The Gathering Dark (33 page)

“His mother?” Keira interrupted.

“My aunt Holly was taken by the Reformers this afternoon,” Walker said. “They found out that Smith can cross over.”

Keira held the bundle of clothes against herself more tightly. “What?! How did they find out?”

“I was trying to create a distraction for you guys. One of the guards came around the corner of the building when I crossed back into this world. He saw me do it.”

“No,” Keira whispered. No wonder there had been so much shouting and running in the Hall when she’d gone back in to get Walker.

“I got away,” Smith said. “I mean, I can cross and they can’t. Once I made it back to Sherwin, I thought I’d be okay.” His voice broke. “I didn’t think about them taking my
mom.
”

Walker’s voice was grave. “They’re holding her until Smith agrees to work for them . . . until he proves his loyalty.”

“They caught me while I was looking for my mom. I thought for sure they would toss me in a cell and leave me there, but they said they want me to follow you, to spy on you,” Smith said. “I don’t want to do it, but I have to. It’s the only way to save my mother.” He fixed his gaze on Walker. “I’m sorry. I can’t live with myself if they hurt her, or . . . ” He swallowed hard. “I know what you meant now, back in the Hall, when you said you’d do whatever you had to do to save Keira. I snuck over here to warn you that they’re coming, before I go tell them where you are. I’m giving you a head start. It’s the best I can do. The two of you need to get the hell out of Sherwin.” Smith swallowed hard. “I can’t let them have my mom, Walker. Not even if it means handing you over to the Reformers.”

Walker tipped his head back and looked at the sky. He blinked, hard and fast. “I’d like to tell you there’s nothing to worry about. That you should tell them to go fuck themselves and that Holly’ll be fine.” His voice roughened and he cleared his throat, leveling his gaze at Smith. “But you know that’s not true.
I
know that’s not true.”

Keira’s legs wobbled underneath her. This had already happened to Walker once before.

“Walker—” Smith started, but Walker shook his head.

“You have a shot at saving your family. Do you know what I’d give for the same chance?” The pain in Walker’s voice was so fresh that Keira’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears.

“So you’ll leave Sherwin?” Smith asked.

Walker looked over at Keira.

She wanted to nod, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was going to abandon her family, so that Smith could save his.

None of us asked for this. And you’ve been dreaming of getting out of Sherwin for years,
she told herself.

“I’ll need to say good-bye,” she croaked. “To my parents, I mean.”

Walker flinched. Smith’s eyebrows pinched together.

“Be quick about it,” he advised her.

“We’ll go as fast as we can,” Walker assured him.

“Good.” Smith nodded, sniffing back tears. “That’s good.”

Keira had never seen someone look as utterly lost as Smith did in that moment. She stepped toward him and hugged him
awkwardly with one arm, on account of the clothes she still held in the other. Smith started, but she held on and in the next instant, he folded her into a brotherly embrace that made her wish she’d never doubted him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Me too,” he said. “Run fast, okay?”

Before she could answer, Smith disappeared beneath her touch.

The second he was gone, she could feel time start to slide away from her. She unfroze and climbed into the car, the clothes in a bundle on her lap. A little row of black dots popped up on the back of her hand. Keira watched, her head aching, as they danced toward her palm and disappeared. It was like the darkness was taunting her, snuggling down into the—what had Walker called the particles that normal things like clothes were made of? Baryonic matter? She’d never wanted to know that much about physics. Not the physics of the real world, not about Darkside physics, and certainly not the mess that got made when they mixed.

Walker slid into the car next to her and let out a grim sigh.

“You okay?” she asked, knowing full well that he wasn’t.

“Not really. You?”

She shook her head.

“So, you saw Susan,” he ventured.

She shrugged. Her throat was too tight to talk.

“It didn’t go so well, huh?” he guessed.

Keira shook her head again.

Walker put the car into gear and sped away. Keira didn’t know where they were going, but it didn’t really matter. As long as it was away, it was right.

Keira tossed the clothes into the backseat, and dug her phone out of her pocket. There was only a sliver of life left on the battery icon.

Keira glanced at the clock. Her mom should be home from work by now.

Please, let her be home.

She dialed. Her heart felt uncomfortably large in her chest.

“Hello?” her mother answered.

Walker shifted in his seat and Keira motioned to him to be quiet.

“Hi, Mom,” Keira squeaked.

“Hi, sweetie.” Her mom sounded sad and worried. “I was just getting ready to call you. You haven’t checked in for a while.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day.” Keira was telling the truth, but she knew her mother would misinterpret her words. She
wanted
her to.

The silence on the other end of the phone became too uncomfortable to bear.

“We just left Susan’s. I was hoping we could swing by the house and say”—the word “good-bye” almost slipped out of her mouth—“hi. Is that okay?” Keira asked.

“I was hoping you’d say that. I thought we could talk
over dinner. Even if you’re thinking of staying at Susan’s again tonight, you must need some clean clothes.” The idea of clothes—her own clothes—sent a horrible pang through Keira. She’d have to take some things. Pack for wherever they were going. And then leave everything else behind.

Including her piano.

The thought of leaving her instrument sliced through her. She hadn’t played in almost two days. The last time she’d been away from her piano for that long was freshman year, when she’d come down with mono. She’d thought she’d go crazy, lying there in bed, too tired to walk the seventeen steps to the piano. Her fingers ached for the smooth feel of the keys beneath them.

Keira gave herself a mental slap. “Dinner sounds great, but Walker and I have to . . . be somewhere. We won’t have very long.”

“Walker? I thought you were with Susan.” Her mother’s voice turned suspicious.

Keira winced. She hadn’t said exactly
who
was driving her. It wasn’t her fault her mother had assumed the ride would be with Susan.

She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “He picked me up from Susan’s. We’re going out to dinner. Or we were. And then to a movie. Later.” Keira’d never been good at lying. She obviously needed to get better at twisting the truth, and fast.

Her mother cleared her throat. “I think having dinner
with Walker sounds like a lovely idea. I’d like to spend a little more time with him, since he’s obviously spending a lot of time with you.”

Keira’s palms started to sweat. There was an accusation in her mother’s words, taut and sinewy as tendon. Like she knew, somehow, that Keira’d spent last night with Walker. If her mom tried to force her to stay home tonight, then what would they do?

“Um,” she said, but her mother barreled right over her.

“Bring him over. You can pick up some clothes, Walker can stay for dinner, and then after he leaves, I’ll drive you back to Susan’s.” Her mother’s voice was brittle.

The air in Keira’s lungs all came rushing out at once, in a little
ugh
of surprise.

“See you soon.” Her mother hung up, leaving Keira with a silent phone pressed to her ear.

She wanted to scream, but she settled for a frustrated growl.

“That good, huh?” Walker asked.

“It seems my mother is suddenly dying to see you. So much for thinking you’re the Big Bad Wolf,” Keira said, exasperated.

Walker laughed in the low, gravelly way that went straight through Keira’s middle, warming her.

“I’m pretty sure she wants me to come precisely
because
she thinks I’m the Big Bad Wolf.”

Keira threw herself back against the seat and gave in to her black mood. “She wants to drive me to Susan’s after. I don’t think she believes that I’m staying there.”

Walker stopped at a red light. He shifted his weight, leaning in until his forehead rested against her temple.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’ll figure something out. If I have to, I’ll just huff and I’ll puff”—he blew a trickle of cool air into the sensitive hollow behind her ear and Keira shivered—“and I’ll blow the house in.”

He was so close. She wanted to kiss him. She
needed
to kiss him.

But she couldn’t. As soon as he’d touched her, she’d heard the susurration of the Darkside trees, as their leaves shifted against one another in the wind. Kissing him would drop them straight into the forest. It would make another rip in Darkside.

It would call the guards.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Walker sighed and pushed himself away from her.

“Dinner won’t be all bad. You’ve got to be desperate to play, right? Having a little time with your piano won’t be so horrible.”

It would be wonderful, if I weren’t trying to say good-bye.

And her dad wouldn’t even be there. She pulled out her phone again and called him. His office and cell numbers both went to voice mail.

“Please call me back,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. If she could talk to him, maybe she could figure out a way to meet up with him.

At least for a minute. Long enough for one more hug. A few last words before she ran away from Sherwin.

Her throat closed up, her panic choking her.

“So, do you want to tell me what happened with Susan?” Walker asked gently.

“I told her the truth.”

“You did
what
?”

“Don’t worry,” Keira growled. “She didn’t believe me. Not for a second. God, she barely believed that I didn’t sleep with Jeremy Reynolds.”

A muscle jumped in Walker’s jaw and she watched him struggle to stay focused.

“You didn’t believe me about Darkside at first either,” Walker pointed out.

Keira opened her mouth to contradict him, but he was right. That was the whole reason why she’d wanted to cross over in front of Susan in the first place—to prove herself. Why should she expect Susan to believe something Keira herself hadn’t wanted to accept? Especially when Susan wasn’t having the same strange visions of Darkside that had plagued Keira?

She rubbed her burning eyes.

“Everything is so screwed up,” she said.

She felt Walker’s hand on her knee. “Not
everything
,” he said.

Keira cracked open an eye.

“Okay,” she relented. “
Almost
everything. How can you turn into Mr. Silver Linings at a time like this?”

Walker cocked an eyebrow at her. “Because it’s necessary.” His face grew more serious. “I can’t have you sliding off into the
abyss of despair. If we’re going to stay ahead of Smith and the Reformers, I need you on your toes.”

Keira stared out the window as the familiar streets slipped past.

“Where will we go?” she asked.

“I thought maybe New York,” Walker said. “The Darkside terrain there is difficult—it’s all steep mountains. They’re older and more stable than the part of the range that runs up north, but they’re still considered uninhabitable. I hear the same about Manhattan,” he joked, “but I know you’ve always wanted to go there. Juilliard may be out of the question, because it would pin us too publicly in one place, but we could find some way for you to play, and let the crowd hide us. It’s a start, at least.”

“Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.”

New York. It should have been a dream come true.

Instead, it was just another waking nightmare.

Chapter Forty-Three

T
HE SMELL OF TOMATO
sauce wafted over Keira as soon as she walked in the door. Her mother hadn’t wasted any time starting dinner.

“We’re here,” she called.

“Oh, good. I was about to put some water on to boil for the pasta. Come on in and say hi,” her mother called back.

Walker touched Keira’s arm, stopping her as she headed for the kitchen.

I’ll go talk to your mom,
he mouthed.
You,
he pointed a finger at her,
go watch what they’re doing over there—
he gestured toward the Hall of Records—
and see if we need to be worried.

Keira’s eyes widened. She shook her head. What kind of chivalry was that, anyway? Hey, babe, why don’t
you
go check out the creepy noise in the basement?

She pointed back at Walker, her gesture telling him to do surveillance instead.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “It would look incredibly weird if I hung back while you went in the kitchen.”

Crap.

He was right. Keira heaved a sigh and nodded. Fine. She would go back to her bedroom and look Darkside. She was tough. She was independent. She could do this.

Walker headed into the kitchen. “It smells amazing, Mrs. Brannon.”

“Thanks, Walker, but please, call me Julia.”

Keira winced, immediately reminded of her parents’ problems. She wondered if her mother’s last name would even
be
Brannon much longer.

“Where’s Keira?” her mother asked.

“I think she went to change and get some clothes and stuff together.” Walker’s voice was a shade louder than was absolutely necessary and Keira knew he’d intended for her to hear the comment.

No time like the present,
she thought. She walked down the hall to her room and stood next to her bed, facing her closet. She started to reach for Darkside and yelped as she felt the familiar squeezing chill of moving between two worlds. She
braced her feet against the carpet, willing herself to stay in her room. It took all of her effort to push back the magnetlike draw of Darkside. With a soft
pop
of broken suction, she was back in her bedroom. What the hell? She hadn’t had any trouble staying out of Darkside this morning. Why was she slipping over so easily?