He spread his hands in an I-don’t-know gesture. “As much as you think she can handle without freaking out, I guess.”
Keira chewed on her lip, considering that. She’d always trusted Susan with everything, but everything had never included something this bizarre . . . or this deadly.
“Do you think she’ll cover for you?” Walker asked.
Keira shrugged. “I hope so. I’m gonna call my mom now.”
She dialed her house, praying that the ancient answering machine would pick up.
“Hello?” her mother answered.
Shit.
“Um, hi,” Keira said.
“Honey. Where are you? It’s getting late—I was starting to worry.”
“I know. Sorry. Listen, I’m at Susan’s. I’m going to stay here tonight.”
Walker made a longer sort of gesture with his hands.
“Actually,” Keira said quickly, “I might stay for a couple of days.”
“You want to stay at Susan’s? For a couple of days?” Her mom sounded confused.
Keira knew what she had to say. She didn’t want to do it, but hurting her mother was the only way to keep herself safe.
She’ll be more upset if I end up dead.
She took a deep breath. “It’s just been so tense around the house, with you and dad . . . ” It was true, but it was also a complete lie. “It’s making me crazy. I need to get away from it for a couple of days.”
There was a long pause. On the other end of the phone, Keira could almost hear her mother crumbling.
“Oh.”
Another pause.
“Well.”
Silence.
Keira finally cracked. “Mom?” She was on the verge of retracting the whole thing and saying she’d run away to play piano in a blues band, when her mother finally spoke.
“I understand.” Her voice was an octave higher than usual and quivered with tears. “I wish it wasn’t this way. I don’t want the stress at home to affect you, but—” She stopped abruptly. “Okay. You can stay with Susan for a few days, but then you need to come home so that we can sort this out. As a family. We’re still a family, Keira, we’re just different now.”
Ain’t that the truth.
“Thanks,” Keira said, with honest relief in her voice. “I’ll call to check in.”
“I love you, Keira.”
Crap. She could hear her mother crying. Keira was acutely aware that she was leaving her mom broken and alone, in a house full of Darklings.
They can’t find her. She’s human. She’s why I’m half human.
The question that had been humming around the edges of Keira’s thoughts came soaring in.
So why hasn’t my dad ever bothered to tell me I’m half Darkling?
Her mother took a shaky breath on the other end of the phone. Keira had to finish dealing with this. Now.
“I love you too, Mom. Thanks for understanding.”
She hung up before her mother could start sobbing. Keira wasn’t sure she could have held on to her lies in the face of that kind of breakdown, and right then, she really, really needed her mother to believe that she was safe.
Wordlessly, Walker came over and sat next to her on the bed. He wrapped an arm around her and Keira leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Well,” he said softly. “That sounded like it sucked.”
“Pretty much,” Keira said. “I’ve never really lied to my parents. Not about anything that counted. I never had to.”
“Me neither. That’s one of the only good things about losing my parents. I never had to hurt them. All the stuff I’ve done, the people I’ve used, trying to find the Experimental, to find you . . . ”
Keira lifted her head and he looked down at her. Sadness pooled in his eyes.
“At least they didn’t have to see it.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.
“I’m sure they would rather have been around to see it,” Keira said.
Walker looked down at their legs, pressed against one another on the bed. “After they disappeared, after they died, I was so devastated. It seemed like things would never be good again. Eventually, I quit hoping they would be. When the Reformers told me to find the Experimental at any cost, there didn’t seem to be any point in fighting it.”
Goose bumps rose on Keira’s skin. He was supposed to have dragged her Darkside to be killed. If things had been different—if the attraction between them hadn’t been like some sort of electromagnetic miracle, pulling them together—she would already be dead.
Walker’s expression mirrored her thoughts. “I never expected to find you.”
Keira’s lips moved toward his, her body insisting she show him how perfectly their feelings matched. For a moment, he leaned in, but then he backed away suddenly.
“We can’t.” He sounded like it hurt to say the words. “Not when it means going Darkside. You can’t get out on your own.”