“God. What a lying asshole.” Keira smacked the hairbrush against her thigh. “After everything that happened this morning, the last thing I want to deal with is Jeremy Reynolds’s crap. You don’t believe him, right? I don’t care what everyone else thinks, as long as you know the truth.”
Susan hesitated. “I don’t think you slept with him. Especially not since I know you spent last night with Walker.”
Keira’s jaw clenched. “We did spend the night together, but we didn’t . . . you know . . . ”
Susan looked at Keira like she wanted to believe her, but she couldn’t quite do it.
“Sure. Okay. I still don’t get why you were at Jeremy’s, though. What’s really going on?”
Keira sighed and yanked the brush through her hair. She wanted to tell Susan. She was going to tell Susan.
The only trouble was figuring out where to start.
“Okay, when I met Walker a couple weeks ago?”
“Yeah?” Susan said, perching on the little wooden chair at her desk.
Keira winced as the brush caught in a knot of hair. She pulled the bristles out and started working at it more slowly.
“Well, the more time we spent together, the more I noticed that there were all these strange things happening.”
Susan stopped bouncing her knee. “What sort of strange things?”
“I started seeing stuff. Like, weird things where they shouldn’t be. Black marks on Walker’s skin that would move and disappear. Stuff like that.” She laughed uncomfortably. “I thought I was losing my mind from all the stress from my parents’ fighting and my practice not going well. I thought I was starting to crack.”
“And are you still seeing these strange things?” Susan asked, frowning.
Keira put the brush down on the bed. She felt better, in clean clothes and with neat hair. More in control. “Yeah. There’s another world out there, Susan. All around us. Everywhere. It’s made of something called dark matter, and pretty much no one can touch it or see it. But I can. And so can Walker.”
Keira watched as Susan went from shock to panic to anger faster than a piano string vibrates.
“That is ridiculous. I can’t believe you would make up something like that, just to avoid telling me the truth.”
“I’m not making it up!” Keira insisted.
“Then you were right before and you’re insane.”
I have to show her. I didn’t believe Walker until he showed me.
“I’ll prove it to you. I can cross over. Watch.”
Keira squinted, looking for Darkside. It shimmered into view and Keira caught her breath, her fingers curling tight around Susan’s bedspread.
Oh, shit.
She’d forgotten that Susan’s bedroom was on the second floor. Keira was sitting a good twenty feet above a cluster of Darkside rocks. They grinned up at her like a mouthful of teeth, waiting to chew her up and spit her out. There was no way she could cross over. Besides, the rip would draw the guards right to Susan’s house. She should have thought of that earlier.
“Damn it. I can’t cross here. There’s a huge drop; I’d break my neck. You have to believe me,” Keira begged. “It’s a real thing—dark matter—you can look it up!” But Keira knew that wouldn’t be the same. Susan wasn’t the least bit convinced and Keira knew it.
Susan shook her head. “If you’d told me that you’d fallen in love and lost your head, that I’d believe. If your parents’ problems had gotten to you, I could have bought it. But this? Come on, Keira. Just—” She stood up so fast that the chair wobbled.
“Just take the clothes and go. I’ll lie for you. I’ll help you. I’m not going to stop being your friend because you’re in a tough spot.” The hurt rang in her words, a painful counterpoint. “But I’m not going to listen to you feed me some ridiculous story that you and Walker have cooked up so that you can run away together to New York or something.” She swept the clothes on the bed into a ball and shoved them into Keira’s arms.
“Susan, it’s not a story. I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
A tear sparkled at the corner of Susan’s eye.
“Come downstairs with me,” Keira begged. “We’ll go across the street, somewhere you can see what I’m talking about. I swear, I’m not making this up.”
“Just go,” Susan whispered. “Call me if you’re ever actually ready to talk.”
Tears blurred Keira’s vision as she clutched the wad of fabric to her chest. Susan turned away from her. Keira slunk out of the room, her head low. She crept down the stairs, half crushed by Susan’s reaction and half worried that she’d change her mind and decide Keira wasn’t worth helping.
She let herself out the front door and ran across the street to the car.
In the middle of the damp blacktop, Keira came to a complete stop. Walker wasn’t in the car. He was leaning against it. And he wasn’t alone.
Chapter Forty-Two
SMITH’S EYES WERE RED-RIMMED and wild, so full of anger that Keira could barely bring herself to step closer. She glanced back up at Susan’s window, wondering if she’d seen her ex-fling standing with Walker, but the blinds were closed.