around the corner.
“Norah,” Lars said in a gasp. “What is it? What attacked me?”
The creature’s glittering red eyes looked down on Lars. It pulled back its lips, showing off the sharp points of its enormous fangs. Fangs that dripped with saliva, blood, and flesh.
My stomach turned, and I pressed my hand to my mouth. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It was another one of my panic attacks, making me see things that weren’t really there. As much as I’d wanted to believe I was okay, I clearly wasn’t.
I was having a hallucination. The creature wasn’t really there, and Lars wasn’t hurt.
Stumbling back, I gasped when a soft hand landed on my shoulder.
“Norah, hon, why are you out here in the alley…” Rachel trailed off, and her face went stark white. The grip on my shoulder tightened, and the skin beneath her chin began to tremble. And then she was off, rushing down the dim alley to drop to Lars’s side.
I tried to scream to stop her as she came within inches of the monster’s sharp teeth.
“Oh my god, Lars. What the hell happened to you?” She pressed her hand to his cheek and choked out a cry. “Norah, call the police. Call 911. Tell them we need an ambulance.” She glanced up, her eyes fierce yet full of tears. “Why are you just standing there? Do something! Now!”
Hands shaking, I nodded and pressed my cell phone to my ear. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the creature that now loomed over Rachel, his saliva only seconds away from dripping onto her head. The creature was so close. So horribly, gruesomely close. If it shifted even an inch closer, its teeth could graze her cheek. Its sharp nails could slice through her back.
“It’s not real,” I whispered. “The monster isn’t real.”
“No, it’s very much real.” One of the strange guys whispered in front of me and charged down the alley, a dagger flashing in his hand. Bathroom Guy grabbed my arm and pulled me back, dragging me away from the mouth of the alley.
He shifted his body in front of mine and threw out his arms, holding them on either side of me. “Stay behind me, Norah. You interrupted its feeding, and it won’t take that very well.”
“His feeding." I blinked. “You can see it?”
“Of course I can see it,” he said in an impatient tone of voice. “Just stay behind me. Liam, Rourke, and Finn should be able to dispatch it easily enough. As for your friend…even if he can survive the bites, the venom will be difficult to fight.”
Fear churned through my gut as I watched the three strangers charge the alley. The creature crouched with claws and fangs bared. My heart trembled at the sight, but it did nothing to slow the men down. They quickly surrounded the creature, triple blades held high in the air.
The stranger from the club turned toward me, his eyes full of power and darkness. And then everything went black.
Chapter Four
Dishes clattered around me as silence rained down upon the dinner table. I couldn’t get the images from the theatre out of my head. Blood splattering on the oil and grime stained pavement. Those empty eyes had that stared up at me, begging for my help, accusing me of being helpless to stop the creature. Or accusing me of causing the wounds myself.
I’d always felt like there was something wrong with me, like a strange shadow of darkness lurked behind me. And now I kept seeing things no one else could. My ears were turning into horns. Maybe it was my fault in some strange way. Maybe I was causing this.
“Adeline said you were grounded, but you got home late from your job. If you can really call that a job.” My step-dad’s deep voice cut through the kaleidoscope of gruesome memories, sending a sharp chill into my bones. So, my mom had told him she’d grounded me. That probably wasn’t going to end well. Any time he thought I stepped even a toenail out of line? Well, he didn’t react very well to it.
“The show doesn’t end until eight. Rachel needed me to stay and help close up,” I said after swallowing the lump in my throat. I hadn’t told either of them what had happened. Because I couldn’t. If I did, there was no telling how my step-dad would react. He would either try to pin the blame on me or force me to quit my job, citing