Enchanted Prologue Excerpt

As a special treat, since we are now just two days from release day for The Enchanted, I wanted to share an excerpt from the prologue. I hope it gets you even more excited to read book 4!

Prologue
After They Found Him

The flashing lights of the ambulance, police cars, and fire department
vehicles danced before Darcy’s eyes in a kaleidoscope of colors, distracting
her from the questions she was supposed to be answering.
“What were you doing out in the woods alone?” It was the third—maybe
the fourth—time the officer had asked her.
“I wasn’t alone.” Although Darcy moved her lips, it felt as though some
other person answered for her. She was a disembodied spirit floating above
it all, watching. “I was with Sam.”
The medics had Colin strapped to a stretcher, an IV drip trailing out of his
arm, oxygen flowing in through his nostrils.
“What were you and your friend doing out in the woods alone?”
The ambulance doors closed. The siren wailed and gravel flew as the
boxy ambulance accelerated out of the parking lot. Darcy watched,
mesmerized, as a fire truck and two police cars followed the taillights.
“Miss!”
Darcy blinked. “Sorry.”
“What were you and your friend doing out in the woods alone?” he
repeated and tapped his pencil on his notepad as he shifted his weight from
one foot to the other.
“Hiking. It’s a camp. We like to hike here.” She glanced over at Sam,
who was being interrogated by a different, older officer. She was twisting
her fingers and looked close to tears.
“On the last morning of camp?” the officer asked. “On a trail that doesn’t
go anywhere?”
“Sir, Sam and I were just trying to get in one more hike before we had to
leave. We didn’t know the trail was a dead-end . . . or what we would find.”
Darcy looked down, hoping he wouldn’t detect her white lie. She couldn’t
tell him the truth. That she and Sam had been looking for evidence of a
magic gateway to a dark and horrific world. That she’d suspected the trail
as being where Colin disappeared. She would be strapped to a stretcher like
Colin, only she’d be headed for the loony bin to have her head examined.
The officer scribbled some notes on his pad of paper. “Tell me again
exactly what happened. You were hiking down the path, and then . . .” He
raised his eyebrows.
Darcy took a deep breath and spoke in a slow monotone. They’d already
told the whole thing to the paramedics and the fire department officials.
“Sam noticed a body lying on the trail, so we ran to it, and it was Colin—”
“And you recognized him because you’re friends with him?”
Darcy hesitated. “Not—not exactly . . . but we know him.”
The officer’s pencil scratched the paper. “Continue.”
“I checked to see if he was breathing, and I felt his pulse—”
“And he was breathing when you found him, correct?”
“Yes.” Darcy was annoyed. “I already told the paramedics. He didn’t stop
breathing until just before you arrived. The camp medic performed CPR.”
“Sergeant!” Another officer climbed out of a squad car and waved his
arms at a middle-aged policeman with a handlebar mustache. “We reached
the parents. We have them on the phone.”
“I’ll take it in the truck,” the sergeant said in a thick “Yooper” accent, as
it was called in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. “Let’s wrap this up,
boys!” He waved his hand in a rolling motion and climbed into a massive
police SUV as the other officer handed him the cell phone.