The Darkest Corners Read Online Free PDF

into the world beyond.
    A foot stuck out from round the doorframe and I tripped. My momentum carried me down the stone steps and I landed on my back on the damp, dirty ground.
    My dad stood at the top of the steps, laughing as he looked down. And there, beside him, was Ameena. My dad and Ameena. Together.
    There had been a little hope inside me, buried deep down. A hope that somehow everything was going to be OK. A hope that, no matter how bad things seemed at the moment, they weren’t broken beyond repair.
    That hope died when I saw them standing there together. My dad was grinning, but I didn’t look at him. Instead I just stared at Ameena and asked her, ‘Why?’
    She shrugged and pushed her hair out of her face. ‘Nothing personal.’
    â€˜Nothing personal?’ I said. I was on my feet in an instant. ‘Nothing personal ; are you nuts?’
    I began to climb the stairs towards them. Ameena raised her fists and bounced on to the balls of her feet. ‘Don’t,’ she warned.
    I stopped. Not because I was scared of her, but because I suddenly had no energy left to climb with.
    â€˜So, what?’ I asked croakily. ‘The whole time? It’s all been a lie?’
    â€˜Bingo,’ laughed my dad. ‘All that stuff about you making her, about her being –’ he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘“a tool”? All rubbish. None of that was true.’
    â€˜Then why say it?’ I asked. ‘What was the point?’
    â€˜The point was what it’s always been,’ he continued. ‘To make you care about her. To make you want to protect her.’ His grin widened. ‘And you do, don’t you, kiddo? You care about her a lot .’
    I didn’t answer. Ameena tried to hold my gaze, but glanced away.
    â€˜Man, that must be a kick in the teeth,’ my dad chuckled. ‘There you are falling for her charms, and all the while she’s just trying to get you to use your abilities so you break down the barrier and she can get the Hell away from you.’
    â€˜It was you in that brown robe all along,’ I said. ‘It was you.’
    â€˜ Bzzzzt! Correct answer,’ cried my dad. ‘And I think if you’re honest with yourself you always really knew that. You just didn’t want to believe it. Am I right? Kiddo? ’
    I didn’t answer, just kept staring and waiting for it to sink in. She’d been working against me. Right from day one, she’d been working against me.
    My dad put a finger behind his ear and pushed it slightly forward. ‘You know, the walls between this world and yours must be paper-thin now. If you listen, you can hear your little friend Billy screaming.’
    He was right. Billy’s screams were muffled, but there was no mistaking them. They came from high up in the church, a whole other world away. They were screams not of panic, but of pain.
    My dad and Ameena stepped apart, leaving the path to the door clear. ‘You’ve got maybe a minute to get back there and save him,’ said my dad. ‘Or you can stay here and chitchat with us. The choice is yours.’
    Far away, Billy let out a squeal of agony. My dad’s face lit up with a manic grin.
    â€˜But whatever you decide, you’d better do it quickly.’

I threw the church doors open and sprinted along the aisle. I was still in the Darkest Corners – it was too dangerous to jump back into my own world until I was up the ladder and inside the tower itself – and Joe Crow had almost finished pulling himself back together on the ruined church floor.
    He was drawing himself up on his stubby legs as I ran towards him. The sackcloth mask he had been wearing hadn’t made the trip back with him, and his wrinkled, old-man face twisted into a scowl at my approach. He snarled, revealing dozens of tiny, shark-like teeth poking out from his pale gums.
    â€˜I see you came back,