Darkness Fades (Darkness Falls Series, Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

to the
entrance, walking into the daylight. I stop on the side of the
hill, breathing in the cool breeze, trying to erase the feelings
inside me, yet they remain.
    Aiden walks towards me, but pauses at the
entrance where the shade and the light meet. Now that he has
changed into a Day Taker, he can’t step out into the sunlight. He’s
pretty much trapped inside that cave until sundown.
    “Kayla, please relax,” he begs.
    I don’t turn around. “Aiden, please leave me
alone… I just need a small break for a moment,” I tell him and then
hike further down the hill. I’m not sure where I’m going, only that
I need to move; clear my head for a moment.
    I work my way to the side of the cliff until
I find a spot where I climb to the top of the hill easily. There’s
a small ledge above me and, using my arms, I heave myself on it
then continue to scale up the side until I arrive at the top. I sit
down on the peak and stare out at the ground below me. It looks so
beautiful, so serene from up here, not dark and twisted and full of
death like it really is. As if it’s a completely different place
with no vampires around, screeching and killing anything that gets
into their path. If I use my imagination, I can almost picture it
as peaceful. What would that be like? To live in a peaceful
world?
    I shake my head and force my attention off
the land to my surroundings nearby. The ground below me is fairly
flat, but there are crevices that weave in and out of the surface
that drops down. If it was dark, those crevices would be death
traps. Death. Sylas. He asked me to kill him and I didn’t. I let
him turn into a beast.
    “Stop thinking about it,” I mutter to
myself.
    My palms are sweaty and covered with dirt,
so I wipe them on my jeans to clean them off. There’s a small rock
on the ground next to my feet. I pick it up and throw it over the
side of the cliff, watching it fall until it hits the bottom and
breaks apart like I’m about to.
    I can feel it. I can feel. My emotions are
going haywire and I don’t know how to turn them off. God, what
the hell do I do?

    “ You need to turn off your emotions,”
Monarch tells me. “They will ruin you—what you need to do.”
    I watch as he urges a young boy behind the
red door, pushing on his back. The boy refuses to go, though, and
Monarch has to grab him and drag him in, his body leaving a trail
of blood on the floor as he disappears into the room.
    “ What if I can’t?” I ask Monarch as he
stands in the doorway, wiping the blood off his hands onto his
white coat. “What if I don’t want to?”
    He looks angry, but it’s quickly replaced by
calmness as he sighs. “I know that it’s difficult, Kayla, but you
have to remember it’s for the greater good. The cruelties you
suffer through will turn you into the strong person you need to
become.”
    I know he’s probably right, but it feels
wrong. Still, even though it hurts, I bury the pain deep inside me;
shove it down into a box and lock it away inside. Then I turn
towards the red door, knowing what he wants me to do; preparing to
take my next victim because that’s what will make me become a
stronger person in the future.

    The sound of rocks tumbling rips through the
memory and my eyes fly open. Springing to my feet, I span my arms
out to the sides and turn in a circle, searching the land and cliff
for any movement. There’s nothing around other than dirt and rocks,
so I brush the dirt off my pants then decide I should probably
return to the others and stop running away from the problem.
    I trek back to the edge of the rock so I can
climb back down. Lowering my body, I ready to jump off the ledge,
knowing the fall won’t hurt me. But as I’m about to bend my knees,
I hear something.
    Thump… Thump.
    I pause and hear it again.
    Thump... Thump.
    I tense, crouched down, feeling movement
behind me. Someone or something is back there; something with a
heartbeat. I spin around to the side as I hear the noise again,