Read Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die; The Deep End of Fear for Free Online Page B

lovers, trying different combinations for the two guys and two girls. Watching Mike read, I was amazed at his skill. I had imagined that he had just enough talent, or more accurately, the good looks to earn a small high school part. I was wrong—or perhaps the part of a lover came quite naturally to him. I glanced around: I wasn't the only girl who had trouble taking her eyes off him.
    "Jenny Baird."
    I didn't respond; it wasn't the name for which I was used to snapping to.
    "Miss Baird." Walker's voice could roll low like thunder. Shawna nudged me.
    "Walker," Brian said in a quiet voice, "I spoke to you about Jenny, remember?"
    Walker turned to Brian very slowly, demonstrating for all of us how an actor can make an audience wait for a line. "I remember. Get up there, Miss Baird."
    I walked to the stage steps carrying my book.
    "I can try out," I told Walker, "but I get terrible stage fright when it comes time for performance."
    "Act Two, Scene Two, after Puck has exited," Walker replied, as if he hadn't heard a word I'd said.
    Brian stared at him and shook his head.
    "Helena," Walker said to me when I was on stage, "you've just come upon Lysander, who is sleeping. What you don't know is that Puck has put the magic ointment on his eyelids, and the first person Lysander sees—you, not his beloved Hermia—he will now be madly in love with. Not knowing what has happened, you think he's making fun of you. Pick it up on 'But who is here?'"
    We positioned ourselves, Mike on the stage floor and me bending over him. I began:
    "But who is here? Lysander! on the ground?
    Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake."
    Mike opened his eyes, then pulled himself up quickly, responding fervently: "'And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.'"
    I blinked and drew back. The incredible blue of his eyes and the intensity with which he zeroed in on me made my heart jolt, made me feel as if I were on an elevator that had suddenly dropped from beneath me. All I could do was stare at him, surprised. Of course, the character of Helena would have reacted the same way. I wasn't acting, but I looked like I was.
    "'Transparent Helena,'" Mike began softly, kneeling now, his eyes, his whole person focused on me, the way a lover's would be. My heart did strange flip-floppy things. I struggled to make sense of the instinctive way I responded to Mike; in the play, Helena struggled to make sense of Lysander.
    I dutifully told Lysander why he should be happy with his Hermia.
    "'Content with Hermia?'" Mike responded. "'No, I do repent the tedious minutes I have with her spent.'" He reached out and touched my face. I tingled at the brush of his fingers and could feel my cheeks getting pink. Of course, Helena's cheeks would have reddened as she got increasingly angry at Lysander.
    "'Not Hermia, but Helena I love,'" Mike said. "'Who will not change a raven for a dove?'"
    But I was the raven and Liza his dove, I wanted to say. I stood up quickly, feeling mixed up, caught between the play world and the real one. He gazed at me as if his eyes would hold and cherish what his hands could not. I reminded myself that this was acting.
    At last he got to the end of his lines, and I pulled myself together. I was mad—mad at him for using his eyes and voice that way, madder at myself for being caught in their spell. Hadn't I seen a million actors deliver lines like that? Hadn't I fallen for not one, but two guys who were pretending to like me because they wanted to know Liza?
    Just as anger was boiling up in me, it was bursting from poor Helena: "'Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?'" I exclaimed—ironically, totally in character.
    Finishing my speech, I exited quickly, exactly as Helena should have. In fact, I wanted to run back to my seat, but I figured that Walker, upon observing my flight, would make me stay and read some more. I stopped onstage about twenty feet from Mike, waiting to be dismissed by Walker.
    He