Page 6 of Midnight Kiss
I had the urge to pull the man away from her, as if I could stop her from smiling at him, and make her look at me like that instead.
My gaze traced her body. She wore an oversized sweater that made me wonder what was underneath, and the jeans she wore hugged the curves of her hips, her shapely thighs.
I grunted under my breath, tearing my gaze from the picture and moving it out to the city skyline. The emotion that tugged at my navel was unfamiliar. Not anger, or darkness, or hunger, but … something deeper. A yearning I didn’t understand nor want to.
Hastily, I shut the image and re-read the email. I lingered on the final line, my jaw clenched.
Target is human but can be killed if necessary.
3
EMILY
The scream ripped from my throat, and I struggled forward, trying to escape the person who’d grabbed hold of me. I tripped over my feet, my ankle twisting painfully, and fell forward, clamping my arms around the book.
“Emily! Emily. It’s me. It’s Michael!” Strong hands grabbed hold of me before I could fall down the stairs, and I was pulled back to my feet.
Michael, my next-door neighbor, frowned at me, holding me out, his hands firm on my shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
My insides had shriveled in fear. I’d been sure that he was the guy who’d chased me out of the library, come to finish the job, whatever that job may be.
“Emily?”
“T-There was a—” I glanced back up at the library doors. They were shut tight. Was the guy still in there? Locked in the rare books division. I cleared my throat, hugging the book tight to my chest. “I was calling 911.”
“What? Why? What happened?” Michael looked pained at the thought of me in danger. Blonde, stocky, but muscular, he’d been a good neighbor to me and had become a fast friend.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked, looking down at the remnants of mine. “I think my phone is …”
“Let me get it.” Michael bent and picked it up. “The screen is cracked. Shit, I’m sorry, Em, but you were calling 911?”
Hastily, I explained what had happened.
Michael’s expression went from shocked to confused. “Wait, what?”
“What?” I asked, hugging the book tighter. I slipped it into my tote bag then held out my hand for my phone. “I need to call 911.”
“Hold on a sec, Em, are you sure about that?”
I frowned. “Michael? Did you not just hear what I said? About the guy and the?—”
“I heard you say that some guy dropped from the ceiling of the rare books division, wearing a hood and a cloak, with glowing eyes,” Michael said. “You know that’s not possible, right?”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Come on, Em, you’re jumpy. You’re tired. You’ve been working late nights, working on your book all day,” Michael said. “How much sleep did you get last night? If you got more than three hours, I’ll be surprised. I heard you making coffee this morning, at like, four.”
Darn the paper thin walls in my apartment. “I—What does that matter? Are you saying that I made this up?” I railed at the thought.
But a small part of me agreed with him. I was tired, and I’d been reading a super spooky ancient tome before it had happened. And the lights had flickered and cut out on their own with no one near the light switch. Was it possible that I’d imagined it?
“I think you had like … a fatigue hallucination,” Michael said. “I think that’s a thing. I’ve read about it. You get hypnagogic hallucinations or something. You were probably nodding off but then that stuff happened.”
I still wanted to call 911. The feeling I’d had, the sheer horror, was unforgettable.
“Like a waking nightmare,” Michael said, and then he slung one brawny arm around my shoulders and drew me into a sidelong hug. “Don’t worry, you’re fine. You’re with me now. I’ll protect you.” He laughed and jostled me against his side. “No big, bad, hooded dudes are going to get ya.”
“Funny,” I said, glancing back up the steps, reluctantly. “I’ve never had a waking nightmare before. Maybe I should call 911, just in case.”