“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