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
“WHERE 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?”