Page 134 of Forever Dark
Door shut.No sign of Connor.
By the time she reached Room 11, her pulse was loud enough to feel in her jaw.
She tried the knob first.
Locked.
Selena stepped back and drove her heel into the door just above the handle.
Wood cracked.The latch held.The door opened and an elderly man stood there.“What the hell?”
Selena took out her badge and said, “Get back inside.”Which he did.Fast.
Room 12 sat directly beside Connor’s SUV.
Her stomach turned over once, hard.
She reached for the handle.
Locked.
No noise inside.Or maybe too much blood in her ears to hear any.
Selena hit the door with her shoulder first.Pain shot down her arm.The frame groaned and held.
“Connor!”she shouted.
Nothing.
She drove her heel into the lock.Once.Twice.On the third strike the jamb cracked but still refused to give.She had lost herself to the fear of loss.
From inside the room came a dull thud.Then movement.Fast.
Every nerve in Selena’s body lit up.
She kicked again and the door gave at last, swinging inward half-crooked on the damaged frame.She stepped forward, not thinking.
At the exact same instant a gunshot blasted.
Selena threw herself sideways off the line of the doorway.The shot cracked the air so hard it seemed to flatten the whole world for a second.Splinters exploded from the wall next to her as the round punched through plaster where her head had been a fraction earlier.
She hit the concrete walkway outside the room on one hip, teeth snapping together.Pain flared bright.The gun stayed in her hand.She looked kept her eyes on the doorway.
From somewhere inside the room a man moved.
Not Connor.
Lighter on his feet.Quick.Panicked.
Selena rolled hard toward the motel railing as another shape crossed the doorway’s shadow and the room beyond broke into noise.A lamp crashing.Someone breathing harshly.Fabric scraping over carpet.
She came up on one knee with her weapon raised, eyes fixed on the ruined doorway, heart hammering so hard it almost blurred her sight.
Inside Room 12, something shifted again.
And Selena knew she only had seconds to react.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
