Page 38 of Midnight Kiss

All that stuff about the book, earlier, was part of whatever fever dream I’d been having.

The pain abated somewhat, and I straightened in the doorway to my bedroom. The view outside of the window was unchanged—the apartment building opposite with lights on, the inky black night sky.

“Huh. I must have imagined?—”

A black shape struck the window and bounced off it.

I let out a shriek and backpedaled until my back hit the wall opposite. The sudden flood of adrenaline banished my nausea, and I stared at the window.

What was that?

I hugged myself, staring wide-eyed at the window.

A second black shape pelted it. And then another, and another, and another, until the window was a seething mass of blackness, with eyes and little claws and teeth and?—

Bats. They’re bats.

Horror took hold of me, and I turned on my heel and ran out into the living room, through the kitchen and to the apartment door. I unlatched it with shaking fingers then barreled out into the hallway and slammed into the wall.

Keep going. Further.

I ran down the hall, down the stairs, nearly falling over myself, until I had reached the foyer of the building and the cracked glass front doors.

But I couldn’t go out there. The bats were out there.

Bats.

How was this possible? That wasn’t normal behavior for bats. They didn’t usually gather in groups that big, did they? Or maybe they did. I’d watched a nature documentary once where they were all hanging from the ceiling of a cave, their little wings wrapped around furry bodies. They’d even looked cute in that context.

But there weren’t any caves in the city.

I leaned against the balustrade, squeezing my eyes shut. Finally, I sat down on the bottom step, facing the front doors, my thoughts running wild. And clear. Much clearer than they’d been in the apartment.

Even my nausea was better, and it was easier to breathe. I wasn’t as hot.

What the heck? Was there actually something in my apartment that was making me sick? Like a gas leak or something? But Morgan wasn’t sick. And if it was something as serious as a gas leak, I would’ve been dead by now, right?

I sucked in a deep breath, appreciating how much better I felt.

It had been the same yesterday, when I’d gone out with Alex. The fresh air had done me a world of good, and the kiss hadn’t hurt either.

A knock rattled the glass door, and I straightened, biting back a shriek.

An impossibly beautiful woman stared at me through the glass. She tapped on it with her finger, smiling at me with full crimson lips. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders in waves that had to have taken hours to style, and she wore a black corset.

“Hello?” I rose from the stairs and went over to the door. “Do you need something?” After the mugger incident, I wasn’t about to let her in. The cops had never caught the guy who’d tried to attack me.

“Hi,” she said. “Let me in.”

And suddenly, I had the strongest urge to do exactly that and trust this woman. She was so lovely, I couldn’t fathom that she’d want to hurt me.

I reached for the button to buzz her in then stopped. “Who are you? Are you here visiting someone?”

“I wanted to talk to you, Emily,” she said. “Press that button.”

I pressed it then snatched my hand back. Why had I done that? I hadn’t?—

The door swung inward, and the woman entered.