Darkside Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

did the squishing beneath his heel. It was the way of the world.
    “How do I stop this from happening?” I asked. “What are they?”
    “Don’t move from this spot,” he said.
    I stood and opened my mouth to ask him what in hell’s half acre was going on, but something cold rolled along my skin, sucking the words out of my head.
    We stood in a beating heart. Or … no, it was only inside of me. Or was it?
    Each thump hit me from the inside like a concussion wave, just like in my room earlier, only stronger by an order of magnitude. I could hear nothing with my ears, only the pressing of something against my flesh, like the vibration of hard rock music. I thought maybe I should scream and run for the hills, but the air seemed too thick to move through.
    My arms were lead. Legs welded in place. The beating pulse grew and grew into something large and overwhelming, spreading through me like warm fingers that passed through flesh and bone.
    Seconds passed, and I could breathe again if I concentrated hard enough, but everything appeared distorted. He moved, or a blur of him did. Must have been a trick of my eyes. There was two of everything in the room. What a trip, throwing off my equilibrium enough that my stomach clenched.
    A larger room appeared to overlay the small office, its window in a different place. The new desk was larger and still spotless, but maybe mahogany instead of cherry. He reached up to the second-from-the-top shelf of the bookcase nearest the window and came down with a thick leather-bound book that appeared ancient and worn.
    I wasn’t sure whether to be terrified, giddy, or relieved that I had finally lost my mind and would soon dwell in blissful insanity within my cardboard-box house nestled under a bridge somewhere.
    I wanted to know what was in that book, who Green really was, how he knew so much about the rifts, and everything about the nasty who’d sniffed my hair. Curiosity killed the cat and, maybe soon, the Addison.
    The double-image flattened into a single one again as we returned to the office in the AL. My grip on the nearest bookcase kept me from pulling a Fainting Fanny. “What just happened?” I asked. “Who are you?” I wasn’t sure how many more psychotic surprises I could take.
    With the oversized book clutched under one arm, he snatched up my pack from the floor with his free hand and opened the buckle. “You will take this volume back to your room and read it cover to cover. No skipping sections no matter how boring they may be to your pea-brain. Can you manage that?”
    I felt my answering frown pinch the skin between my eyes. “After so long of hoping there might be someone I could talk to about this, why do you have to be a total ass-face?” I flinched at the razorblades in my tone. I’d never spoken to authority figures like that. Even-keeled, that’s me. Something about Green ripped off my civilized front and set my inner beast loose.
    He laughed, then, one sharp crack of sound that rallied the hairs on my nape and sent warmth for a lazy stroll through my girl bits. “Perhaps you’re not a total lost cause, Plaid. There’s a bit of nerve hidden in your small-town mind.” Once he placed the book into my pack—it just barely fit, it was so huge—he re-buckled it and slid it over my shoulders while my lungs went on vacation. I couldn’t get over the fact that he’d laughed at all, or that his voice seemed to tweak parts of my body I didn’t realize could be tweaked with my clothes on.
    “Stop calling me Plaid. And I don’t have a small-town mind.” Okay, so I did, but I still didn’t want him to say it like that, all insulting.
    Gripping my pack, he used it to shove me not-so-gently to the door. When I reached out for the knob, he put his hand against the door to hold it shut. “If you tell anyone you have this book, have seen this book, or show it to another soul, I will kill you and whoever you show it to. Nod if you understand.”
    Did he just say