Something Wicked ✅ (Excerpt)

Chapter 2

Daisy rubbed her eyes as she sat back in her desk chair, then peered blearily at her laptop screen. Sighing, she emailed the story to Amy, who was eagerly waiting to edit and then post it online.

It wasn't a whole lot. Despite staying an hour or so at the crime scene, no one seemed to know who the woman was or what happened. And she got basically nothing from the police, even after she attempted to flirt with one of the uniforms standing watch. Anders had caught her and threatened to find something to arrest her for if she didn't get out of his hair.

So, slightly begrudgingly, Daisy had left with Alex, calling to inform Amy of everything she had found (again - not much) and come up with a game plan for follow-up articles and where to start tomorrow. Just after she had hung up, Daisy found a campus alert text message telling everyone to get to their dorms or accommodations if they weren't there already and stay. More information would be sent as it was available.

Once Daisy got home, she found Zack, Maddie and Nora waiting for her on the squishy sectional, tea mugs in hand. She felt slightly guilty as she pulled out her phone and asked to record their conversation, but she needed some idea of what had happened. They were - at this point - the closest thing to an eye witness that she had. Thankfully, they had been expecting this and were much calmer after showers and changing into their pajamas. And well, getting away from the dead body.

Maddie and Nora walked her through their night, while Daisy took notes. When they got to finding the body, she put her notebook aside and held each of their hands, seeing that Maddie was once again near tears while they silently flowed down Nora's cheeks. In fact, she didn't really ask a whole lot of questions, not wanting to push them too much right now. Maddie and Nora were her best friends - her only friends outside of Zack, if she was being honest - and she didn't want to put them through more shit than they had already been through.

It was one of those moments when she felt guilty doing an interview. For pushing someone to speak about a traumatizing moment, especially so soon after it happened. She had felt similar when she was working the rape story last year. However, tonight she kept the nameless victim in mind. This was for her since she no longer had a voice.

Afterwards, Daisy had locked herself in her room while Zack looked after Maddie and Nora, trying to get the article done so she could attempt some sleep, though she wasn't completely sure that was going to happen. Regardless, she had to try since she still had to hit up the newspaper office before she went to her 10 am class tomorrow. Amy had already told her she wanted an update in the morning and Daisy was sure that Hough would be there too.

A knock at her door had her swiveling around towards it. Without her saying anything, the door opened and Zack walked in, a comforting smile on his face and a bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand.

"How's it goin'?" he asked, walking over and sitting on her bed.

"Just sent it off," she said, glancing over at her laptop and then back at him.

"And how are you?" he then asked, his expression shifting into one that was more serious. Daisy snorted.

"I'm not the one who stumbled over a dead body," she said, pushing up out of her chair and walking over to sit next to him on the bed, pulling the bottle out of his hand and opening it.

"Yea, but Maddie and Nora thought it was you," he said, watching her worriedly as she took a giant swig of the whiskey and winced.

"Doesn't mean much. Lots of blondes on campus," she said, cutting him off before he could say more. She already knew where this conversation was going.

"Yea, but not all of them do things that might get them beaten to death," Zack replied.

"Do not start, Zachary," she warned. "No one wants to kill me."