Gateway (The Gateway Trilogy, Book 1) (23 page)

“She's here? She's been here this whole time and you never said anything?”

I strode away from Taren, toward the path. I'd gotten two paces when he stopped me, his touch gentle but firm.

“She's not ready,” he said, and I knew the admission pained him. “After what happened, she's very fragile. I want you to meet her, I do, but I can't let you until she's strong enough.”

I relented. I knew how it was to need to handle a mother with kid gloves.

“When was she discovered? Are there more?”

Taren shook his head. “No more that we know of. She was the only one until you. And she was discovered young. She had a breakdown at age twelve and was institutionalized near San Diego. She was there over a year before she was found by a Guardian sent to that area in search of Keepers.”

I shuddered at the thought of being trapped in a mental hospital for a full year. “How did they know what she was?”

“Her drawings,” he said. “Her room was plastered with depictions of demons so exact they could have been culled straight from our textbooks… and fragments of the Gateway symbol, too.”

“Only fragments?”

Taren nodded. “That's what I mean when I say you're special. It's not just that you're a Daemon. Whether the bloodline is stronger in you, or life with your mother prepared you better, you came to us knowing the symbol in its entirety. That has to mean something.”

I wasn't convinced. “And what she was, that remained a secret even after…?”

“The Elders knew. Once they had determined she wasn't Marked but could still channel the symbols of the Gate, she was told she would be a Center and train with the others. She never revealed her origin to anyone until my father proposed. She thought it only right he should know before joining his life with hers. After the first breach, when she…” His voice broke, and he took a breath. “After what happened, the entire incident was swept under the rug. The alarms were blamed on the earthquake, the Keepers and Guardians were ordered not to reveal the attack, and with the other eight Keepers on duty that night knocked unconscious, no one could say for sure what had happened. I was only told what my mother was, what I am, after the fact.”

“Why aren't you training to be a Keeper?” I asked.

“Because I can't channel the symbol. I've been tested; believe me. I carry the lineage but not the ability. I don't think they were disappointed by that. After what happened with my mother, the Elders were so afraid of there being others out there capable of doing what my mother had done…”

“That's why the Elders weren't told about me. Annys and Dogan wanted me trained, and the Elders would have refused,” I said.

Taren nodded. “But once the story of the Gateway pulling itself back together circulated… they knew.”

“Because they'd seen it before,” I said. “And that's why I was kept out of the Ritual they did last night. They were afraid I would destroy the Gateway completely.”

Annys had lied. I wasn't sent home because my mother needed me, but because she and the others had wanted me gone.

“Yes,” he said, a bitter edge to his voice, “but I didn't know anything about that until this morning when I got here.”

“Why were you kept out of it?” I said. “And why were you suspended?”

Knowledge was coming fast and furious and bordered on being too much to take, but I had to know the truth.

“After you closed the Gateway, I went to Annys and demanded we tell you everything. I knew you needed to be warned of the extent of the Demon's power, but she refused, saying you weren't ready yet. We argued and I was relieved of duty 'until such time as I could obey orders.' I now realize she'd hoped she would never have to tell you the truth. If they had been successful in sealing the Gate…” His voice got quiet. “I think you would have been expelled.”

Master Dogan's dishonesty was nothing compared with this betrayal.

“Expelled?” I could barely get the word out.

“With the Gateway closed, you would be the only one capable of opening it again. I don't think they would have risked it.”

My legs gave way and I landed on the grass with a thud. Taren joined me, eying my reaction.

They had been using me. A small part of me had always known that, of course, but I'd gone along with it because I believed in the cause. But to be expelled, cast back out into the world with no protection against the Demon and no one to talk to about any of it…

“But they weren't successful,” I said quietly.

“No,” Taren said, “they weren't. After the attack on your life, I came to Annys this morning to let her know I was going to tell you everything, even if it meant I was dismissed from the Guardian ranks. That was when I learned about the ritual.”

“So, what, now I'm not expelled? Not until they can figure out a way to seal the Gate or until I somehow do it for them?”

“I honestly don't know,” Taren said. “I didn't get to finish my conversation with Annys. I was in mid-rant when I saw you fall.”

A ball of rage grew in my belly at the hypocrisy, at the betrayal. I didn't need the Demon to tell me what a fool I'd been for trusting anyone but myself.  Even for all his remorse, Taren had still lied to me and let the Institute use me. I had been so sure he was different, which only proved that I couldn't be trusted, either.

I stood, my legs made stronger by my fury. Taren scrambled to his feet, reaching for me.

“Where are you going?” he asked when I pulled away.

“For a walk,” I said, neither turning nor slowing my pace. “I need to think.”

I strode across the lawn, trying to calm my tornado of emotions.

It was my fault, really. My fault for thinking I could fit in anywhere. My fault for letting my guard down. I had wanted so much to believe, and that desire had made me weak. And I had reveled in it… the thought that I wasn't alone, that people—some of them anyway—could be depended on. I had allowed myself to forget what I'd known long before I'd ever channeled the symbol: people always let you down. It was just part of the human condition. Look at Kat and Callie. One had tried to kill me; the other had almost gotten me killed. Neither intentionally, but did it matter? My mother never meant to hurt me and she'd all but ruined my life. It didn't matter what people meant, it mattered what they did.

Eventually my pace slowed and my fury slowed with it, morphing into cold rationality. I couldn't allow myself to act from my hurt; I had to think logically.

I hadn't consciously chosen a direction but I found myself at the edge of the forest. I stepped on the path, and once I did I knew where I needed to go.

Gretchen was Taren's mother, and she was part Daemon. The scenes of her life played through my mind. She had done everything she could to block out the madness, finally going to the Elders, who had had arranged for her to live inside the sanctuary. Her only exposure to the Demon was when present at the Gateway, and yet it was still too much for her to handle because the Demon was always five steps ahead. It had been alive for millennia, how could I ever hope to outsmart it, let alone defeat it, by myself?

The trail stretched in front of me, beckoning me forward. The farther I walked, the more resolute I became. I had long since written this world off—despite my recent misguided faith—but that didn't mean I could just stand by and watch it be destroyed. The Gateway, the Institute, they were bigger than my hurt. I hated that I'd been used, but that wasn't important anymore. The only thing that mattered now was making sure that what had happened to Gretchen never happened again.

I walked deeper into the forest, the path becoming narrower and filled with weeds.

Eventually my thoughts turned to Taren. For all my upset, I conceded he hadn't had much choice but to keep the truth from me. His sense of duty had been bored into him since childhood. What I was doing now would hurt him even more than he'd hurt me, and I hoped he could forgive me someday.

I came to a chain-link fence and climbed over it. The path disappeared, but I knew from the way I felt that I was still within the sanctuary. Dirt gave way to rock, and within a few paces I had reached my destination.

The city of Los Angeles lay before me and I paused to take in the view. It was a clear day, no smog marring the skyline. I could see the mountains in the distance. I looked down over the edge of the boulder I stood upon and saw the long drop below.

Unlike that night, so many weeks ago, I wasn't romanticizing dying. Then, I had been sure something waited for me. The Voice in my head had assured me of that. Assured me I would be warm, that I would be at peace. But that had been a lie, designed to make me court death like a lover. Now I had no idea what awaited me. Limbo? Hell? For the first time, I hoped there was no afterlife at all. A lack of awareness would suit me fine.

I kicked a small rock and it cascaded down the hillside, showing me the way.

“Don't do this, Ember,” Taren said from behind me. “Please, don't to this.”

I wheeled around, startled at his presence. He stood only a few feet away, his eyes filled with worry.

“I have to, Taren. It's the only way.”

I stifled the part of me that wanted to go to him, that still wanted to believe.

“No,” he said fiercely, “it's the easy way. You're stronger than this.”

I barked a laugh. “You think I'm doing this because I'm scared?” In truth, I was scared—terrified, in fact—but that wasn't what this was about. “I'm doing this because I'll never be able to trust myself. Not ever. Even when I think I'm making the right decision, it will be the one It wants me to make.”

“What if
this
is what It wants you to do?”

The pleading in his voice cut deep into my heart, but I shook my head.

“It isn't. It wants me to open the Gate all the way. That's why It showed me about your mother. So I would be so mad at the Institute, at the world, that I would unleash hell on Earth.”

The Demon knew my every thought, knew what it would do to me to realize I'd been used by the only people I trusted.

“It's been trying to keep me alive this whole time—warning me to be careful the night of the second breach, making sure I was discovered the night I tried to kill myself.”

“What about the Red last night?” Taren said, undeterred. “He was trying to kill you.”

“Maybe,” I said, “or maybe it was just another ruse to guarantee I'd end up back here, doing Its bidding. All the more reason for me to do this. If I'm expelled, they'll pull the protection detail and I'll be hunted down, probably along with my mother. By doing this I can save her, at least.”

“You know she won't survive losing you,” he said, taking a tentative step forward.
I held up my hand, warning him to come no closer.

“It doesn't matter,” I said, trying to numb the painful truth of his words. “It's the only way. You of all people know it's true, Taren. Your own mother… I'll never be able to trust myself.”

“I trust you,” he said.

“Because you want to.”

He was as much a victim of hope as I had been.

“Because I see who you are,” he said. “And because you won't make the same mistake my mother did.”

“Then I'll make a different one, but it will be just as costly. I'll fight and I'll try but it will be for nothing. I'll end up insane and I’ll open the Gate, whether I want to or not. Nothing I do will matter.”

“But it will matter. You'll be saving lives, Ember. Do you have any idea how many people are out there, suffering, with no idea why? At least yours will have a purpose. Do you know what that would mean to the people I meet in institutions? To know their pain isn't all for nothing? And when the Voice gets too strong, you won't keep it to yourself. And I don't care what the Elders say—I will get you out. I promise you, Ember, I will not lose you.”

I looked at the pleading in his eyes and longed to believe. He took another step closer.

“You don't have to forgive me,” he said. “I knew you wouldn't. But I'll protect you, anyway. Always.”

My breath caught in my throat. “The voice, the thought I heard in the car…”

“Was mine,” Taren said. “Don't you see? Even after thirty years at the Institute, my mother wasn't telepathic. That has to mean something. You're the one, Ember. You're the one.”

That familiar electricity passed between us though we were still a foot apart. I willed myself to fall into his arms and believe it would all be alright, but the time for that had passed.

An alarm pierced through the forest. Birds took flight and a coyote howled in eerie unison. Taren and I stood, transfixed. I broke the stalemate by rushing forward, past Taren toward the fence. Taren cleared it first and helped me over. We raced down the path, Taren slowing to match my pace.

“We'll find you somewhere safe, away from the Gateway, he said “You're strong enough to help from here, and I can't risk you being attacked by a demon.”

“No,” I said, breathless, “it's time to finish this.”

Taren protested most of the way to the main house, stopping only when he realized it was futile.