Green: The Beginning and the End by Ted Dekker Page A

mind?”
    “I do know. Learning to live with my abilities has taught me to . . . well, you know . . . go with the flow.”
    “By pretending not to know. Because you don’t want to come off as uppity by showing your superiority over everyone else in the room. Right?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Don’t worry, I feel the same way half the time.”
    “Then you’ll understand when I say that I have no interest in wandering around the compound, pretending to be interested in the lay of the land. It’s a waste of time.”
    “A woman needs time—”
    “I don’t have time.”
    Her eyes searched his. “That’s how you want to play?”
    “I don’t want to play. This need has been hunting me down for over a year. It’s like a presence. I have to know if it’s here.”
    The blood.
    Billy turned and walked back toward the guest suite.
    “Where are you going?”
    “You don’t know where it is, I can see that much. And you don’t have any idea how to get it.”
    How rude! Where’d he grown the gall to think he could just waltz away without any regard for his host, a host who’d practically stripped herself bare for him? He was exasperating.
    He was . . . like her.
    “Slow down,” she snapped, heading after him into the rooms. “Just take a deep breath. Fine.” She shut the main door to the suite. “I’m as eager as you are, but—”
    “You’ve known about the books for a few hours,” he said, spinning back. “Don’t talk to me about how eager you are. The idea that these books exist would be a heady thought for anyone, but why are you so . . . crazy about this? I can’t see it in your mind, and frankly it’s a bit disturbing.”
    It was a fair question. She told the truth. No use pretending with him. “I don’t know.”
    “No, you don’t,” he said. “And that’s the scariest part. It makes your longing almost . . . inhuman.”
    She calmed herself. “What do you expect from me? You tell me all of this and expect me to tap my fingers on the table and agree to help you?”
    “Pretty much. Yes.”
    “Please. A hundred dots have connected in my head, and you want me to take a nap?”
    “No dots have connected in your head, Janae. That’s the problem. It hasn’t turned on the lights in your head. I would be able to see that. But when I look inside you, I see something else.”
    “Is that so? And what do you see?”
    “Your heart. Your desires. They’re all black.”
    “Like yours,” she said, because she could think of no defense. What he said was preposterous. She was no more evil than the next person.
    Billy turned away and walked to one of the windows overlooking the lawn. “I’ve been here before. Staring down this kind of blackness.”
    “But your heart is white now?” She walked up behind him and traced the muscles of his back with her fingers. “You’re afraid that naughty Janae will bring it all back? Hmm? Is that it?”
    He shook his head slowly. “No. It just reminds me that what we’re doing—what I’m doing—isn’t right.” Billy turned around, and she saw that his eyes were misty. “But I can’t seem to help it. The power that’s in that blood . . . those books . . . you have no idea how much damage it can bring.” He looked away, and a tear snaked down his cheek.
    For a moment she thought he might be talking himself out of everything he’d just convinced her to do. Panic swarmed her mind. She couldn’t let him do that.
    Why not, Janae? What is happening to you?
    She was certain about one thing: Billy could not leave this place until she knew everything that he knew. And more.
    She had to find that blood. Alone, if it had to be that way.
    “I know how you feel,” she started. Then, “Actually I don’t. I don’t share your regret. But you’re right, I have desires in me that I can’t understand. And I believe you share those same desires.”
    Janae stepped around him, dragging her fingernails delicately over his neck and cheek. She saw light freckles