The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(114)

Up ahead, the lane had reached its end, and finally he seemed able to catch up. He ran the remainder of the path, stopping just short of the pair.

“Natalie!” he gasped, moving to grab her hand. “Natalie, WAIT!”

Once more she brushed him away with unnatural force, and he crashed heavily to the path. He raised his head, the breath knocked out of him, to see the man standing next to a pair of massive iron gates with Natalie at his side. The gates were wreathed in ashen, gray ivy that completely obscured whatever lay beyond.

The ragged man reached out and, with an almost delicate touch, pushed one gate open. There was a protesting scream of rusted hinges as it swung inward.

A sinking, queasy feeling came over Alex where he lay, panting. He didn’t know what the hell was happening, but there was one certainty he couldn’t shake: She should not pass through these gates, should not go anywhere with this man.

Alex leapt to his feet just as Natalie slipped through, following the man as the gate began to close behind them.

Alex cursed. Rushing up to the closing gate, his heart was in his throat. He gazed at the strange, twisting patterns that were etched into the bars. For several seconds, he stood there, his hand closing over the cool metal. Barely twenty minutes ago, he’d been standing in the sun on a suburban road.

Either he had really and truly lost his mind, or he was venturing blindly into an utterly unheard of realm.

He looked up at the gray ivy that hung down in curtains before him. Whatever lay beyond, Natalie had gone ahead, and Alex couldn’t bring himself to turn away now. If nobody but him could see the gray man, there was no guarantee that anybody else would see what he saw now, here at the end of this impossible lane. He couldn’t rely on recruiting help.

Swallowing hard, Alex set his jaw and pushed.

The gate began to open.