Falling Into Darkness: The Under Series Book 1 (3 page)

I spent the rest of the night on my own, mom was still at work and Frank was out, probably at some
bar somewhere. I finished my packing and ended up on the couch channel hopping in my pyjamas.
There was nothing worth watching not that I would be able to concentrate on anything all I could
think about was Micah and that weird phone conversation.
I kept going over and over it in my head. Had he been talking about me, had he felt me in his head?
Not that I heard anything it was completely blank. Did he know what I could do, did Seth? There
were so many things that didn’t make sense which only left me feeling confused and frustrated.
He talked about bringing her back, who? He couldn’t have been talking about me, I hadn’t left with
him. Who was on the other end of the phone? Micah had told them to stay away from-who-me?
No I was being silly, it probably had nothing to do with me, I was just over thinking it.
All I knew for certain was he was talking about a girl. I only hoped Seth hadn’t gotten himself
involved in some kind of bad trouble.
I eventually went to bed bored with nothing else to do, I laid there for ages before my brain finally
decided to shut down for the night. I fell asleep picturing Micah's face and his icy blue eyes.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling extremely tired from a restless nights sleep, I had been
completely unsettled all night tossing and turning I was surprised I hadn’t rolled off the bed. This
was going to be my last day in the house I'd grown up in, so many memories mostly of me and Seth
as kids.
My daisy clock read 6.10am. I closed my eyes and tried to drift back off but I heard clattering and
other random noises down the hallway, mom was up already, she was probably already in packing
mode.
I trudged along the landing feeling rubbish and pushed the handle to the bathroom door down, it
was locked.
“Ruby is that you?” mom asked from behind the door.
“Yeah it's me, I’ll just wait downstairs,” I said not bothering to hide my sullen tone, I was still mad
at her for keeping Seth’s letters from me.
“No it's okay I’ve finished in here,” she said as the door swung open. She was freshly showered and
dressed but she looked tired from over working. She stepped out to let me pass.
“Have you finished packing yet? I want all boxes moved into the garage today, we're running out of
space downstairs,”
“I finished last night,” I said trying to shut the door but she was in the way.
“Ruby I know you don't want to move, we're not going too far you can still come back and visit
Carly,”
“It won't be the same I’m still changing schools. I wont be able to see her during the week and I’ll
probably get a job that takes up the weekend. I'll most likely never see her again.”
“Oh Ruby don't be so dramatic, there will be holidays,”
“Well I might want to spend my holidays with Seth from now on,” I had purposely been waiting for
the right time to drop it into the conversion about Seth but this seemed like a good as time as any.
“What are you talking about? You know he doesn’t have anything to do with us anymore,”
“Really so that wasn’t Seth I bumped into yesterday on the way home from work then?” I said
slamming the bathroom door and quickly locking it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you'd seen him?” she said louder from the other side of the door.
“Well for a start I haven’t seen you since Friday and if you're going to keep things from me like I
don’t know say a bunch of letters addressed to me, then why shouldn’t I keep things from you. I
can't believe you tried to keep us apart. You've never liked him or been bothered with him it's no
wonder he wanted to get away from you.” I said, regretting the words the moment they had left my
mouth, that might of been pushing it a bit too far.
“Ruby I did it for your own good. He’s going nowhere I didn’t want him influencing you. You've
got your last year of school coming up, then you'll be off to college, you don’t need to be getting
involved with Seth and all his problems.”
“What problems? I talked to him and he said he was doing great, he even looked happy.”
Drugs...
I couldn’t believe I'd just heard that, it was always the same with her if someone didn’t look
right or were acting slightly off she would blame it on drugs. I knew she worked at the hospital and
dealt with a lot of drug addicts but I thought by now she would know the difference. I was surprised
she hadn’t already accused me of been on drugs for my moody behaviour with her.
“Oh Ruby wake up didn’t you see his friend, his eyes weren't normal, obviously high on
something,”
Drugs,
I heard her a second time. Was she seriously accusing Seth of been on drugs again. Sure
Micah had some strange looking eyes but he didn’t look high to me. I don’t think Seth would of let
him drive if he'd been using.
He had just looked annoyed to me. That was it he was annoyed that I was holding them up from
getting back on the road, that's why he was glaring at me. Wait no that can't be right it was his idea
for us to go out and get food in the first place. I realised mom was still on the other side of the door.
“Okay well lets agree to disagree on this one, you've obviously made you mind up about Seth,” I
said turning the shower on.
“Ruby.” Mom called louder.
“I'm getting in the shower now. So I can't hear you.” I shouted back.
I stood in the shower letting the water spray over my face. I was annoyed with mom but I knew no
good would come from getting mad at her or trying to reason with her she was the sort of person
that always thought they were right and no one else knew what they were talking about. It was best
to ignore her plus I knew that would aggravate her more.
She'd mentioned Micah's eyes and now that was all I was thinking about it, it was hard enough
trying to get him out of my head last night. There was something different about him but I was sure
it didn’t have anything to do with mom’s theory.
After my shower I grabbed an apple and some OJ and went back to my very bare looking room to
hide from my mom. I looked over at my daisy clock which sat all by itself on the nightstand. It was
only 7.15am but it already felt like I had been up for hours. I was completely bored and felt
sluggish. I sat on the window ledge, staring out the window. A large black bird had caught my
attention. It sat perched on a branch across the street, it looked huge compared to a standard
blackbird, maybe it was a crow. I squinted trying to get a better look at the bird it looked to have
something on its leg like a tag, maybe it was someone's pet? Something below distracted my eyes
away from the bird, it was mom dashing across the front lawn to her car holding her work bag that
normally had her work clothes in.
I went downstairs to find Frank putting on his coat on.
“Where's mom going?” I asked.
“Work,” he said slipping his shoes on.
“I thought yesterday was her last day?”
“It was but they were short on staff and she offered to help,”
“So where are you going?”
“Your mom is dropping me off at the Bill's for a few goodbye beers,”
He moved to the door. “Now when your mother gets back I want you to behave yourself, I don’t
want you upsetting her. I heard you this morning having another go at her, she doesn’t need it she's
under enough stress as it is with the move. The last thing she needs is to have to deal with a
teenager having a tantrum every five minutes.” he said slamming the door.
My mouth actually dropped open, I couldn’t believe he'd said that it was his fault we were having to
move in the first place.
I felt trapped with nowhere to go. Seth was gone and I was moving away from Carly. I sat on the
stairs trying not to cry it would only make me feel worse. I don't know how long I had sat there with
my eyes fixed on the bottom step mindlessly staring, when there was a knock at the door.
I slowly got up and walked to the door, thinking maybe mom or Frank had forgotten something but
they had their own keys why would they knock?
I was just glad I hadn’t burst into tears I would of looked all pink and blotchy from crying.
I opened the door and found Seth with his hands jammed in his pockets. I smiled and frowned at the
same time, he was the last person I expected to find on the other side of the door.
“Hey! Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said opening the door wider. I looked down the drive and saw his truck parked up, Micah
was in the drivers seat on his cell.
“What are you doing here, I thought you left?” I asked curiously.
“We decided to stay, neither one of us could be bothered to do drive back yesterday and well I was
thinking a lot about what you had said yesterday and was wondering if you wanted to come and stay
for the rest of the school break with me? The cabin won't be quite up to the living standards you're
used to and the spare room is full of junk at the moment but I thought you might want a break from
all this,”
I wasn't sure if I’d even heard him correctly.
“I know it's short notice with the move tomorrow, but it's not like they need you for that. Mom's got
removal men collecting and dropping stuff off, they can dump the stuff in your new room and you
can just unpack when you get back.”
His whole body language had changed, he was pacing around he seemed anxious he almost sounded
desperate. This was a turn around from yesterday when he didn’t think it was good idea, I wonder
what had changed his mind? Maybe he felt sorry for me stuck here. I was still trying to take it all in
when I heard his thoughts they were jumping all over the place it was hard to pick anything out.
Please say yes,
I heard his thoughts, he sounded almost desperate.
I started going over it in my head anything would be better then staying here, even if it was for the
one week. It would be better than nothing and it meant spending time with Seth. But then there was
mom she was never going to agree to this.
“Rubes you're not saying anything. You sounded so miserable yesterday I thought.....” he had
noticed the smile that had spread across my face.
“Seth I would love to go back with you even if it means staying in a cabin in the forest for a week
without Wi-Fi with the possibility of been eaten by a bear anything beats staying here, I know I said
all that stuff about wanting to leave, but realistically you know mom's not going to let me leave
here with you or your stoner friend.”
“What?” he said crossing his eyebrows confused.
“Mom thought he looked high yesterday on account of his eyes, she also blames your erratic
behaviour before you left on drugs.” I looked at him waiting for a response.
Seth just shook his head. “And she probably thinks I’m living in a crack den in the woods,” he
laughed. “Micah doesn’t do drugs, he just has freakish eyes. I know I went off the rails for a bit
before I left but I never did drugs. I was just going through a lot of changes,”
I didn’t know what he meant by changes, maybe I could ask later?
“Micah is one of the first people I met when I left home, he's been a good friend to me.”
I knew from the look on my brothers face he wasn’t lying, I knew he'd never touched drugs but
even mom made me doubt him before.
“Look even if you were to produce a urine sample for her, she’s still not going to let me go with
you.”
“What if she doesn’t have a choice,” he said leaning on the banister railing, grinning.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well I don’t see her anywhere do you? What if you were to get your stuff right now, get in my
truck and leave with us. I know for a fact she's not going to travel out to Heaven's Point to come and
get you she doesn’t even have the proper address for a start and it's too remote she'd get lost trying.
I'll phone her later when she gets home, let me deal with her it's just for the week what’s she going
to do? She can argue with you when you get back, that’s all you two do at the moment
anyway.....come on you know you want to,”
I think the expression on my face said it all, I was so excited. All of my stuff was already packed in
boxes which he said was fine we'd just take all the boxes instead as there was plenty of room on the
back of the truck and I didn't have too many things, he even insisted we took my books that were
already boxed encase I got bored. I locked the house and posted the key back through the letter box
I wasn't going to need it again after today. I was sure everything I owned was on the back of Seth's
truck and I had the strangest feeling that was his intention.
Micah was sipping on what looked like a blue energy drink and just nodded at me to acknowledge
me as I climbed in, it was definitely an improvement from yesterdays behaviour.
On the way out of town a wave of emotions swept over me all at once, sad I’d never come back to
my childhood home, upset I wouldn’t see Carly until the next holiday, guilty for not even leaving
mom a note, happy I would be spending time with my brother. But most of all I think felt relief.
Maybe because the further away we drove the further away my problems seemed to be, well for
now anyway. They would still going to be here when I got back.

We had been on the road for over an hour. Micah's cell had beeped five times already with
messages, maybe it was a girlfriend? Seth didn’t say anything about it. The two of them chatted for
a while about which routes to take back that would cut time off the fifteen hour journey, I was just
wondering if the truck would make it back in one piece, every time we turned a corner something
clanked underneath. The pair of them both went quiet and shortly after that I realised Seth had
passed out and was snoring in the middle of us.
Well this was awkward, I didn’t know what to say to Micah or if I should just leave him alone and
not say anything at all.
“Sorry about the radio Seth broke it, so it's stuck on this,” he said banging his hand against it. I had
wondered why it was playing country and western, I just assumed one of them liked it.
“It's okay, it's not that bad really,” I looked over at him, he was casually throwing glances in my
direction.
“Not that bad,” he laughed. “You wont be saying that by the time we get back, my ears are
physically hurting now and I keep getting the urge to go line dancing, I just want it to stop.” he
banged his hand against it again, which did nothing.
He was actually speaking to me, maybe yesterday he was just having a bad day? I did a small laugh
to show I was listening but my mind was already re-playing everything I had heard him saying on
his cell. Maybe I’d misheard him and got it all wrong? He didn’t know what I could do he was
clueless like everyone else, wasn't he? I still wanted to test that theory though, yesterday there was
nothing. It was strange and it was still bothering me.
“So how remote is this cabin that Seth lives in?” I asked.
“Very, not many people knows it's up there, there's a river that runs behind it........” Just one quick
look in his head........In a flash I was no longer sitting in the truck.