The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t unravel no matter how many words I
now desperately threw at it.
    He smiled, “So Mina, how do we
go on from here?”

5. CRASH
     
    It was obvious when Sam arrived
home in the afternoon that he’d seen me leaving with Blake that
morning. He poorly disguised the fact that he was packing his
things by trying to convince me he was going to Matt’s to work on
some coursework. He moved around me like I’d become a part of the
furniture; trying not to make eye contact, trying not to get caught
up in a conversation because he knew that it might end up being that conversation. Before he left, he stopped at the door
and turned as if he was about to say something but in the end all
he could manage was a forced smile.
    After Sam left, I sat at my
desk in the quiet. I thought about the future plans Sam and I’d
made. We’d never had reason to doubt that that our future would be
travelled together. Sam was good and I knew that his love was a
precious thing. I loved him; he was part of my home, part of my
future. Had been part of my future.
    With the arrival of Blake
Beldevier, all plans were now suspended. Suspended - not terminated
- because although Blake was the tall, dark and handsome stranger,
there was something about him that wasn’t right, something about
him that was dangerous, maybe even bad. I’d seen something in his
eyes, in the way that he looked at me that made me think he knew a
secret, a dark secret that nobody else in the world knew. But even
with all of this, with every instinct telling me to run, a
delicious swell of desire surrounded every thought I had of him and
I realised that even if he turned out to be the darkest force on
the earth, I was already under a spell that I wasn’t sure I wanted
to be broken.
    To fill the time and distract
myself, I powered up my laptop and logged onto Facebook in the hope
that I’d successfully waste the evening. I clicked on to Uncle
Josef and sent him a cheeky message, telling him to get down to
some proper work and to stop loafing around. He was the closest
thing I had to a dad and although he lived in London, working for a
flash architect firm which paid him a fortune just because he was a
genius, we were close, speaking with each other nearly
everyday.
    A message pinged back straight
away telling me not to be rude to my elders. The irony of his swift
response proving me right wouldn’t have escaped him. When I fired
back the question as to what he was doing I hadn’t expected the
response,
    On the phone. Travelling by
train. Blasted public transport. Be a poppet and put the kettle
on.
    I skipped down the stairs,
cheered by the news of Josef’s visit. It had been a long time since
he had been to visit us and typical of Uncle Magic, he couldn’t
have timed it better. It was as I was raiding the fridge thinking
about organising supper, that I heard Mum crash through the front
door and call out to me with an alarming call,
    “Mina! Mina where are you? Are
you home? Are you here?”
    Her voice had a sickening edge
of hysteria. “Please God let you be home.”
    “Mum, I’m here. What’s the
matter?”
    She flew towards me, wrapping
me up in a tight hug as if I might slip away from her at any
moment.
    “Thank God baby, thank God.”
She shuddered, large tears streaming down her cheeks.
    Her eyes implored me to
understand something that was too painful for her to say and when
telepathy failed her, her words tumbled out hysterically, “Baby,
it’s Sam. His car. The police have shut off the road. There’s a
fire engine. I thought you were with him. Baby it’s bad. We need to
go to the hospital. We need to find out what’s happened.”
    Her face was contorted, twisted
by anxiety and the anticipation of grief. She pulled back from me,
stroking my cheek. I stood rooted to the spot; a coldness
spreading, flooding my brain with a perishing whiteness.
    Mum’s voice lowered to a soft
whisper, “Mina, darling, we have to go. Go and get your coat. Mina,
baby,