The Gate

Chapter 20

Faye wasn’t sure how long she’d been trapped there.

Had it been hours, minutes, seconds?  It was impossible to tell.  All Faye knew at the moment was darkness.  It was all around her, threatening to consume her.  At the moment falling wasn’t her greatest fear.  No, it was the darkness.  What was lurking inside it?  What was waiting to snatch her before she had any time to react?

But of course she’d already been snatched up.

She’d barely gotten an hour of sleep before there came a banging on the door.  Faye immediately knew that the Government had figured out what she did, had figured out everything.  She didn’t even have time to be afraid.  No, instead she threw herself out of bed and ran down stairs.  She couldn’t afford for Kat or Mary to be woken up.  Not for this. 

Two guards greeted her as she pulled open the door.  Without a word they grabbed ahold of her.  Faye didn’t even have time to think about running.  They knew Terra was her sister, knew that Faye knew exactly what happened seven years ago.  So they probably also knew that she’d make a run for it if she could.  So they grabbed her as quickly as they could.

They didn’t even close the door before hauling her off the porch and into one of the official Government cars.  Faye wanted to yell for them to close the door, to make it at least seem like nothing happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to.  What was the point?  Faye still wouldn’t be in her bed when her family members woke up that morning.  Faye would still be gone.  They would have no idea why.  The Government would make sure of that.

Well, Kat would know at least.

For some reason that comforted Faye as the Government workers peeled down the street.  Kat would understand what happened to Faye.  She would know that it wasn’t an accident, that she didn’t just run away.  The Government took her because of what she found out.  And that was that.

When she got to the Government building, Courtnie laughed in her face.  She sneered, gloated, did every obnoxious thing that Faye could really imagine.  She was completely smug as she ordered the guards to throw her in the holding cell.  Apparently Faye needed to be questioned.

And so now here she sat, waiting.  Waiting in complete darkness, wondering, fearing that the Government had gotten to Kole, too.  The thought of them touching him with their grubby hands . . . it mortified her.  She didn’t want to see him hurt.  She didn’t know what she would do if they hurt him.  She wouldn’t be able to stand it.

And did they find Terra?  That was less probable than them getting ahold of Kole.  If they’d found her, Faye wouldn’t be waiting to be questioned.  Faye would probably be in a cell right now with a life sentence.  If she were receiving a life sentence right away, a police cruiser would have picked her up, and her mother would have been informed.  But Courtnie couldn’t do that—not without Faye revealing every single lie that she’d told all the girls of Cesve.

How did they find out, Faye wondered?  How did they know that Faye had been sneaking over to the other side?  They had no cameras, and no one saw her when she and Errika had gone the last time.  If someone had seen her and Errika, Errika would be here, too.  And Faye knew that she wasn’t.  She knew deep inside that Errika was safe and that was how she would stay.

Faye’s eyes flicked upward as a creaking sound erupted in the seemingly everlasting silence.  A door was opening, she realized.  At first she was relieved that she wasn’t trapped in a world of utterly nothing, but then she remembered why the door was opening.  It was time to be questioned.  And, when she refused to give them the answers she wanted, they were probably going to kill her.