The Gathering Dark (36 page)

This is the only way. If I don’t go . . . if I don’t find some way out of this, she’ll lose me forever.

The thought crashed into her like a rock through a window, cracking her into pieces. Her terror rose through the mess, leaving her feeling wounded and helpless.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get to Susan’s, okay?” Her voice was quiet. “And I promise you, as soon as I can, I’ll come home for good.”

Her mother sagged. “Fine. I’ll drive you, though.”

“I have to go right past Susan’s,” Walker said. “It’s really no trouble for me to drop Keira off.”

Keira’s mom hesitated, glancing between the two of them. Her gaze landed on Keira.

“If Walker drives you, you’re to go straight to Susan’s and stay there.”

Keira nodded. She felt like she’d gotten away with something, and relief slid over her, guilty but sweet at the same time.

Her mom lifted a warning finger. “I have had my trust broken too many times these past few days. If you betray me too, I will be beyond disappointed. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Keira said. The word was hard to say. She’d violated her mother’s trust before she’d even promised not to. She couldn’t go to Susan’s, even if she wanted to. Susan didn’t want her there.

There was nowhere for her to go, and Keira felt trapped. She needed out—out of the house, out of this hopeless situation, out of this mess of her life.

Walker tried to help her with her bag, but Keira hitched it over her own shoulder.

“Thanks, but I’ve got it,” she said.

“Proud,” he accused, but there was a light in his eyes that made Keira feel the smallest bit better.

“I’ll call you,” she promised her mother again. She wanted to make one she could actually keep.

“You’d better,” her mother said, turning to the dishes. It was probably supposed to be a warning, but it sounded more like a plea.

Before she could lose her nerve—or her mind—Keira turned for the front door. She glanced at her piano. The keys seemed to smile at her. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t gone to her piano to solve her problems.

Pike’s words echoed in her mind. If the music made sense to her, it would save them. Nothing in the world made as much sense to her as the piano. If Walker could figure out where Pike was, then they had a real chance at figuring out how to satisfy the Reformers and stay alive, too. She was sure of it.

Keira held on to that tiny kernel of hope as she hurried out into the failing light with Walker. The night crept around them, and Keira worked to keep Darkside out of sight. Proving to herself that she was still strong enough to do it.

Proving that she could still see her life however she wanted, wherever she wanted.

“So, which is it?” Walker asked, opening his door. “Hunt for Pike or go to New York?”

Keira looked over at him, blinking as Darkside flashed behind him for a moment before she forced it away.

She wanted this not to be good-bye. She wanted to come home again.

“Pike,” she said. “I know it’s risky. But let’s go anyway. I don’t want to run forever.”

She got in the car and buckled her seat belt.

Ready or not,
she thought,
here I come.

Chapter Forty-Six

W
ALKER DROVE THROUGH TOWN
,
weaving through neighborhoods. Keira could see him thinking. A familiar little furrow had appeared between his eyebrows, and she kept her mouth shut, concentrating on plugging her phone charger into his fancy dashboard while he thought things through. She turned her attention to Darkside, letting it slip into view. Though the sight of two worlds moving past the car window turned her stomach, it eased the ache of trying to hold Darkside at a distance. As they reached the edge of town, the Darkside forest gave way to rockier terrain. Beyond it, where the edge of Maine trailed off into the ocean, Keira could see the Darkside mountains.
They were craggy and treeless, the Darkside stone glimmering beneath the strange, ever-moving stars.

“Isn’t there an ocean Darkside?” she asked, forgetting her plan to let Walker think uninterrupted.

“Not here,” Walker said. “Those are the Novitiate mountains. They go for a long way, and beyond them there’s another forest, like the one here. There’s another city or two on the other side of the mountains, but they’re in the middle of the Atlantic in this world, so it’s pretty much impossible to cross back and forth from there.”

Walker stopped talking as abruptly as if someone had clapped a hand over his mouth.

“What?” Keira asked.

Walker ran a hand through his hair. “At the north edge of the mountains, there are these caves. They’re beneath your ocean and the peaks are really unstable, because the fabric of Darkside is still weak from when the mountains formed. No one goes there. It would be like camping on top of a lake covered with paper-thin ice.”

“Thin as thread,” Keira said, the pieces falling into place.

“A rocky haven,” Walker agreed. “No one goes in or out of the caves.”

“In a watery grave,” she finished, “because crossing over would put you under the Atlantic Ocean. That’s where he is. It has to be!”

Walker was silent.

“We’re likely to get killed trying to find him there,” he finally said.

“You don’t have to go. I’m the one the Reformers are after. Take me as far as the coast, and I can go the rest of the way myself.” Keira’s chest felt empty as she said the words, but she meant them. She didn’t want Walker to get hurt again. The memory of him lying bleeding and broken on the floor at the Hall of Records stung her.

He put on his turn signal.

“Not a chance.” His voice was steely. She’d never heard him sound like that. He looked over at her. The
ticktickticktick
of the turn signal measured out the seconds as he stared at her. “I threw in my lot with you ages ago,” he said. “The Reformers want me as much as they want you, now. I betrayed them when I chose to protect you. Please don’t question that.”

She swallowed hard and his eyes softened.

“Please,” he said.

She reached for him, grateful and apologetic at once, but as her fingers grazed his neck, headlights illuminated the car from behind them.

“Time to go,” Walker said, his voice low and sweet.

He headed toward the coast. Fear and excitement bubbled up in Keira so quickly that it felt like she was going to explode. She wrapped her arms around her ribs, holding herself together.

They knew where Pike Sendson was.

Now they just had to figure out how to get there.

•  •  •

Walker drove north, staying as close to the coast as he could. Keira watched as the Darkside mountains got more ragged. They looked newer—more raw. When she could catch glimpses of the ocean, the surging waves coursed hungrily beneath her view of the Darkside mountains. Keira had never seen anything so forbidding. She tapped her fingers nervously against her legs, playing the Beethoven sonata in time with the rhythm of the tires as they thrummed over the pavement.

Their progress was slow. They had to get off the interstate to get close enough to the coast to watch the Darkside mountains. Even then, the view often wasn’t good enough to see the mountains well. The thick darkness of the night wasn’t helping things either. Despite stopping for coffee, Keira’s eyes began to feel gritty, and her shoulders ached with exhaustion.

Predawn light began to shimmer over the water, and Keira realized they were so far north that she was actually looking at the Bay of Fundy.

Finally, they got to a spot where the road kissed the coast. Signs cheerfully pointed them toward a “scenic overlook” ahead and Walker pulled into the tiny, deserted lot.

Keira looked over at him. His hand was wrapped around the gearshift, the ridges of his knuckles echoing the mountains that loomed ahead of them. The two worlds overlapped in Keira’s vision so that the dark crags seemed to rise straight out of the ocean. The peaks looked smooth and unbroken. She
slumped down in her seat, wondering if they were going to drive off the tip of Maine before they found the caves.

“We’re here,” Walker said, his voice rough and tired. He opened his car door and the chilly, salt-rimed air rushed in.

Keira scrambled out of the car and followed Walker to the edge of the overlook.

“But—where are the caves?”

“Down there.” Walker pointed.

Keira stared into the maelstrom of purple-black waves. She looked through the sea, dipping her consciousness into Darkside. The base of the mountains appeared, at least thirty feet below the surface of the water. She’d been expecting fat, round holes to mark the cave mouths. Instead what she saw was a collection of slashes in the rock face, like open wounds.

She shivered. “How are we going to
get
there?”

They had no boat, and no SCUBA equipment, not that Keira would know how to use it. Her family had never had enough money for that sort of thing. The sea was too cold and rough for her freestyle stroke to be helpful.

“We’ll have to go through Darkside,” Walker sighed. “It’s the only way.”

Keira blanched. “But won’t that give the Reformers’ guards time to catch up with us?”

Walker shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yep. We’ll just have to hope they’re slower and more scared than we are.”

Keira stared down at the crashing waves. “Well, then,” she said sarcastically, “what are we waiting for?”

“We could still run,” Walker offered. “We’ve done a decent job of staying one step ahead of the guards.”

Staring at the maze of death that spread out in front of them made the idea of running seem almost tempting. After all, they
had
succeeded at it so far.

Except she’d barely touched her piano.

And she’d barely touched Walker.

Running meant giving up those things for good, and it wasn’t worth it.

She shook her head. “No. I may be able to stay alive if we run, but I can’t
live
that way. Not if it means going without the piano. Not if it means never really touching you. I’m not going to give up the things that make me who I am just because it would be the safer choice.” She turned to face Walker and he wrapped his arms around her waist. The wind coming off the water howled around them, pushing them closer together.

Keira glanced down. Their feet were on solid ground in Maine, but they hovered above the Darkside slope that lead down to the base of the mountains. The ground in Darkside was five or six feet beneath them. Crossing over was going to hurt.

She looked up at Walker.

“Let’s go the nice way,” he said, his arms tightening around
the small of her back. Her pulse thrummed against the hollow of her throat as he leaned in toward her.

“I promise you,” he whispered against her lips. “We’re going to get out of this. Together.” He ducked his head a fraction of an inch, pressing the words against her lips, sealing them there with his kiss. The taste of him filled her mouth and Keira’s stomach dropped out beneath her.

Too late, she realized that it was the fall, as much as his kiss, that had sent her stomach plummeting.

Chapter Forty-Seven

K
EIRA LANDED HARD ON
the Darkside slope. Beneath her, her ankle crunched viciously and collapsed, sending her sprawling. Walker had managed to land on his side and Keira fell on top of him, crying out as the pain in her ankle bloomed and spread, setting her whole leg throbbing.

Keira rolled off Walker and he struggled to sit up. She curled into a ball on the rock, feeling it slide beneath her. It was hard as iron but it shifted like something not yet settled.

“What hurts?” he asked, crouching in front of her.

“Ankle,” Keira gasped, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Moving carefully on the unstable slope, Walker gently pulled
up the hem of her jeans. Keira hissed as the denim brushed against her skin, sending her already screaming nerve-endings into an agonized shriek.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “This is probably not going to feel so good.”

Keira squeezed her eyes shut as his fingers slid over her ankle.

“It’s swelling,” he said. “You definitely sprained it. It might be broken. I can’t tell.”

“Shit,” she whispered.

She couldn’t run on a broken ankle. Keira looked up. The streaks of light that soared across the Darkside sky blurred as tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.

They were so close. They’d been
so close.
And now here she was, like an injured rabbit lying in the wolf’s path.

Anger screeched through her, cutting through the pain and disappointment. She hadn’t come this far to give up now.

Keira pushed herself into a sitting position, facing Walker. “It’ll be fine. I’ll . . . I’ll just cross over and heal it.”

Walker raised his eyebrows. “Keira, we’d be underwater. Literally.” He stared at the Darkside terrain. “We can’t cross back over here. To get to a place where the terrains of earth and Darkside line up, we’d have to hike a couple of miles to the east.” A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “It’s probably almost as far to the caves, but we could try to get back to a good crossing point. We might have time. I think.”

Keira shook her head. “Never mind, we’re not wasting time with that. I can walk it off.”

Walker stared at her. “You can’t walk off a sprain, Keira. Much less a break.”

“It isn’t
broken
,” she roared. Her voice echoed strangely in the mountains, some of the syllables bouncing back to her while others disappeared into the rock. Keeping her weight on her good foot, she hauled herself up to stand.

The incessant Darkside wind fluttered her shirt like a flag. Walker watched her, frozen. Silent. He’d always accused her of being stubborn, and right then, she was counting on him being right.

“I’m going down to the caves and nothing is going to stop me,” she announced, taking a step down the incline. When her weight reached her foot, her ankle exploded in pain. She tried to move the pressure back to her good foot but the rock shifted beneath her and suddenly nothing was holding her up.