A Friend of the Dead (Dark Pursuits Book 1) by Daniel Scott

Author:Daniel Scott [Scott, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marlowe and Vane
Published: 2025-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

“EMI!” Brett yelled at the locked door.

He could hear his partner shrieking inside. He’d heard it down the hall when he got off the elevator and ran to her apartment.

“EMI!” he shouted once more. Her screams didn’t abate.

He took a step back, looked both ways down the hall, and saw someone looking at him.

“FBI!” he yelled and turned to the door again. Emi shrieked with hardly a breath between. He couldn’t wait.

He launched his foot at the door, connecting with the deadbolt. The doorframe split beneath his strength, the sound of ripping wood nearly lost in Emi’s screams. The door flung open and Brett rushed forward, unholstering and raising his weapon to eye level in a single smooth motion. The screams filled the small apartment, coming from the master bedroom.

Brett’s long strides took him down the hall. He checked the bathroom, but there wasn’t any doubt where Emi was.

He ducked, gun still out, and stepped into the bedroom.

Emi was kneeling on the bed. Her hands pulled at her face as if cleaning something off it. Tears poured down her cheeks, and though her eyes were open, she saw nothing besides her hands. A scream flowed from her mouth.

Brett checked the room, then holstered his weapon and went to her. “Emi, shhh! Shhhhh.”

He sat down on the bed, his words barely breaking through the shrieks painfully vibrating his eardrums. Emi didn’t turn to him, just kept rubbing her hands across her face and staring at them, over and over.

Brett didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t let her keep on.

He stared at her for a second. Her mouth was wide, her voice growing hoarse. Her eyes stared at the world around her, but⁠—

No, Brett thought. No, that’s not possible.

It was only for a second, and the room was dark, so it hadn’t happened. For a moment, Brett thought Emi’s eyes were black. No whites, all pupil. Black and full of ink. If he were to stick a pin in them, the black liquid flowing across their surface would come out.

It’s not possible, he thought with an odd calm as he took control of her arms. Emi didn’t struggle, but let Brett take her.

She turned her head toward him, and in those few seconds, Brett saw that her eyes were black. Later, he would convince himself it had been the lack of light playing tricks on him. Later, he would make excuses for what he had seen because it wasn’t possible. Yet, at night, as the years passed and he thought back, he would wonder, Did it happen? Did I see what I thought I saw?

Her eyes were black. They stared forever, and in them lay hell.

If there is a devil, he’s in there, Brett thought. The idea was as calm as his previous one, as if nothing abnormal was happening.

Emi stopped screaming and closed her mouth. She was calm, her hands in his.

Brett looked down and saw what her hands had been pulling at: her flesh. Emi’s face lay in her hands, long red strings of dripping meat falling from her fingers to his, and then to the bed.

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