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Tears burned her eyes, but she wasn’t a crier. Tears never solved anything, and they wouldn’t now. She wrapped a towel around her wet hair and another one around her body.
Harry had to see the proof of... What? Eden grasped at straws, but the healed tattoo was undeniable evidence of the strange shit happening to her. Supernatural shit. She needed confirmation she wasn’t crazy, and only Harry could provide it.
She crossed to the other side of the Jack and Jill bathroom and entered Harry’s bedroom. “Hey.” She touched Harry’s shoulder and gently shook her. “Wake up. I got some unbelievable shit to show you.”
Harry didn’t move. Eden shook her harder. “Come on, girl. You want to wake up for this.”
Nothing.
Concern snaked through Eden. “Harry?” She squeezed her shoulder. “Harry.” Nothing.
This is not happening. Eden grabbed both of Harriet’s shoulders. “Harry!” she screamed into her face.
Nothing. Harry lay there, dead.
“No. No. No. No. No. No.” Each denial louder than the next.
Eden stumbled away from her best friend and kept stumbling over her own two feet and random bits of clothing and art books until she was on the other side of the room. And Harry still hadn’t moved.
A list of possibilities scrolled through Eden’s head at light speed. Yet, one fact remained: Just because you work in a hospital doesn’t mean you’re a doctor.
Get help! Get help right now!
Eden tore out of the room. Her phone was in her backpack, which was in the living room where she dumped it. Get the phone. Call 911.
Halfway to her destination, her rush to save Harry ended when she skidded to an abrupt halt because there was a man ensconced on her sofa. His face was hidden, partially cast in shadows. But judging by the rest of him comfortably seated on her secondhand furniture, he was massive.
And he’d invaded her home. Harry! He’d killed Harry!
“Do. Not,” the man growled. His command reverberated around the room and sunk into her bones, compelling her compliance. “Screaming will only annoy me. You will not enjoy annoying me.”
Her scream rolled back down her throat, obeying a command she should reject. After that, her vocal cords shut down. She couldn’t scream if she wanted to. Knees knocking, she took one step to run.
“Do. Not. Run. Chasing you will only annoy me more than the screaming.” He grunted in annoyance.
She wanted to obey, felt compelled to, and it terrified her. Somehow, he’d trapped her inside her body. No. She hadn’t survived an attack on a street corner to die in her apartment. “Fuck you!” Eden forced her vocal cords to work.
Tone dry, he replied, “Yes. We will get to that, eventually.” He leaned forward, bringing his features into the moonlight streaming from the window. For a moment, his features blurred, and she couldn’t see anything other than his eyes, inky, red-rimmed eyes that strolled down her body in a possessive, aggressive manner.
Even terrorized, her nipples puckered! Eden ignored the command not to run and took off for her bedroom. Which was dumb. The knives were in the kitchen, not the bedroom. Worse, the kitchen was near the front door. She could’ve escaped instead of hiding in her bedroom defenseless without even a phone to call for help.
She muscled the dresser that had taken two men to carry into the apartment in front of the bedroom door. With copious amounts of fear and adrenaline, a one-hundred-twenty-pound woman could do anything. Satisfied it would take him more than a token effort to get inside, she stepped back.
Was it him? Was he the one who attacked her? He couldn’t be. The man who’d attacked her was supernatural. The asshole on her sofa was just a man. A man who’d entered her apartment and sat in her living room as if he paid rent while she was naked in the bathroom showering.
Two attacks in one night. She couldn’t be that unlucky, could she?
“No.” Apparently yes.
No time to waste. Eden rushed to her closet when there came aknock, knock, knockon her bedroom door.
“I’m coming in.”
She expected the knob to turn and the door to slowly open as the dresser shifted to the side and the man squeezed through the opening. She expected to have a few more seconds to at least make it to her window, yank it open, and scream “fire” to get her neighbors’ attention.
She didn’t expect for the man to pass through the door and dresser like an apparition and solidify inches away from her. Now she screamed and scrambled backward.
The back of her knees hit the edge of her mattress, followed by her ass. She bounced and leaped to her feet and didn’t stop scrambling away until her back flattened against the wall between her computer desk and the TV stand.
