Keira ducked behind one of the enormous curtains that had been pinned back against the wall, and peered around it, looking for a way out of the Hall. She nearly screamed when one of the guards tore past her, headed for Walker and Smith, who were rolling around on the floor in a very effective fake fight. She was stuck—there was no way she could make a run for it without someone seeing her.
The guard pulled Smith off Walker. Walker’s arm gave a gut-wrenching snap and he screamed. With one enormous, booted foot, the guard kicked the back of Walker’s head, sending his face smashing into the stone floor. Walker stopped moving. The sight made Keira sway on her feet. She wanted to run, but how could she leave him like that? And then she saw his ribs move, just a little.
He was breathing at least.
“Leave the traitor for now,” the guard shouted. “We’ve lost the Experimental! You, Sorter,” he barked at Smith. “Check the other rooms in this annex.” Smith scrambled away while the guard dashed into the listening room where Keira and Walker had been moments earlier.
The antechamber was empty.
This was her chance.
Keira sprinted out of the vestibule. She skidded into the main hall and stopped short at the sight of another black-robed figure running toward her across the main hall.
Another guard. It had to be. A couple of Darklings had emerged from other little rooms in the Hall, and they shrank back against the pillars and walls, as though they could become invisible. As though getting chased by the guards was the worst thing they could imagine.
The guard’s leathery robe flapped around him like bat wings, more intimidating than Smith’s shaggy robe was. He shouted at her and Keira took off, her shoes sliding against the floor as she fought for traction. There were two other small rooms set into the walls of the main hall, but they offered nowhere to hide. Up ahead, Keira could see a long, dark hall, lined irregularly with openings. She ran for it. Behind her, she heard someone yelp with pain, but she didn’t look back. The sudden silence in the antechamber was just as terrifying as the slapping of the guard’s feet against the floor.
Her chest ached as she ducked under the archway that led to the darkened hall. She needed Walker to be okay, and not only because she was entirely too panicked to get out of Darkside without him.
In the hall, the doors were mostly shut. She peered down the black corridor, looking for an exit, but the passage twisted abruptly, hiding everything beyond the bend.
At least it would hide her, too.
The guard’s footsteps drew closer.
She had to move.
The first door she tried opened into an empty room with a domed ceiling. Something about the musty scent of the air and the dark glitter of the smooth walls made the back of her neck prickle in warning. She dropped the door back into place and sprinted down the hall.
Her lungs and thighs burned with the effort of running. Her feet slipped against the floor again. She rounded the bend in the corridor and kicked off her ballet flats in frustration. In the newly visible part of the hall, she could see two new doorways. She sprinted toward them, wincing at the iciness of the floor beneath her bare feet.
She stopped in the middle of the hall, between her potential hiding places. Her palms were sweating and she wiped them against her jeans automatically.
What she could see of the room on her left was nearly filled by an enormous machine that was covered with levers and dials. She glanced to the right-hand room and saw stacks of boxes. It would have been perfect to hide behind them, except they were pressed up against the walls. Behind her, the timbre of the guard’s footsteps changed as he crossed from the main hall into the hallway.
The hallway she was standing in.
Her time was up. She’d have to take her chances hiding with the machine. She darted into the room, ducking behind a panel of switches that was waist-high. If she knelt down, she’d be invisible from the door.
Above her hung a row of the same sort of needles that Walker had used in the little record room. They dangled from a mechanized-looking track like a row of dark icicles. Keira shuddered.
The guard’s footsteps slowed, and she could hear the creaking, leathery noise of the doors down the hall being opened and closed. Keira wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes. She tried to wish herself back to the normal world, but it didn’t work—she didn’t even know where she was in that world, whether she should be feeling for grass or Berber carpet or asphalt beneath the soles of her freezing-cold feet.
Keira opened her eyes and stared around her as she huddled behind the machine that filled most of the room. She longed for the headache that came with seeing both worlds at once. She caught a glimpse of blue sky, but the sound of the footsteps inching closer swept it away.
Focus. Focus or get caught. Those are your two choices. And if you get caught, they get Walker, too.