The Gathering Dark (23 page)

“Oh, shit,” Walker whispered, staring at her with something like awe, only more terrified. “We’re Darkside.
You’re
Darkside.”

The sound of people running across dry grass whispered in the distance.

“They can see us?” she asked Walker.

“Not for long,” he said. “Think about your house. Think in very excruciating detail about your house.”

Keira imagined the carpet beneath her feet, the couch behind her and the piano gleaming in the corner. It wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working?

“Don’t move!” The voice was close, the words thick and strange, like a pattern of drumbeats more than an actual language.

Walker shielded her with his body.

“Keira, try again. Come on—your piano. The pictures over the fireplace.”

She shut her eyes, blocking out the dark glimmer of the lamp in the distance, the trees around them—everything about Darkside. Instead, she smelled the dusty, burned-coffee scent of her house. Felt the glow of the piano lamp on her face. Imagined squishing her toes in the wall-to-wall carpet.

She opened her eyes and whimpered with relief. She was home. Walker’s arms were still around her, but in spite of his heat, she was trembling with cold.

Walker didn’t look cold. He also didn’t look relieved.

“We have to go. Right now.” He grabbed her hand. As his fingers wrapped around hers, she saw Darkside shimmering against the background of what she still thought of as the real world. Blurry forms darted madly through the room, their arms waving wildly. Outstretched. Grasping.

Walker paused in the front hall. “You were there. And they saw you. And they’ll do whatever they can to get you. Even if it means making that Seeker cross a third time in one night.” Grim lines appeared at the sides of his mouth. He yanked a coat out of the closet and threw it at her. It was her mother’s dress coat, but something about the look on his face made her shrug her arms into the sleeves without protest.

She grabbed her bag and let him tow her out of the house, slamming the door behind them. The back of her neck tingled
as she imagined being touched by unseen hands. She couldn’t think about what would happen if those hands actually caught her. She put a lid on her rising panic, trying to keep it from boiling over. If she panicked, they’d get her.

She wasn’t going to let that happen.

Chapter Thirty

“W
HERE WILL WE GO?
”
she asked as Walker started the car. When he’d let go of her hand, her view of Darkside had disappeared. She thought that she could see it on her own if she tried—after all, she’d seen bits of it without touching him before—but she was too scared to try. She might somehow slip through. And if she did go Darkside, there was no way to know if she could make it back on her own.

Walker tore out of the neighborhood, drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as he drove.

“Okay. First we’re going to drive around for a while. That way they’ll have to figure out where we’ve gone before they
send in the Seeker. They know the places you usually go—”

“How?” Keira interrupted.

Walker was quiet one beat too long. His silence answered the question before he spoke. “I told them.” His voice was sorrowful. The rush of pleasure she’d felt when he kissed her faded. In its place, a sick, silent nausea settled into her middle.
He’d
told them?

“I was supposed to report back on anyone who might fit the Experimental’s profile—anyone I suspected might be the One. I told them about you when we first met, before I really knew you. And then, once I
did
know you, once I started to feel . . . the way I feel . . . then it was too late. I’m so sorry, Keira.”

He stopped at a red light and looked over at her. “I’m not loyal to them anymore, but I was. When I met you, my assignment—my
mission
—was to destroy you. And so I did what I was supposed to do. When I thought I’d found the Experimental, I reported my suspicions to the Reformers. Two days later, I was sorrier about that than I’ve ever been about anything. I tried to convince everyone that I’d made a mistake, but my aunt Holly didn’t believe me. She sent Smith to snoop around. I can’t change what I did, but I would give anything to take it back.”

She stared at him for a long moment. It might be foolish, but Keira believed him. And she trusted him. Besides, it wasn’t like there was anyone else she could turn to. “Don’t betray me again,” she said finally.

“Never,” he swore. “I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you if I have to.”

The rest of our lives.

The words reminded her of the fate that awaited her if she was caught.

Elimination.

Extermination.

Death.

“That might not be as long as it seems like, huh?” she whispered.

The light turned green and Walker hit the gas. “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get you hidden. And then we’ll find some solution to this mess.”

Keira longed for somewhere familiar to sit and collect herself. She wished she were spending the night at Susan’s house, listening to Mrs. Kim rattling around the kitchen. Her spine stiffened.

“Susan.” Her voice cracked. “I go to her house all the time. They won’t go there, will they? Smith . . . he . . . is he a Seeker too? That’s why he can come here, right?”

“Smith’s not exactly a Seeker. When I told you my family was unusual? I meant Smith, too. He’s a special case,” Walker admitted. “The thing is, Smith’s ability to cross over is a secret. A big secret. That’s why my aunt is so protective of him. The Reformers have been looking for someone like Smith for ages.
If they ever found out what he can do, his whole life would be over. They’d put him in a lab and test his DNA and force him into experiments crossing the Darkling–human barrier. That’s the last thing my aunt wants to happen.”

“Then why does he keep crossing over? Isn’t that, like, the opposite of hiding?”

“He thinks it’s worth the risk, as long as he gets to be part of the human world. My life looks totally glamorous to him. He wants to live on his own, date a human girl, be out from under my aunt Holly’s eight thousand rules.”

“Oh.” The pieces all fell into place and Keira blinked. The irony was that Smith and Susan had more in common than she’d thought. In spite of the fact that he wasn’t human, they’d grown up in almost identical situations.

“That’s why my aunt’s so desperate for me to hurry up and finish my assignment. She wants to be sure I find the Experimental and bring it—you—back to Darkside. The thing is, once the Experimental is gone, there’s no reason for anyone to cross between the worlds. The Reformers wouldn’t be looking for Darklings like Smith, and the Reformers would finally leave our family alone. My aunt Holly wants that. Desperately.”

“But you don’t.”

“Not anymore,” he said.

She relaxed back against the seat. At least she hadn’t put Susan in danger.

“So where will we go that they won’t think to look for us? Jail? The library?” Keira mentally scrolled through the places she had never been in Sherwin.

Walker tapped his finger against his lower lip, thinking. “Oh! I’ve got the perfect place. Well,” he amended, “it’s actually pretty far from perfect, but it’ll hide us.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see.” Walker headed toward the outskirts of town. Keira watched the streets fly past and wondered, again, what the hell she’d gotten herself into. Even more, she wondered if there was any way out.

About five miles outside of Sherwin, Walker turned the car into the parking lot of the Steer Inn Hotel. Keira stared uneasily at the crumbling brick facade. Black shutters hung at the windows and white columns flanked the iron-grated office door. But the attempt at grandiosity failed miserably, as the paint flaked off the shutters like cheap mascara and the left-hand column tilted like it was drunk.

“We’re staying
here
?”

Walker nodded. “Safest spot for miles.”

Keira turned to him, mystified. “And can I ask how the hell you found this place?”

Walker cocked an eyebrow at her. “That you probably don’t want to know.”

Keira ignored the embarrassed heat that flared in her cheeks. She looked at all of the ordinary, human surroundings,
waiting for something bizarre to appear. Like saying “bloody Mary” while staring into a dark mirror. It seemed insane to think she’d see something, but that didn’t stop her from looking. Which was crazier—believing in something no one else could see, or ignoring the proof that it existed?

“Are you sure no one followed us here?” Keira reached to unfasten her seat belt and her shoulder throbbed painfully.

“As sure as I can be. We’re safe for now. I’ll show you why once we’re inside,” Walker said. “So, do you want to come in with me and endure the knowing looks of the night clerk, or wait in the car while I get us a room?”

They were going to stay in a hotel. Together. As tempting as the thought was, Keira’s instinct was to insist on having her own room. She was grateful for Walker’s help, but that didn’t mean she was going to sleep with him. Then she remembered that she’d run out of the house with only her backpack and her mother’s coat. Keira had about twenty bucks to her name. And no pajamas, either.

“Um, I’ll come in with you, I guess. I want to pay for part of the room.”

Walker shook his head. “With what money? You carry your life-savings around in your bag?”

“No,” Keira admitted.

“I’ve got this one,” Walker said. “We’ll call it even. I ruined your life, so I pay for the fleabag hotel. Now come on. We’ll be safer inside.”

“We will? Why?”

“You’ll see.”

The clerk eyed them sleepily when they pushed into the office. Overhead, the fluorescent light buzzed unpleasantly.

“We need a room for the night,” Walker said. “One on the east side of the hotel.”

“One with two beds,” Keira piped up.

“Jesus Christ, what d’you think this is, the goddamn Ritz?” The clerk shook his head. “The rooms on that side of the building all got one king bed.”

“That’ll be fine,” Walker said smoothly.

Keira frowned, wondering why it was so important to be on that side of the hotel. The clerk handed Walker a key and a set of sheets that looked reasonably clean.

The two of them walked down the hall, which smelled of mildew and old fast food.

“Three-A,” he said. “Home sweet home.”

Walker opened the door and flipped a light switch. The room was shabby, with threadbare, mismatched furniture. There was an old-fashioned television bolted to the dresser, and a water stain shaped like the State of California on the ceiling.

“Wow. This is bad, even by Sherwin’s standards,” Walker said.

Keira squinted at him. “I thought you’d been here before.”

“I’ve never been
in
here. I’ve only, uh, taken the lay of the land.” He glanced around. “At least the bed looks decent.”

At the mention of the bed—the one and only bed—Keira felt herself blush.

For a moment, Walker’s eyes glittered with the sexy, joking-but-wanting look that made Keira’s legs feel unsteady beneath her.

“So,” Keira said as breezily as she could. “You want to tell me exactly why we’re safe here?”

“Let me see if I can show you.” Walker sat on the edge of the bed and gently pulled her down beside him.

The surprise must have showed on Keira’s face because Walker laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not putting the moves on you.”

She hoped her disappointment wasn’t as obvious as her surprise had been.

“At least, not yet,” Walker added.

Keira rolled her eyes. “You know that saying ‘putting the moves on you’ is about as unmovelike as you can get, right?”

Walker’s lips curved in amusement.

“Okay.” He tipped his head up so that he was staring at the ceiling. “Look up.”

Keira obediently scanned the plaster. “What am I looking for?”

“Darkside,” he said, wrapping his fingers around hers.

His warm palm should have distracted her completely, but instead it seemed to bring the invisible world closer to her. Uneven black walls rose around them, pressing in on either side of the hotel room. They rose up through the ceiling. Squinting,
Keira realized that she could see all the way to the top of the walls, even though her view of her world ended at the ceiling.

The hotel was at the bottom of a Darkside ravine.

At the top was the sky, filled with a river of stars so thick and clear that it made Keira’s breath catch. They moved and swirled, literally dancing across the slice of sky that she could see between the close-pressed cliffs.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “That’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous in my whole life.”

“I feel exactly the same way.” Instead of complimenting the stunning sky, Walker’s voice was directed straight at Keira.

Immediately, she was more aware of his weight next to her on the bed, the heat of his skin, than any star in the universe. She turned to look at him, drawn like a compass needle to the north.

He brought his lips to hers. This kiss was more certain than their first—insisting, when the other had been hesitant. Walker wound his hands through her hair and she pulled his shoulders toward her, swinging her legs across his lap.

Without warning, they crashed through the mattress, landing hard on the rocky ground.

“What the hell?” Keira looked around.

The hotel room was gone.

Chapter Thirty-One

“O
H, SHIT,” SHE WHISPERED
,
struggling to stand. A gooey black sludge coated the back of her jeans. “Walker, what is this stuff?”

“It’s . . . I guess it’s sort of like what you’d call mud. Listen, we’ve got to get out of here. Can you see the hotel room if you try?”

Keira stared at the black cliffs, trying to see the dusty drapes, the battered nightstand, but there was nothing besides the oozing mud and the rocks and the stars. “I can’t,” she whispered to Walker. “Can you?”

“Of course,” he said. “Let me see if I can pull you back over with me. We did it once before, right?”