Page 91 of Walking in Darkness

His life was devoted to children.

To the classroom where he’d instilled his own brand of hope into his students, though there was no question he knew enough from walking in darkness that he’d have a clue what we were up against.

“Hurry,” Dani begged.

“Ready,” I mumbled as I grabbed my boots, and Dani ducked out of the doorway and headed back down the hall. We ran out behind her, and dipped through the door closest to the living room that led into the garage.

Dani flipped on the light, illuminating the space that housed a newer four-door Civic.

The alarm still blared through the house, and I shouted, “Turn that off before the cops show.”

I was unable to keep the harshness out of the command as I rushed to the car.

Though I knew she got it. Felt it. What was riding on this.

She nodded frantically, her pink hair sticking up all over the place, flustered as she punched the code into the pad next to the interior door right before she jammed the button to the garage to open it.

I’d already ripped open the door to the front passenger seat and was sinking down inside when she flew back around, jogged to the driver’s side, and jumped in.

Timothy dove into the back behind her.

Our ragged breaths jutted into the cab as she pushed the button to start the vehicle and whipped into reverse. We flew backward out of the garage, tires screeching when she hit the street. She didn’t even come to a full stop before she rammed it into drive and floored the accelerator.

Night was all around, the only illumination the few exterior lights that glowed from the porches of the houses that sporadically dotted Dani’s street, mere outlines sitting way back below the trees.

Everything was too quiet and still.

Except for us.

We were chaos.

Calamity.

She blazed up through the neighborhood, already asking, “Which way?” before she got to where the street made a T at the main road. But I could feel the despondency behind it.

Her fear that we weren’t going to find her.

That Aria was already gone.

Lost.

That urgency roiled inside me. The call that had led me to Aria the first time screaming so loud it was the only thing I could hear. Her fear and desperation in the middle of it, promising me that she was still alive.

I shoved my right foot into my boot as I shouted, “Left.”

Dani barely slowed, and the car careened across the road as she made the sharp turn. The tail skidded, whipping far right, then left, before it corrected; then she was ramming on the gas again.

Timothy sat forward, holding on to Dani’s headrest with both hands, his head poked between us. “Well, shit, it’s a good thing my girl drives like her damn pants have caught flames. My mom’s going to love you.”

Dani croaked an incredulous sound. Disbelief that he was being light in the middle of this. Injecting hope in the midst of affliction.

“That is, if I don’t kill us first,” she mumbled as she flew down the road.

“Nah, baby, we’re going to get through this. All of us.”

I could feel his encouragement. The same encouragement he’d fed me when I was a kid, the man my guide for so long. Support and insight and the kind of love I’d never received from my real family.

Except this—this was my family. The center of it out in front of us, ensnared.