Still, the temptation to run her hands over the smooth skin above his waistband was almost too much to bear. When he dropped his shirt, slapping the dust from it, Keira had to shake herself.
He gave her a quizzical look, his eyes becoming heavy-lidded as he took in her expression. “What’re you thinking about?” he asked. The honey in his voice said that he had a pretty good guess.
Keira matched his smolder. She had nothing to lose and nothing to prove and no reason to pretend she didn’t want him terribly. “Just remembering why I’m doing this,” she said. “About all the things I’ll be able to do if—when—I find a way around this death sentence.”
The last two words sucked all the heat out of the moment, leaving a desperate cold in its wake. The truth—the deadly seriousness of the situation—was too close to the surface to ignore.
Walker pulled her arm around his shoulder and lifted her gently to her feet.
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he said. “And I mean that very, very literally.” Keira heard the innuendo in his voice, the tantalizing taunt he’d mastered, but there was more beneath it. Something deep and aching that made Keira have to wait until her heart was steadier in her chest before she could speak.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I think I can walk if I lean on you.”
“I won’t let you fall,” he said, brushing a kiss across her temple. “We’ll take it a step at a time.”
? ? ?
Slowly they made their way over to the crags. Keira’s ankle hurt with every step. The ridges that rippled across the ground were smooth enough that it was hard to keep her footing, even with Walker supporting her.
Keira struggled to keep herself upright, clutching Walker’s shoulder. Darkside itself was as delicate and slippery as a soap bubble. It took all the focus she could muster to keep from bursting through it.
Step by step, they picked their way across the landscape of boulders. The silence that surrounded them was nearly unbearable. It waited, huge and ominous, like it was hiding something.
By the time the rock started to incline again, Keira’s forehead was damp with sweat. The effort of walking, the pain that swept up her leg, the thud of the headache she had developed from keeping her world out of view—it was exhausting.
Walker stopped near a small rock formation that had an unusual vein of stone, like luminous quartz, running through it. His breathing was labored.
“Okay, I think we need to stop here for a minute,” he said. Carefully he helped Keira sit on a flat bit of the stone. She whimpered with the relief of being off her feet and propped her bad ankle on another rock.
The mountains rose behind them like a protective curtain and the boulders shielded them in front. They wouldn’t be able to see anyone coming for them, but then again, it was unlikely that they could be seen.
Standing next to her, Walker rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. The fabric of his shirt was damp and wrinkled where she’d been gripping it.
“You okay?” Keira asked, acutely aware that he’d half carried her the entire way.
“Fine,” he brushed away the question. “Just stretching.” Walker crossed his arms and looked up at the mountains looming above them. “Darkside is thinner here than anywhere else in the whole mountain range. If your father’s still here, he’s probably not that far away.” He frowned. “Still. I didn’t realize there were so many caves.”
“He must have picked one that he thought I could find, right?” Keira offered. She looked hopefully at the lowest, biggest cave openings.
“Yeah, but he would have wanted to make sure he was hidden if anyone else came poking around,” Walker countered.
Keira frowned. Which of these caves would stand out to her but not to the guards? The headache thrumming behind her eyes made it hard to sort out her tangled thoughts.
The headache.
The headache that she had because she could see both worlds at once, which the guards couldn’t.
“Oh.” She looked up at the mountains. “I bet one of these lines up with something on the other side,” she murmured.
Carefully, she let her vision double. The pain behind her eyes spiked suddenly as the murky ocean swept into view. The dawn light didn’t penetrate that far down, but Keira could see rocky outcroppings pushing up from the ocean floor, reaching for the watery light.
A fish swam past her and the surprise of it shifted Keira’s focus.
In an instant, she was no longer Darkside. She was home.
Home, and thirty feet beneath the ocean swells.
Terrified, Keira opened her mouth and it immediately filled with the salty seawater. She held on to the last breath she’d taken as the current slammed into her, carrying her away. Frantic, she stared around, looking for the Darkside mountains, trying to see the strange, swirling stars overhead instead of the eddies of murky water.