.  
    “Found their passbooks,” he