by Jenna Black
“Oh.” I looked away from her too-knowing stare. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Sure,” Kimber agreed, but I could tell my closing the conversational door in her face hurt her feelings. She forced a smile. “I feel an attack of the munchies coming on.”
She hopped to her feet, and without thinking about it, I reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her from fleeing the room. After the way she’d just opened her heart to me, it would be completely bitchy of me to shut her out. I was going to have to bite the bullet and talk about my least favorite subject in the world.
“Sit down,” I told her, giving her arm a little yank. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”
I let go of her arm, and Kimber sank back down onto the bed. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said gently. “You’ve known me for less than twenty-four hours. I shouldn’t expect you to treat me like your BFF.”
“It’s okay—it’s been an intense twenty-four hours.”
She laughed faintly. “That it has.”
I blew out a deep breath. My heart was pounding almost as hard as when I’d been hiding in the closet, and my shoulder muscles were so tight they hurt. But I knew I was overreacting. Kimber might look like the bitchy, popular cheerleader-type who could sneer at me if she knew about my mom, but she didn’t act like it. Besides, it wasn’t like there was a school full of other kids she could spread the story to.
Bracing myself for shock, or pity, or disgust, I forced my shameful secret out through gritted teeth. “My mom’s an alcoholic.” There. I’d said it. Out loud.
Kimber just sat there, waiting for me to continue. “And?” she prompted, when I didn’t say anything else.
I stared at her. “Does there have to be more?”
She blinked. “Well, no. I guess not. It’s just that you gave it so much build-up I thought it was going to be some horrible, dark secret, like she had a boyfriend who abused you or something.”
Of all the reactions I’d been expecting, this wasn’t one of them. “So you don’t think my mom being a drunk is a big deal?”
She shrugged. “Sure, it’s a big deal to you—you had to live with her. It’s just … I don’t know. It’s not a stop-the-presses, red-alert, danger-Will-Robinson kind of thing.”
“Danger Will Robinson?”
“You know, Lost in Space.”
I made a zooming-over-my-head motion.
Kimber made a mock-horror face. “It’s a classic! But anyway, the point is, in the grand scheme of shocking news, an alcoholic mom just isn’t that high up there.”
It’s funny, but I’d been worried that she’d look down on me when she knew—and I was glad she didn’t. But it was such an anticlimax compared to what I’d been expecting that I swear I was almost disappointed. I mean, here I’d gone and told her this terrible secret, the one I’d never told anyone in my life … and she was all like, “Yawn.”
“The kids at my last school thought it was pretty shocking,” I protested. “They made my life a living hell when they found out.”
She waved that off. “Yeah, but they were kids.”
“Uh, newsflash: we’re kids.”
“But we’re not normal kids,” she said, and the words hit me like a kick in the gut. “I’m a sixteen-year-old college sophomore who lives on her own, and you’re a Faeriewalker. Normal doesn’t apply to us.”
The truth of her words was hard to deny, although I’d been denying it for a very long time. I’d always tried to be as normal as possible under the circumstances, and I’d always known I’dfallen short. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“Hey, at least we can be not normal together now,” Kimber said, and I couldn’t help smiling.
“Who needs normal?” I responded. “Normal’s boring.”
And, at least for that moment, I actually meant it.
Kimber and I both leapt to our feet when we heard the distinctive sound of the front door opening and closing, then of footsteps coming from the direction of the kitchen.
“It’s just me,” Ethan called before we had a chance to get too worried.
He appeared in the bedroom doorway a moment later, a cocky grin on his face. My heart did a little ka-thump at the sight of him.
“You look terribly proud of yourself,” Kimber said, using the sour tone I’d once thought was the only one she had.
His grin broadened. “I am rather brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
“Which you do on a regular basis.”
He was undaunted by the ribbing. “After I saw Grace this afternoon, I knew someone would be keeping a close eye on the two of us,” he said.
“Wow, brilliant deduction.”
Ethan made a mock pouty-face. “You’re ruining the story.” I could tell by the look on her face how heartbroken Kimber was about that, but she resisted the urge to come out with another quip.
“I figured being constantly watched would rather cramp our style. So I managed to ditch my tail, and then came straight here.” He looked at Kimber expectantly, but she shook her head.
“I’m not in the mood to play your straight man.”
He turned the same expectant look on me, and my heart did another one of those ka-thumps. I couldn’t not give him what he wanted, not when he was looking at me like that.
“How did you ditch your tail?” I asked, and hoped I didn’t sound breathless.
His chest swelled with obvious pride. “I’ve finally got my invisibility spell working.”
“This would be the spell you’ve used to make yourself invisible but that doesn’t work on your clothes?” Kimber asked with a raise of her brows. She grinned at me. “He thought he was so clever, trying to sneak up on me, but the moving shirt, pants, and shoes kind of gave him away.”
Ethan wasn’t daunted. “The same! Only I’ve gotten it to work for the clothes now, too.”
“How would you know? You can see yourself even when you’re invisible.” She glanced at me once more. “That’s why he thought he could sneak up on me even though his clothes weren’t invisible.”
Ethan gave her a haughty look. “The fact that I doubled back and walked right past the bloke who was following me without him even looking up was kind of a dead giveaway.”
“Okay. You managed to ditch the bloke, and the first thing you do is show up here, where you know someone is watching me. How is that helping?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “No one knows I’m here. If you leave the flat, our friends will follow you. Once you’re out of sight, Dana and I will make a run for it.” There was a twinkle in his eye that said this was all great fun to him. I wondered if he was forgetting all about that inconvenient little Spriggan attack last night.
Kimber didn’t like the plan. I don’t think she liked acting as a decoy, and I’m sure she didn’t like leaving me alone with Ethan. But it seemed unlikely we’d find a better way to sneak me out without being seen, so she reluctantly agreed.
She gave me a significant look before she left, and I nodded to let her know I got the message not to let Ethan take advantage of our situation. I figured we’d be too busy running for our lives for him to make a move anyway.
What I hadn’t taken into account was that once we made our great escape and the pressure was off, I would still be alone with him.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan and I waited in Kimber’s apartment until she’d been gone about five minutes. My every nerve was aware of him, but he paid almost no attention to me, his eyes fixed on the slight gap between the drapes that covered Kimber’s window. I sat on the edge of Kimber’s bed, my hands clasped in my lap, my heart beating just a bit too fast. I wasn’t even sure if my nerves were because of Ethan, or because of our escape attempt.
“Let’s go,” Ethan said briskly when he felt sure Kimber had successfully lured her watcher away.
I followed him through the apartment toward the front door, having to almost run to keep up. “Where are we going?” I finally fou
nd the guts to ask.
He held the door for me so I could step out first, then closed it and made a subtle hand motion. I heard the lock click shut.
“You’ll have to trust me on this,” Ethan said, taking my hand and leading me down the stairs to the courtyard.
The feel of his hand on mine was enough to strike me speechless, and I barely heard what he said. Of course, he was just holding my hand because he was leading me. It wasn’t an intimate gesture, and it was wishful thinking for me to read anything into it. At least, that’s what I told myself.
His words didn’t register until we stopped right by the section of flagstones that covered the opening into the tunnels.
“Oh, hell no!” I said, and tried to yank my hand out of his.
Of course, he didn’t let go. “We’re not going back to the cave,” he assured me. He mumbled something under his breath, and the flagstones moved aside.
I glanced up at the windows all around us. There were lights on in many of them, since it wasn’t the dead of night like it was the last time we’d gone into the tunnels. “How many people do you suppose are watching us right now?” I asked, giving my hand another experimental tug, but he held on.
“It doesn’t matter. The tunnels are something of an open secret. They’re also vast, so if someone tells Grace we’ve gone into the tunnels, it won’t be enough to go on.”
“What about the Spriggans?” I asked.
“We took care of the problem last night,” he assured me. “They may not have as much trouble sneaking into Avalon as humans do, but I seriously doubt someone would send them in two nights in a row. Now come on! Unless you want us still to be standing here arguing when Kimber and her tail come back.”
To say I didn’t like it was an understatement, but I had to admit I was feeling awfully vulnerable standing out here in the open. Gritting my teeth, I nodded, and Ethan finally let go of my hand so I could climb down the ladder.
The flagstones had sealed off the opening above us by the time my feet hit the floor of the tunnel. It was pitch dark, except for the thin beam coming from the flashlight Ethan held in one hand. I moved out of the way, and Ethan jumped from about halfway down the ladder, landing lightly. A human probably would have at least sprained an ankle trying a maneuver like that.
I had a sudden flash to today’s magic lesson with Kimber, and it didn’t add up with what I’d just seen.
“Last night, you didn’t say any kind of spell to open the hatch,” I said. “Why did you have to tonight?”
“I’m still working on doing nonverbal spells,” he said. “It’s a lot harder, and it takes a lot out of me.” He looked uncommonly serious. “That’s why I couldn’t do a better job of healing last night. If I’d just opened the hatch the easy way…” He shrugged, not finishing his sentence.
I think I was supposed to say something to let him off the hook, but I remembered how he’d rubbed Kimber’s face in it when he was showboating last night, and I figured he deserved to stew a bit. No matter how hot he was.
When I didn’t say anything, there was an awkward silence, but Ethan broke the awkwardness soon enough by leading the way into the heart of the mountain once more.
Yesterday, we’d gone straight for a long way before we’d veered off toward the cave. Today, we took a side tunnel almost immediately, then took another, and another, until I was so thoroughly turned around I didn’t have a clue where I was. I couldn’t help wondering if that was by design. Was Ethan trying to make sure I couldn’t get out of here without help?
So far, the only sign I’d seen that the tunnels weren’t completely deserted had been the Underground’s cave, but Ethan’s and my path tonight led to a very different part of the tunnel system. We rounded a corner, and suddenly the tunnel widened significantly and was illuminated by electric lights. A broad stairway led up to what I presumed was the surface, and a steady stream of people went up and down that stairway. Their voices echoed in the enclosed space, but I could hear the muffled sound of loud music over those voices, and I could feel the beat vibrating the floor under my feet.
“There’s a great nightclub down there,” Ethan said, pointing to another stairway leading down. A neon sign over the stairway declared This Way to the deep, with a flashing arrow. “I’ll have to take you there someday when things settle down.”
I wasn’t sure what to say about that. It sounded almost like he was asking me on a date. I frowned. Actually, there wasn’t really any asking going on.
Before I finished over-analyzing that one simple sentence, Ethan guided me down yet another branch of the tunnel, and we were back into dark, creepy, claustrophobic territory. I tried my best to keep track of our route after that so I could make my way back to the stairway to the surface if necessary.
We walked for about fifteen more minutes, only making two turns—few enough that even I might have a chance of navigating my way out.
Eventually, we came to a stop in the middle of a tunnel that looked like every other deserted tunnel I’d seen so far. I looked in both directions, but couldn’t see anything special about this spot.
Then Ethan muttered something. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he said “Open sesame,” but that must just have been the unsettling echoes.
A door-shaped opening appeared in the wall out of nowhere. I blinked.
“It’s an illusion spell,” Ethan said, a hint of pride in his voice. “No one traveling down this tunnel would have any idea the doorway was here.”
He gestured me in with a dramatic sweep of his arm, and I gingerly stepped through the space where moments ago there had been a wall. I half expected the wall to reappear when I was partway through, but it didn’t.
The room behind the illusionary wall didn’t exactly make me jump for joy. It was about the size of Kimber’s bedroom, and the only furniture was a pair of cots, a card table, and a pair of folding chairs, unless you counted the large steamer trunk in the corner as furniture. Other than the meager furniture, there was a kerosene lamp on the table and a couple of ceramic pots, one under each bed.
“Tell me those aren’t chamber pots!” I said as Ethan lit the lamp.
He gave me a sheepish smile over his shoulder. “This is only temporary,” he promised. “As you’ve seen, there are places underground that have electricity and running water, but those aren’t as well hidden.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
Ethan finished lighting the lamp and turned off his flashlight. “One of the things the Underground does is try to help people who have certain, er, political problems. Sometimes, they need a place to hide out awhile. It’s not luxurious, but no one—and nothing—is going to find you here.”
My eyes started to sting, and I bit my lip hard to keep it from quivering. This little hideout could have doubled for a dungeon in some old historical movie. The bleakness of the space hammered home the bleakness of my situation. I’d always coped with stress by putting off my reactions until after the crisis was over, but since I’d set foot in Avalon, there’d been one crisis after another, and my control was seriously slipping.
Ethan crossed the distance between us in one long stride, and before I had any idea what he was going to do, he had wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a hug.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured into my hair. “It’s just until your father gets out of jail. It won’t be more than a night or two, tops. And I’m not going to abandon you down here. We’re in this together.”
I thought about what it would be like if Ethan left me alone here, and that was enough to break through my resistance to crying. As much as I didn’t like to admit it, it felt good to have him hold me. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I clung to Ethan almost desperately. He scooped me up into his arms, then set me down on one of the cots, practically on his lap. He was still holding me, one hand cupping the side of my head so that my face was pressed up against his chest, the other rubbing up and down my back.
His caresses were distractin
g enough that I slowly forgot my distress at my surroundings. The air in the tunnels was chilly, but Ethan’s body was warm and cozy. And he smelled yummy. He was wearing some kind of cologne. Subtle, but with a spicy, earthy scent. I inhaled deeply, partly to help dispel the tears, partly because I wanted another sniff of his scent.
He pulled me all the way onto his lap, and I didn’t think this was a “please don’t cry” hug anymore. I swallowed hard, my pulse racing as I wondered what was going to happen next. Should I just be sitting here with my face buried in his chest? Should I raise my head so he could kiss me?
Or should I already be halfway across the room telling him to keep his hands to himself?
I’ve never been an indecisive person before in my life, but Ethan had my brain cells so scrambled that I couldn’t do anything but sit there, the wheels of my mind spinning uselessly. His chin rubbed back and forth across the top of my head, his hands kneading the muscles of my back. Under different circumstances, I might have thought he was trying to be soothing, but with my head against his chest like that, I could hear the acceleration of his heartbeat. I practically held my breath in anticipation, my pulse ratcheting up to match his. I pressed closer to his warmth.
I guess I was pretty tense, because Ethan chuckled softly, the sound making my insides go squishy.
“Relax, Dana,” he said. “I don’t bite. And I promise not to ravish you.”
The heat in my cheeks was practically enough to burn through his shirt. Bad enough that I was so nervous, but even worse that he knew it. And he was laughing at me.
Okay, he was laughing at me while he still had his arms around me, but still …
I forced myself to release the breath I was holding. “I, um … I’m only sixteen,” I said. “This is kinda new to me.” And I wasn’t sure how much an eighteen-year-old guy would expect out of me. I mean, he was basically an adult, and I was … not.
“No worries,” he assured me. “Sixteen isn’t that far in my past. I remember what it’s like.”
I sincerely doubted he’d been anything like me when he was sixteen. He had too much easy confidence for me ever to believe he’d been shy around girls. But it was nice of him to try to make me feel better.
