Page 74 of Hypnotized By Love

I put the blanket back over my head, and that sick feeling returned. How much of what she had said was right?

Did I have feelings of not-hate for Mason?

And did he have those same feelings for me?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I woke up and it felt oppressively dark. I reached over to the lamp on my nightstand, but nothing happened.

My heart skipped a beat. Power outage.

They were not uncommon where I lived, but they always reminded me of a particularly bad hurricane season when I was a little girl and we’d had to shelter in place. I’d never heard such strong winds. I had been terrified our home was going to be caught up and swept away. Even though I was an adult now, this level of darkness continued to scare me.

I got up and went downstairs, calling for my family members, checking light switches as I went. I thought they’d be back from the fundraiser by now, but there was no response. I did a quick lap of the first floor, just to be sure.

When I got to the study, I heard a distinctive crashing noise overhead, coming from my room.

A sick, silvery feeling rose up in my throat, and my pulse ricocheted wildly in my wrist, my lungs constricting with fear.

Maybe I’d imagined it.

My phone was upstairs, though. And we hadn’t had a landline in years. If I needed to call for help, I had to get to my phone. I lookedaround for a weapon and grabbed my dad’s bowling trophy, then held it up as if it were a bat.

I crept quietly upstairs and slowly pushed open the door. Adrenaline hit my system hard when I realized that there was definitely a person in my room!

Not thinking, I threw the trophy at them and heard when it made contact because the figure swore and then said, “Sinclair?”

“Mason? What are you doing? Besides giving me a heart attack?”

“You hate power outages. I came over to check on you.”

“So your way of making sure I wasn’t freaked out in the dark was to sneak into my house like a burglar and freak me out in the dark?”

“Obviously I can see now why it was a bad idea, but the front door was locked.”

“For a reason!” I said, and as I got closer to him, I realized that he was bleeding. I reached up to touch his forehead, and he made a hissing sound.

“What did you throw at me?”

“A bowling trophy. Be glad that it wasn’t a bowling ball. Come on, you’re bleeding.” I took him by the hand to lead him into the bathroom I shared with my sister.

“I’m bleeding because you attacked me,” he said.

“Don’t break into people’s houses. Sit here,” I said. He sat on the toilet while I grabbed some supplies from the medicine cabinet. Fortunately there was a full moon out, and it made it a bit easier to see.

“It’s not really breaking in when you basically invited me.”

“When did I do that?” I opened a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and put some on a cotton ball.

“Ow!” he yelped when I made contact with his forehead.

“Why are you being such a baby?” I asked, wiping the blood away and disinfecting where he was cut.

“Because someone threw a bowling trophy at my head and it hurts,” he said dryly.

I blew on the wound after I had cleaned it.

“Why are you blowing?” he asked.

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