A Little Wicked (The Bewitching Hour Book #4)(14)

She crossed the room and hit the power button, turning off the TV. If it was just that, it would be one thing, but the thought of that glass moving on its own was still in her mind. She was a cop. She didn’t have the luxury of believing in coincidence.

After doing a quick circle to make sure nothing else strange was going on, she walked to her desk and pulled out her personal handgun. She’d rather be alive and paranoid than dead and reasonable.

She sat back at the computer, gun resting to the right of the laptop.

A few minutes later, she was almost able to forget about what happened when the TV flipped on again. She bit out a curse and, picking up the gun in her right hand, went back to the remote and flipped the TV off. Then she stood there for a minute, not moving and waiting to see whether it flipped on again.

The apartment was filled with a loud whirring sound and she jumped—grateful her finger wasn’t on the trigger—and ran to the kitchen to turn off the blender, which had started up on its own. She’d just pulled the plug out of the wall when the damn TV came on again.

Fine. If she had to unplug everything in the apartment, that was what she’d do. She didn’t bother with the remote and went right for the outlet with the big extension port to accommodate all her electronics and unplugged the whole thing. This also turned off the main light and she was plunged into darkness save for the soft blue glow of her laptop.

“Is that all you got?” she said into the darkness, not caring whether she looked like an idiot. She wasn’t going to let some fucking poltergeist or whatever come into her home and try to scare—

The pain in her neck was sudden and her windpipe was compressed under a crushing force. She was yanked back, losing her footing, and put all of her weight against whatever was strangling her.

Her free hand clawed at the pressure in her neck, trying to rip through it with her nails, but the firm, rubbery cord wasn’t budging. So she went nuclear and aimed the gun behind her before she fired. But the pressure didn’t lessen even a fraction. She elbowed behind her, but her arm didn’t connect with anything. It was air, but not any air. Cold and thick, almost like a fog. It was there and not there at the same time....

As she ran out of options to fight back and the need for oxygen grew, she became desperate. She kicked and clawed, but nothing helped. And right as she could feel unconsciousness swirling around the edges, she shot at the entity behind her again, pulling the trigger over and over, willing something to happen.

And then it did. The door to her apartment exploded open and just like that, she was dropped, collapsing on the floor in a heap. She didn’t look at who had rescued her, instead trying to see what had attacked.

But there was nothing there. Just cold, empty air.





“I’m coming over. No, you were attacked. I’m coming over right now and—”

Sam studied Derek, really wishing she knew what else had gone wrong. She had seen that it was Parker calling, and whatever she had said had Derek jumping up and running for the door.

She felt as though the walls were closing in on her. It was more claustrophobic in his apartment than crawling around in those air vents had been.

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to come here.” That had her attention. Sam leaned in closer to Derek as he said, “I’ll fill you in on everything tomorrow. I’m going to text you an address. Are you sure you don’t want me to come out? We can look for prints or— Okay. Keep your phone close.” He hung up and Sam could finally pounce on the questions she had.

“What happened? Is Parker okay? Was my mother involved? Was my grandmother involved?” At this point, who knew which of her family members was wreaking havoc on her friends?

Derek ran a hand over his face and shook his head, though she wasn’t sure which question he was saying no to. “Parker was attacked by... something. She said it was like a ghost.” He met Sam’s eyes. “Anything I should know about ghosts?”

Sam shrugged. “They don’t exist?”

“Then the invisible, non-corporeal man broke into Parker’s place and tried to strangle her with an extension cord.”

Shit. “Are we going over there?”

“I tried to, but she was pretty insistent there was no point. She said no body, no evidence.”

He paused for a second and she could tell there was more he wasn’t saying. “What?”

“I... I get the idea she didn’t want to go back.”

Sam tried to reconcile the strong, confident woman she’d met with someone afraid to go back to their apartment. “You told her not to come here.”

“If Abigail or Garrett pays us a visit, I don’t want Parker to be here.” He started to run his fingers over the screen of his phone. “I’m going to have Claire and the punk check it out.”

She raised a brow at that. “The punk has a name.”

“He has green hair. He’s a punk. Besides, Parker saved his life so I think she’ll feel comfortable around him, and we all know Claire can take care of herself. Parker will be safer with the two of them than us right now anyway.”

He was right but Sam wasn’t happy about it. After a few minutes and a flurry of text messages, Derek finally set the phone down and collapsed into one of the mismatched chairs in his messy kitchen. “Fuck, Sam.”

“I’m sorry.” She sat in the other chair.