Green: The Beginning and the End by Ted Dekker

to charter a jet on the spot, fly to Paradise, and see for herself if any of these worms still survived. They, like the books, had certainly been spawned by another world. Yet they were here, in this reality?
    But what made her mouth dry was Billy’s claim that Thomas wasn’t the only one who’d crossed the bridge into this other reality or, for that matter, come back from the future.
    Kara had gone. And returned.
    Monique, her very own mother, had gone. And returned.
    How? Using Thomas’s blood. The idea, once it sank in, was too much to absorb in one sitting.
    “You mean, when you fall asleep—”
    “While in contact with Thomas’s blood,” Billy interrupted, making a show of cutting his finger with a fingernail. “More accurately, while your blood is in contact with Thomas’s blood.”
    “And you just wake up in this other place?”
    “It sounds crazy, but there’s plenty of proof. Me, for starters. The books—”
    “Until you fall asleep there, in which case you wake up here,” Janae said, on her own track. “As if the whole thing was just a dream. Only it isn’t a dream at all.”
    “Correct. That’s what I’ve pieced together so far.”
    “And you know, with certainty, that this blood still exists?”
    “How many times do you need me to say it, Janae? You think I’ve done all of this, come all this way, because I saw your picture in People magazine and decided I had to have you? As if I said to myself, ‘I know, I’ll make up stories about books that can transport you between realities and pretend to be able to read her thoughts, that’ll impress her’?”
    Janae eyed him, captivated by the notion that he was reading her mind this very moment. She stood and brushed by him, smiling coyly. There was more about Billy that attracted her, and it wasn’t simply his promise of adventure. He brought out the animal in her. Maybe she should give it to him without pretending.
    She reached back for his hand. “Walk with me.”
    He did so willingly, and they meandered from the suite, still hand in hand.
    “From now on this stays between us,” she said. “You’ll get nothing from my mother, you know that.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Not maybe. She hasn’t mentioned a word of this to me, which can only mean she’s hidden the truth for good reasons.”
    “Keeping to ourselves won’t get us what we need.”
    “Of course not, darling. I can get us that. But I need to know that I can trust you.”
    “Trust me? I’m the one sharing secrets here.”
    She placed her free hand on his chest and gently stopped him. “Look inside me. Tell me I’m not sharing my deepest secrets with you.”
    Billy’s eyes stared into hers. She thought about her father, what she knew, which wasn’t much and had been closely guarded. And she told Billy with her mind that she found him exhilarating.
    Images of her past skipped through her mind: the first time she’d overseen a board meeting at age twenty-one, her first lover, the time she’d been busted in New York for drug possession and thrown in jail for the night. But her mind finally rested on him. On Billy. On this man who’d fallen from the sky and in a few short hours managed to strip her of her secrets.
    She found him stimulating. Enticing. Nearly irresistible. Not only physically, but spiritually. Emotionally. She didn’t understand why. She didn’t care that she didn’t understand.
    “You see? You can see into my heart and know that you can trust me. And I have to know that I can trust you as well.”
    She still held his hand in hers, and she noted that it was clammy. But then, she was accustomed to the effect she had on men.
    “Our secret,” she said, swallowing.
    He cleared his throat. “Our secret.”
    “I hope I can trust you.” She kissed him lightly on his lips and turned to lead him on. But Billy pulled back.
    His eyes glanced nervously at the atrium beyond her. “Where are we going?”
    Janae turned back. “You don’t know? You haven’t read my