Home.
There was no time to be relieved, not with Walker bleeding and Jeremy convinced that he just needed to keep kissing her until she realized that she wanted him too. Keira crawled up to the house, pushing against it until the cheap siding pressed painfully against her back. She had to be close enough now. If she wasn’t, she and Walker were both screwed. Briefly, she wondered if it were possible for her to materialize halfway through the stone wall of the Hall of Records. The thought made her shudder. Right then, though, she didn’t have time to worry about it. She had to try, no matter what might happen.
One more time, she told herself, reaching for another reality. Sweat sprang up on her scalp from the effort of going Darkside again, and the chill that came over her when she passed through turned her damp skin to ice.
But she was through. That was all that mattered.
Keira found herself at the very back of the listening room.
The door was open and she could see Walker’s feet just beyond it. In the main room, shouts echoed. She peered around the doorway in time to see Smith dart out through the main doors, followed by a swarm of guards.
Keira scrabbled across the floor, keeping herself as low as possible. Grabbing Walker’s ankles, she dragged him into the room, grateful for the glass-smooth floor. His right arm flopped as though his hand wasn’t attached to his elbow. Keira’s stomach rolled. She shook his good shoulder.
“Walker. Walker, wake up!” His head lolled. The blood from his nose had dried into dark, shimmering flecks.
“Walker!” She pinched him, hard, but his face remained blank. In the main room of the Hall, Keira could hear the rustle of activity. She couldn’t wait for Walker to regain consciousness. There wasn’t time.
She pushed him across the floor so that he was flush against the wall. She had to get Walker out of here, and if he were any farther inside the listening room, they’d end up in the Reynoldses’ spare room when they crossed over.
Keira crawled halfway on top of him, buried her face in his shirt, and wrapped her shaking arms around him. She closed her eyes, blocking out everything about the Hall of Records. She concentrated on the scraggly grass and the cold, gray siding of Jeremy’s house. The rusted, chain-link fence around the yard. The blue sky and the sun glowing overhead, radiating outward, the way light was supposed to.
Something unpleasantly wet swept along her bared arm, and Keira opened her eyes, ready to scream. Ready to fight.
The golden retriever looked at her quizzically, like he couldn’t understand why she kept disappearing just when he was ready to play. Beneath her, Walker stirred.
“Oh, holy discord, are we back in Sherwin?” He sat up and Keira blinked, staring at him. The blood was gone from his face, and he leaned back on his arms. His arms, which were obviously not broken. She had a million questions, but none of them burned as brightly as her desire to get the hell away from the Reynoldses’ backyard.
“Yes,” she whispered, climbing off him and grabbing his hand. The dog danced in front of Walker, whining to be petted. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
“Keira, the guards can’t get us here.”
“No,” she breathed, yanking Walker to his feet, “but he can.” Walker paled at the sound of heavy footsteps against the Reynoldses’ concrete patio. The two of them sprinted toward the fence. Walker grabbed Keira, lifting her over it like she was as light as a leaf, then vaulted it easily himself.
They ran back toward the car, ducking beneath trees and behind parked cars until they had put enough distance between them and Jeremy’s house that they couldn’t be seen.
Walker tugged her behind a fir tree, his hands reaching up to stroke her face. His thumbs skimmed over her eyebrows and across her cheekbones. They hovered over her lips like a placeholder for an impossible kiss.
“You’re okay?” he asked. “No one hurt you?”
The memory of Jeremy’s unwanted kiss, of the guard reaching for her shoulder, made her want to crawl right out of her skin. There had been nothing but near misses that morning, but in the end, she’d managed to slip away each time.
“I’m fine,” Keira panted, out of breath from all the running. Hours and hours at the piano didn’t exactly count as cardio.
“Where’s Smith? What the hell happened?” he asked.
“I hauled your unconscious ass out of the Hall of Records, that’s what,” Keira said, her adrenaline-fueled fear exploding into anger. “Smith ran out the front door with a bunch of guards behind him. I don’t know where he is now.”
“Smith can take care of himself,” Walker reassured her.