Melody Snow Monroe Read Free Page B

on? She’d never experienced anything like this before. Taking several long, deep breaths, the churning in her stomach eased a bit and the horrible pain behind her eyes lessened.
    She needed to get back to the junction, but she’d gotten a bit turned around. “Think.” When her stomach got upset, she was facing the tree. To return, all she had to do was go in the opposite direction. Lara turned around, but when she looked down, she couldn’t find the path even though she was still standing in the middle of the forest, and the tree she’d leaned against was shading her. Inexplicably, the path she’d just taken had disappeared.
    Her heart rate raced. “Calm down.” While she’d never had a panic attack, this must have been one.
    She blinked a few times to clear her vision. Her compass swung from her pack. Aha . That would tell her which way to head. She took off her backpack and unhooked the compass. When she held it level and lined up the red line with north, the arrow spun around slowly as if it was trying to find a direction. The damn thing wouldn’t stop spinning. “Defective piece of crap.”
    She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled for Krista.
    In ten minutes time, they couldn’t have become that far apart, especially since the paths more or less led in the same direction. She waited for an answer, but none came. The sky darkened, and she looked up. A huge black cloud dangled above her in the sky. “Great. Just what I don’t need is rain.”
    Perhaps she shouldn’t have mocked the psychic. Imelda’s spirit guides must have been paying Lara back or else were showing her the black cloud to prove their accuracy. She shook her head, not willing to buy into that mumbo-jumbo. She must have eaten something bad at the hotel and was now feeling the ill effects. Given her history of headaches, she’d ingested something she was allergic to.
    Feeling a bit better with her self-diagnosis, she dragged out her rain gear. Krista would be bummed if it rained because it would eliminate the chance to take photos.
    She’d taken a few more steps when another searing pain gripped her head. It was almost like an invisible claw had taken hold and was pressing on her temples as hard as it could. The intensity increased, forcing her to drop to her knees again. This time her gut roiled more from fear than from some illness.
    “Krista?” Her voice came out a croak. “Shit.”
    She rubbed her head, but the pain wouldn’t let up. Surely, when her friend returned to the meeting point and didn’t find her there, she’d come down this path. Then Krista could call for help. Hell, she could call for help for that matter.
    It took a moment to find her phone in the bottom of the pack, but when she did, there was no freaking service. That was so not fair. The trees must have been blocking the signal. She tried texting, thinking that might work, but even the text wouldn’t go through. Shit .
    Lara waited for what seemed like half an hour for her friend to find her. Every few minutes she’d call out Krista’s name, but something must have happened to her. Not one to sit idly, Lara forced herself to get up. When she studied the area, she swore something had changed. How had she not noticed the real pretty glen laced with fluffy ferns a few feet from her? She also swore there had been an indent in the large rock face that ran along the path. Now there was no rock slab at all. What the hell was going on?
    Don’t panic .
    Her inhaling exercise didn’t help. Not until her racing pulse slowed did she try her relatively useless compass again. The damned arrow continued to race around in circles. It was almost as if she’d fallen into some weird energy field. There had to be a logical explanation.
    Something bright flashed off to the side. She spun around so fast it was like someone had stabbed a knife in her eye. “Ouch.”
    Her balance went haywire, and she had to grab on to the tree. Adrenaline slammed into her system as more