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Hazel is maddening, my favorite enemy. I hate her with a passion, but she also sinks her fingers behind my rib cage and pumps blood into my blackened heart that barely has a beat.
Suddenly, she frowns, her lips pulling down at the corners. She spins in a circle, the pads of her fingers rubbing together as her eyes flutter closed.
“There’s so much death in this place, but this room is sad… I can’t explain it.” She walks over to the bed on the left side of the room, her fingers brushing the wooden headboard. She leans forward, her eyes narrowing as she touches something.
“What is it?” Vera asks, stepping up to her.
“Sorry,” Hazel whispers as she reads the word. Her fingers go to the sheets, and when she tears it from the mattress, my eyes widen.
The mattress is a normal, old mattress, except for the dark stains on each end, directly in the middle.
“Suicide. Someone committed suicide in this room,” she whispers, dropping the sheet, letting it flutter to the mattress.
“Dude,” Atticus whispers.
“Witch,” Levi snaps, stepping out of the room.
Hazel cuts her eyes to Levi, then moves them to me, anger in her gaze.
As if my tongue has a mind of its own, I allow my vicious hate for her to spill from my lips without a second thought. “Anything else you want to say? Perform a ritual, perhaps? I don’t give a fuck about a sad sap in a mental asylum offing himself. We aren’t fucking detectives looking for clues. I thought we were here to find out how to close the door, or portal, or whatever the fuck, and have things go back to normal,” I snap at her.
Her brows furrow, her hands clenching at her sides. “That’s what I’m trying to do, you fucking asshole. To figure out how to close the portal, I have to figure out what happened here. There’s a reason we’re here, why this is the place we were led to. We just have to uncover thecluesthat you’re so against, but they’re the only things that are going to help us.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Malik asks calmly. “I agree with you, Hazel. Probably more than everyone else, but it does feel pretty fucking petty to be pulling sheets back just to see some ancient-ass blood stains on the mattress.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Fine, if you guys think this is a waste of time, let’s just go—” In a flash, she’s lifted into the air, her body flung back against the wall. Her eyes go wide, her neck growing red as she begins to choke.
Ican’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
My hands grapple at my neck, and I can’t see the fingers clutching my throat, but I can feel them. They’re tight, ice cold, angrily gripping me like it only has one goal, and that’s to end my life. The fingers are long and bony, acting like tight strips of rope around my skin.
Vera screams, no,everyonescreams, racing toward me as they attempt to pull me down. It’s no use, because whatever entity has me in its grip is strong, stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life. My heart begins to thump in my ears as the air becomes impossible to inhale. My fingers pull against the invisible hands, but they meet nothing but air.
Someone help me.
“Hazel! Hazel!” Felix yells, his hands going around my waist as he tries to pull me down. Vera grabs my feet, yanking so hard my boot is pulled from my foot, and she flies back, landing on her ass. Malik is on her in a second, standing her up. Blaire starts crying, and when my eyes go to Piper, the darkness begins to curl around the edges of my vision.
Holy shit, this thing is going to kill me.
Just as my heart begins to slow, the fingers release. I gulp in air, my head whooshing with blood as I fall into Felix’s arms. He catches me effortlessly, my limbs useless as I crumble to the ground. His arms wrap around me, and I’m hauled against his chest. I can feel the heavy thumping of his heart as it pounds against my skin.
Slam.
The door shuts, a gust of wind powering toward us.
“Ah!” Blaire screeches, she and Piper scrambling toward the opposite wall.
“What the fuck is going on?” Malik roars, stomping to the door. He pulls it open, looking out into the hall before he comes back in, closing it behind him.
“Anything?” Vera whispers, her hand clutching her chest.
Malik shakes his head. “That was not wind.”
“I know,” Vera says, wrapping her arms around Malik. She looks scared, like bone-deep petrified.
“Are you okay?” Felix asks, his hand brushing the hair from my face as he grabs my attention.
