Between Worlds (Pendant Series Book 3) Read Free Page A

spinning with confusion. I was trying to wrap my mind around this information that had slammed my senses into a wall of stone. There was no way I could accept what this man was saying to me. Adrian wasn’t evil and he didn’t even have a sister. No, this was all wrong. Adrian was not Samael or the Devil or any of those things.
    He is my friend…and maybe my lover.
    I stood up verbally to the giant figure looming over me. “You’ve got to be mistaken. Adrian is not Samael.”
    I took a step back. I felt my instinct to run beginning to kick in as I visually scoured the land, seeking out the quickest escape route. But being unfamiliar with the land, I had no idea where to go. Besides, if this guy was truly God, where could I go?
    Panic was setting in. “This is not real right now…this is a dream!”
    I pinched my arm, forcing myself to wake up from this nightmare. But Samael’s Father continued to speak as if he had not even heard my scream.
    “Her poor body could not withstand their torment. She died moments after giving them life.”
    I put my hands up to my ears, refusing to allow these lies to enter my brain. “Adrian doesn’t have a twin sister! No, you must be confused. Adrian’s mother did not die during childbirth. His parents died together last year in a car accident,” I shrieked, begging him to acknowledge he’d made a mistake.
    But he wouldn’t budge. His eyes were hard and emotionless. There was no give and take in his manner. He wouldn’t accept my version of the story.
    “Everything out of my son’s mouth is deceit. He’ll twist your vision of things until it’s an ugly distorted mess. He’s already gotten his claws into you. You’ve allowed yourself to question your judgment of what you know to be right. With the help of his evil sister he’s been able to get you to push away everything good in your life.”
    “Sister?”
    That one word was all it took to send the memories of my last dream crashing into my brain. Just as clear as my dream was now, apparently so were my memories. And as the memory of the inappropriate sibling dream flooded my brain so did the images of Lilly and Adrian.
    “That’s impossible,” I whispered. I shot the old man a revolting look. “You’re doing this to me! You’re putting these images in my mind. You’re the one trying to make me believe things that aren’t real!”
    “You’ve lost your faith, Sidney,” he replied with a calm reverence.
    Now I felt nothing but anger. This man had to be tricking me, distorting my memories to see facts that weren’t real. Adrian and Lilly didn’t even know each other. This whole thing was ludicrous. I fought back. “Faith in what…faith in God?” I snorted. “I never had faith in something I couldn’t see.”
    “Look around you, Sidney. What do you see? Where are you?”
    I closed my eyes, refusing to comply with his request and instead willed myself to wake up, “I’m dreaming,” I said through gritted teeth.
    Wake up, Sidney. Open your eyes!
    I could almost feel my heavy sedated body back in the other world. I closed my eyes and tried hard to make that Sidney lift her arm or turn her head. I tried to make her move something that would jolt her back into consciousness.
    But it was no use.
    The impudent man would not stop his torture. “Why the same dream? Why is your dream written in Adrian’s book? Why does it correlate with a religious book if religion is not real? Who is Adrian and what does he want from you? That’s what you need to ask yourself. If you can answer that question you will be freed from your torment.”
     
    Finally, the connection from my brain to my nerves seemed to plug back in and with a spark, I could move my arm. I flopped myself so hard my entire body came crashing off Adrian’s bed and hit hard against the wooden floor. My eyes shot open. I was finally awake, but those final words lingered in my brain.
    Freed from my torment…what torment?
    Awake and released from my dream,