Read Wilde's Fire (Darkness Falls #1) for Free Online Page B

my cheek with the back of his sweaty fingers.
    Brad’s touch leaves traces of fever burning across my face.
    “Everything is going to be okay.”
    “What have they told you?” I stifle the sobs that are sure to betray me any moment.
    “They say we’re in a place called Encardia. One of the doctors, if you can call him that, thinks we might have accidentally travelled through a portal to this world. Then he went on to mutter some stuff about how that’s impossible. I think he’s crazy.”
    Brad pierces me with a hard stare, but his eyebrow raises just a little—he thinks this is some kind of sick joke. He’s a literal person, but even without him knowing about the yellow light I followed, the portal makes sense. How else can he explain swimming into a cave in the middle of a river and landing flat on our faces inside this nightmare? From the moment our bodies slammed into the ground, I’ve suspected we left our own world. Now that I’m coherent, the only thing that makes sense is some sort of parallel universe.
    “You don’t believe him?” I’m curious as to why he cannot connect the dots or even
feel
the difference. Were the creatures not indication enough?
    “Do
you
?”
    “I’ve felt like we weren’t at home from the second we left the water,” I say. I should have known something was wrong much earlier on in our trip. The moment I had the first vision of the woman, while we climbed Goat Ridge, I should have led us all right back to the Jeep.
    Brad holds me prisoner with his gaze. He’s probably hoping I will change my mind and tell him I think the people he’s been talking to are crazy, but I’m not budging. He must think
I’m
crazy for believing we’ve entered another world. I feel it, even if he cannot.
    “Be careful, Kate. I’ve heard the two old doctors whispering about us all day. If I weren’t stuck in this bed, I would have us home and never look back,” Brad says, closing his eyes.
    He’s in pain and trying to hide it.
    “What have they been whispering about?” I ask, breathless.
    “I don’t know; something about them makes me uncomfortable.” Brad shifts in bed and lets out a muffled cry.
    He’s dying in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do but watch. I’m useless to him here. What could they have been whispering about us, other than how lucky we are to be alive? Brad must be paranoid. He has bruises on his arm where someone has, more than likely, injected him with drugs. Those must be affecting him, too.
    I have to figure out where we are and how to get home.
    Swallowing hard, I stand and straighten the nightgown. “I don’t think they mean to hurt us. I’ll go talk to them and get some answers.”
    “Don’t go yet. Stay with me for a while, please?” Brad whispers.
    My surge of resolve melts away. “Okay.”
    I move a chair from the corner of the room, set it next to the bed, then I take a seat. I prop up my elbows, rest my head in my hands.
    Brad drifts in and out of sleep for what feels like hours. Sitting and watching my lifelong friend die is painful. He’s been here for me for almost as long as I can remember, held my hand when I was scared, made me smile when no one else could. I cannot imagine a life without him in it, without his witty remarks, his always knowing the right thing to say, and the warmth of his arms around me when I’m sad.
    What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I tell him about the light? At least, if I had, he could have decided whether he wanted to come with us. He might not be here, if I had said something. I want to cry, but I don’t want Brad to see me upset. I don’t want to make him any more worried than he is already.
    Waking again, he watches me while I think over all the mistakes I made in the forest. He motions with his finger for me to come closer.
    I lean over his body.
    He smiles—or at least tries to—as he pulls my face down to his, finds my lips, and gives them a sweet kiss.
    I cannot return his love. Other than how