The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3) Read online

  The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series

  Books 1-3

  Christina Garner

  Contents

  Gateway: Book 1 in The Gateway Trilogy

  Gateway

  Gateway

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chasm: Book 2 in The Gateway Trilogy

  Chasm

  Chasm

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Tether: Book 3 in The Gateway Trilogy

  Tether

  Tether

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Thank you for reading The Gateway Trilogy!

  About the Author

  Also by Christina Garner

  Gateway: Book 1 in The Gateway Trilogy

  I

  Gateway

  Book 1 in The Gateway Trilogy

  Copyright © 2015 by Christina Garner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Gateway

  Everybody has their demons. Some are just a little more real than others...

  Ember has always known that she doesn't belong in this world, but when she takes matters into her own hands, she winds up in a mental institution.

  There she draws the attention of Taren, a mysterious boy with a dangerous secret.

  When chaos erupts, they are forced to flee together, and Ember learns her secret might be the deadliest of all.

  With lives on the line, Ember must face old demons and new at... The Gateway.

  Prologue

  In the end, only the Voice remained.

  I told you it would be better this way…

  I was drifting, floating on something too silky to be water. It was warm, and it penetrated the deepest parts of me.

  The Voice was right. It was always right. Everything finally felt soft. My sharpest edges were being worn away, melting into oblivion. I felt like candle wax before it cooled; nothing to do but let the remaining drops of consciousness slide down…

  Pain. Where did that come from? How could I feel pain when I didn't have a body anymore?

  My throat. It was my throat, being stabbed, or—

  Shh…let it go. Let all the pain go. Rest easy…

  For a moment I was comforted, the gentle motion of the not-quite-water lulling me, pulling me back to safety.

  But I was heaving. Huge, uncontrollable spasms. And then I was vomiting, although that word isn’t strong enough. I was erupting. The contents of my stomach spewed from my mouth, my nose. The wetness hit my chest, then my belly, and finally dribbled down my chin. My mouth tasted of charcoal. The warmth receded. The peace went with it. And I knew.

  1

  My throat burned. My stomach ached. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

  I tried to remember how good I’d felt…the sensation of floating, of being complete, wanting for nothing. I willed myself to drift, and after a moment, my lips twitched into the tiniest bit of a smile. But if I were truly approaching oblivion, I wouldn’t even remember I had a mouth, and the realization brought the pain crashing back.

  My eyelids heavy, I fought to open them. The light was too bright and I squinted against its harsh intrusion.

  “She’s awake! Nurse—she’s awake!”

  My mother sprang toward me and clutched my hand, her eyes wild with worry.

  “Ember, honey, you’re OK. You’re in the hospital. You had an accident and…”

  I stopped hearing her. I didn’t want to process the relief on my mother’s face when I was so disappointed. I receded back, if not into the comfort of oblivion, then at least into an inky blackness.

  2

  Sunlight warmed my face, causing spots to dance behind my eyes. I feigned sleep, wanting to gauge the emotional temperature of the room before admitting wakefulness to anyone else present. No voices in the room with me, but a low buzz of conversation drifted in from farther away.

  When I opened my eyes, I knew I was somewhere different. From my slanted vantage point—I still wasn’t willing to move my head—I saw that the tile was still institutional, but this seemed older somehow…more dingy. I remained draped in hospital linens, but the bed itself felt softer and lacked rails. No sign of my mother. I tilted my head.

  A long bureau with flaking paint dominated the wall space between where I lay and an empty bed—neatly made and decorated with stuffed animals. Past the end of my bed I spied tw
o closets, a bathroom separating them. The door to the room was halfway open, allowing only a partial view of the hall.

  Psych ward. Where else would they put someone who had swallowed a cocktail of leftover prescriptions, put on some Ani DiFranco, and gone to sleep? It was so cliché. The worst part—other than being alive—was the knowledge that I was just another teenager who had tried to off themselves because life had gotten too hard. Another loser trying to run away from her problems. They wouldn’t know I’d been running to something. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell them. Life was bad enough before, but life in a mental hospital seemed even less appealing. I’d keep the Voice to myself.

  The door creaked and I was too slow in closing my eyes.

  “Well, nice to see you’re awake, Ember.”

  She was middle-aged, dressed in a nurse’s uniform and spoke with the calm authority of one who knew she was in charge and didn’t need to prove it.

  I wasn’t going to be able to bullshit her.

  “Not feeling very talkative?” She approached my bed. “That’s all right. You’ve been through a lot these past two days.”

  “Two days?”

  My surprise overrode my wish to be silent. My words came out as a croak, my throat still raw.

  “Mmhmm,” she said, feeling my forehead. “Some of the pills you swallowed had metabolized before the doctor was able to pump your stomach. You slept in the E.R. for fourteen hours. They moved you here once the doctors were confident you were out of the woods. That was yesterday.”

  I respected her lack of sugarcoating. She didn’t add the word ‘accidentally’ before the words “pills you swallowed.” She’d been through this before.

  “I guess I needed some rest,” I said.

  The truth sounded flippant when spoken aloud.

  “Mmhmm,” she said again.

  She was looking at me, sizing me up. Was I nuts? Looking for attention? Or was I one of the few who actually wanted to die? I didn’t answer the unspoken question. She was quiet for a moment, trying to see if I would be so uncomfortable with the silence that I’d have to fill it, hopefully giving her a morsel of information she could pass on to the shrink about why I’d ended up here. She had no idea how well I could play this game.

  She broke first. “Dr. Shaw wanted to be notified when you woke. It won't be a full session as he's got a heavy schedule today, but he'll do some intake and explain the way things work around here.”

  Intake? That didn’t sound right. I thought the psych ward was just a cooling off place before they sent you home or carted you off to the nuthouse.

  Realization dawned. My nurse friend noticed. A look of sympathy crossed her face and then was gone. She had probably learned not to get too involved.

  “You’ll find your things in the bureau and the closet. Meet me at the nurses’ station at the end of the hall and I’ll take you to his office.”

  She gave me a kind smile and left the room. Left it to me and my thoughts which, as usual, were too large to be contained. They were bursting out, seeping through walls, shattering the window.

  Boy, you really effed up this time. You're screwed. The nuthouse? We’re adding nuthouse to the resume now? They will never let you out of here. OK, here’s what we have to do: play the game, you don’t know what got into you, you love your life, you were upset about a boy, you realize it was stupid, you’ll never do it again—no, eff them, I’m done playing games. I’ll just tell them. The mistake wasn’t the pills; the mistake was being born in the first place. You only have to look at me to know I don’t belong in this world…

  On and on the voices warred. Not the Voice, the one that wanted to help me, just my own, and they hated me.

  I pulled myself back from the brink. As pleasant as my nurse friend seemed, I had a feeling that if I didn’t materialize at the nurses' station soon, I’d be dragged to this Dr. Shaw's office regardless.

  I opened the drawer closest to me and found my hairbrush, toothbrush, and some tooth paste. I stiffened, horrified at the thought of my mother going through my things in order to pack for my stay, but I quickly let it go. What—was she going to find some of my darker artwork? Read my diary? I was in a mental hospital; my facade of normalcy was surely blown. I had doubts it had ever been firmly in place.

  I looked horrendous. There was no denying it as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Black ringed my lips, my eyes more deep set than normal, my brown hair a rat’s nest. Things weren’t so good on the inside either—my mouth tasted like charcoal and death. Attempted death, anyway.

  Washing my face helped some, returning my lips to a human color. For a moment I got lost watching the charcoal swirl down the drain, wishing I could follow. Brushing my teeth removed the fuzzy coating. My hair, on the other hand, was a lost cause. No comb was going to tame it. I twisted it up and attached it with one of the clips I’d also found in the drawer. My mother was nothing if not sensitive to the needs of vanity.

  The closet was well stocked, also, which didn’t bode well for my hopes of a speedy discharge. I pulled on my favorite pair of jeans and a hoodie, tossing the gown in a corner of the closet.

  The hallway looked exactly as I’d thought it would. Nondescript, doors every eight feet or so, inoffensive pastel artwork on the walls. Nothing to upset the unbalanced mind—unless, of course, it had any taste.

  I reached the nurses' station. A large black woman looked up from the papers in front of her and smiled. “Jo said you were awake. How you feeling?”

  I shrugged. I’d save my platitudes for the shrink.

  Jo walked up then, saving me from another silent standoff.

  “This way, Ember.”

  I followed dutifully.

  She led me around the corner and down another hallway. She paused where it ended at large double doors, then slipped her hand under a covered keypad. Her fingers moved deftly as she punched in a code, and the doors lurched open.

  A moment later, we paused at a doorway with a nameplate that read Herbert Shaw, MD. Apparently, I had graduated from psychologists and was now in need of a full-blown psychiatrist.

  Inside was a receptionist and a small waiting area, which consisted of two chairs and some magazines.

  “Karen, this is Ember Lyons. She's here to see Dr. Shaw.”

  Karen smiled warmly from behind her desk. “Yes, he told me we'd be fitting her in. Please, have a seat. He's with another patient right now, but he'll be with you shortly.”

  I took a seat, picked up an issue of a nature magazine dated two months prior, and opened to a random page. Jo gave me a reassuring nod as she left, while Karen went back to her typing. I glanced down at my magazine and became absorbed in a picture of hikers entering a darkened cave. I imagined I was there, entering the blackness…

  Probably better you don't mention me.

  Agreed. I had kept the Voice a secret for the past year; I certainly wasn't going to start blabbing about it now, when they already had proof I was disturbed.

  I closed my eyes and found myself wondering where I'd gone wrong. I'd taken enough pills, I was sure of that. But I’d known my mother would be home by ten thirty and would check on me—she always did. Why hadn't I waited until after she had gone to bed? It had made sense at the time, but sitting in that waiting room, I couldn't imagine why. I wasn't an attention seeker. If anything, I wanted to be left alone. Completely alone. People just let you down. I wanted an end to people. An end to everything. So why had I screwed it up so spectacularly?

  The click of a door opening brought me back to the present. A waifish girl of no more than twelve emerged from the back office. She stared at the carpet as she made her way out, her long blond hair curtaining her face. When she neared me, her breath caught and she stopped dead, her head slowly turning to look at me. Frightened blue eyes stared into mine, her lips moved silently.

  The moment stretched, the girl seemingly entranced, and me, too freaked out to say anything.

  “Callie?” Karen asked. “Everything
OK?”

  The girl, Callie, pulled her gaze away from me and said softly, “Yes, fine. Sorry.”

  She scurried out of the room. I stared after, disconcerted. I guessed I should learn to get used to that sort of thing if I was going to be spending time in a mental institution.

  “Ember? The doctor will see you now.”

  Karen gestured to the doorway Callie had just come from.

  I tossed the magazine back onto the table and paused at the door. Here we go.

  Dr. Herbert Shaw, MD, sat behind a large mahogany desk. His balding head was bent over a file folder stuffed with papers. He looked up, his smile revealing tobacco-stained teeth, and perched his reading glasses on top of his head.

  “Hello, Ember. I'm glad to see you up and about. I'm Dr. Shaw.”

  He rose from his desk and extended a hand. It was unnaturally soft for a man's hand. Not that I had felt the hands of many men.

  He gestured for me to sit in the chair across from him.

  “So, how are you feeling?” he asked, retaking his seat.

  “I've been better.”

  “I would think so,” he said, and flipped through the folder. He lowered his glasses and read aloud, “Lithium, clozapine, diazepam…That's quite a lot to ingest.”

  I waited for something to respond to. He hadn't asked how I'd gotten access to such a mix of pills. My mother's condition must have been in the file. Being bipolar with a side of paranoia wasn't something she acknowledged readily; she must have been terrified for me. I felt more than a twinge of guilt.

  As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I have a full history on both you and your mother, but nothing on your father. Why is that?”

  If he was trying to provoke me, he was about to be disappointed. The admission that had once pained me, now flowed without emotion.

  “Because I've never met him.”

  “I see,” he said, making a note. “Is he deceased?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Isn't that in the file?”

  Instead of answering, he asked, “Does it bother you, the way you were conceived?”