by Kayla Krantz
Chance pursed his lips, his disbelief obvious on his face.
“Chance, you don’t have to do this,” Luna said, reaching out a hand though she stopped just before touching his shoulder.
Chance’s lip curled upward. “You don’t get to decide this time. You stopped me once. That was enough.”
“Chance, please,” Luna said again.
“I knew you’d follow me out here,” Amanda said, voice stronger than Luna had ever heard in life. “I suspected just Luna would, but I guess you two are a package deal now, huh?”
“You always did like to talk, didn’t you?” Chance asked and laughed.
“No more than you.”
“I prefer to listen more than speak,” he said, rearing back his blade to stab it into Amanda’s abdomen.
Instead of Amanda screaming at the impact, Luna did. She held her hands up to her face, watching as her friend crumpled to her knees on the cave floor.
“You might think you’re winning, but you never will. Not completely anyway,” she said, staring Luna in the eyes before she coughed up a mouthful of blood. She grinned through it, and Luna thought she would be sick.
She didn’t want to see what would happen next so she bolted out of the cave and into the uncertainty of the woods beyond. Luna had no idea if Chance was behind her because all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears, and she pretended that it was the footsteps of someone else, someone she could take comfort in, because the thought that she was completely alone hurt her worse than Amanda’s odd bloody smile.
As she bolted past, Lucky lifted her head but didn’t follow. A bitter smile broke across Luna’s face and salty tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. Where could she escape to when her entire world was a prison?
Just as the thought floated through her mind, her world cut to black.
Chapter Thirty-Four
IT HAD FELT like forever since Amanda had passed Amy the responsibility of the squealing infant. She cradled the tiny bundle in her arms, staring at the door with the hope that Amanda would arrive at any moment to take this responsibility away from her. She never did, and Amy started to get more anxious, more worried that something had happened to her.
The last thing she wanted to do was take the baby out in the open, but unease stirred in her stomach and she was plagued with the overwhelming urge to know. She thought of Max and their last encounter. The map Asher had given her was always at the center of the room, but she had been unable to follow it, to see how right the infant was.
It didn’t seem worth risking him, but the longer this stretched on, the more Amy began to fear that Amanda wasn’t going to come back. In this place, Max was the only person she trusted. It had been that way when she was alive too, but the feeling was especially true after their trip to Cairo. If she had to trust anyone to help her now, it would be him. The thought of asking him to watch Asher, however, left her with the distinct feeling that the favor wouldn’t come over well.
Most likely, he would offer to make the trip himself, and Amy didn’t know why, but the thought didn’t sit right with her. The trip felt like something she was responsible for, something she should do. After all, she was the one Rose had confided her secret in. Without her, Max would’ve never known that Cassandra even existed.
Amy needed to meet her after all she had heard, all she had suspected. She needed to put a face to the name, and staying behind wouldn’t let her accomplish any of that.
I have to try, she told herself.
The baby cooed at her, midway into falling asleep. She looked down at him before steeling her face and her nerves and gathering all his belongings. Shouldering the bag full of baby supplies, she exited the little hut she had made her home and went out into the woods. Her pounding heart in her chest, the sound of blood in her ears was deafening, and she feared the possibility of passing out. Taking a handful of deep breaths, she tried to ease some of the pounding.
It helped but not much.
Quickly, she moved, darting through the trees and clinging to every shadow she could manage. As far as she could tell, there was no one behind her, but she felt as if invisible eyes were watching her from every crevice anyway. By the time she made it to Max’s shack, she was a paranoid mess. She banged on the metal door so hard with the side of her hand that the baby startled awake and started to cry.
“Shh, shh, shh,” she tried to soothe, eyes wide as she looked between him and the door.
It flung open then, Max’s eyes wild with confusion. “What the hell’s going on out here?” he asked then his gaze dropped to the baby. “Is that—”
“Let me inside!” Amy gasped and pushed past him.
Max was quick to close the door behind her and turned to look at her and the infant. “Why do you have the baby? What happened to Amanda?”
“They found her. She came to me in a panic, said she was looking for somewhere to hide because they were close. That was days ago, Max, she hasn’t come back,” Amy told him.
“Have you looked for her?”
“How can I?” she asked, cradling the infant against her body for emphasis.
Max pursed his lips. “We can’t do this right now! What about the letter? Our quest?”
“Yeah? Well, it’s not as if I chose to have this happen,” Amy snarled. “Amanda dropped the baby and ran. I don’t know where she went, and I don’t know if she’s going to come back.”
“I’ll go find her then.”
“No!” Amy said so loud that the baby started to cry again. “No,” she said again, quieter this time.
“No? Are you serious? We have serious work to do. We cannot take over her role! The whole point of her being here is for that thing in your arms. Watch the baby, and I’ll go.”
“No, Max, no,” Amy said, almost desperate.
“What? Do you want to go? You’re just a Protector,” he said.
“It’s not that,” Amy said and glanced down at Asher before she pulled the paper out of her pocket and handed it to Max.
He took it but didn’t open it before he looked at her through questioning eyes.
“Open it,” she said. “Before you say anything else.”
Max slowly uncrinkled the folds, and when it opened completely, the look of anger dissolved on his face before he looked at Amy. “What is this? Did you do this?”
She shook her head and glanced down at Asher. “He did. He touched it and…and that happened.”
“This is unbelievable,” Max said.
“Maybe it’s because of who he is,” Amy said.
“A link between blood. Makes sense,” Max said, studying the patterns on the paper again. “So now what? We have this map, but it does us no good if we can’t leave.”
“I’ll go,” Amy said. “I’ll find her.”
“Why you? You’re not equipped to go out yourself.”
“Exactly why I shouldn’t stay! This baby needs to be safe. This is a job for a Keeper, one who is stable, one who knows how to fight. I can find Amanda, and I can finish the quest, but I can’t be responsible for this child,” she said. Without asking, she thrust the tiny warm bundle into Max’s arms, and he stared at her and the child.
Amy could see the twitch at the corner of his lip as he looked at it. Then, the baby’s eyes swiveled up to meet his, and the anger dissolved instantly. “Fine,” he breathed, so softly that Amy almost didn’t hear him. “Fine,” he repeated, just a bit louder. I’ll watch him, but what’s our plan? You’re leaving today?”
“You’d rather I wait?” she asked, thinking of how long she had already waited. How long her nerves have been plagued with the awful not knowing, the fantasies of her own creations.
“No, just be careful out there,” he said. “It might be safer out there, but nowhere is completely without its threats. If anything seems off, don’t approach, don’t engage, just come back,” he said.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said, not agreeing to his terms, and stormed out, letting the door clang be
hind her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE WORLD WAS hazy when Luna eventually came back to focus. Her vision started as two pinpoints, the worst tunnel vision she had ever had, until slowly her peripheral vision returned to her. When it did, pain radiated through her skull and brief flashes of memories came to her—running through the woods, Amanda’s bloody smile, Lucky’s lackadaisical eyes.
Then the blackness.
Luna groaned and lifted her head. It was then she realized she was bound to a chair at her wrists and ankles. Her heart began to stir from its slow rhythm, waking into panic. Her eyes bulged, and she pulled, moving the entire chair with her effort.
“Chance!” she cried out on instinct because who else would do her like this?
“He’s not here,” a voice called from the shadows.
A female voice. One that cut Luna straight down to her nerves.
It was Kate Red, Luna’s old high school bully, and the first death that Luna had ever suspected Chance of. The girl came into view. She was wearing a red dress, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail to exaggerate the sharp edges of her cheeks and chin. It had been so long since Luna had looked into her sneering eyes that she had forgotten what they looked like.
“Kate,” she said.
“Luna, I’d say it’s good to see you again, but it’s not,” she said, smile at the beginning of her sentence quickly turning to a cold snarl.
“Feeling is mutual,” Luna spat, pulling her wrist against the rope again.
Kate smiled, letting the insult of Luna’s hatred roll right off her. “See? This is a better day for me than it will be for you,” she said and pulled a tiny red nail file out of her pocket, running it against her fingers. It was then that Luna realized she was wearing gloves, the tips of each finger extending into metal points. Luna stared at it, at the movement of the nail file across the surface, and then back up at Kate.
“Why am I here?”
“Oh, you don’t know?” she asked, voice just as snotty as ever. “Why, you’re his little whore, that’s why!”
“Chance? This is about Chance? Seriously?” Luna asked. She would’ve thought death to be enough to end the pettiness, but for some, it never went away. “You can have him.”
“Yes, Chance,” Kate said, thrusting the nail file to the ground. “I don’t want him. He killed me. Didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah, I knew. I didn’t care,” Luna replied, smirking.
Kate let out an enraged snarl and stomped forward, smacking Luna across the cheek. The sharp points of the gloves cut four sharp lines across her face. Luna gasped, the pain radiating through her skin as her blood spread down her face and onto her neck.
“Imagine that being the last thing you feel, your blood covering you. You’d think it would be hot, but it’s cold, so cold,” Kate whispered, “and you feel just a fraction of yourself. Everything gets dark and small, but you can still feel, and it…I…”
For the smallest bit of time, Luna found herself actually feeling sorry for the girl. Anyone would be twisted after dying alone in the cold dirt of a forest floor. “I’m sorry,” Luna said.
Kate snarled again. “I don’t want your sympathies. I want you to suffer! It’s your fault he did what he did to me. Your fault, your fault, your fault!” She stomped her foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum, and Luna’s eyes went wide.
She didn’t feel the cuts on her face or her own blood as she stared at this woman, thinking that in a way, she was almost perfect for Chance. The screws in her head were loose too, just in different ways than all the other psychopaths Luna had encountered. “How is it my fault?”
“Because he wanted you so badly, he didn’t care about anyone else.”
Luna pursed her lips. If even someone as ditzy as Kate could come to that realization then Luna didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t tell him to do what he did. I’ve always hated him, spent my entire life trying to get away.”
“That made it worse!” she said and smacked out again, this time tracing a long line of cuts across Luna’s shoulder and collarbone.
Luna screamed out as the metal traced her bones, and instantly hated herself for it. The wicked smile that spread across Kate’s face showed that she was in for a lot worse. Slowly, Kate took one step forward after another, her high heels clicking ominously in the strange room. Luna flinched back on instinct, feeling her blood smear to the parts of her skin it hadn’t touched yet as she tried to move away.
“I’ll make you hurt,” she said, nose almost touching Luna’s, “and when I’m done with you, I’ll make him hurt.” She looked Luna in the eyes as she lifted one finger, the tip already covered in Luna’s blood, and held it to her throat, on the opposite side of her jugular.
She dragged out the moment, the tip piercing into Luna’s skin at such a slow speed that she thought she would pass out before Kate ever drew blood. She didn’t, and before she knew it, a deep line was drawn across her throat, stopping just before opening her vein. Luna tried to scream, but she gurgled on her own blood, remembering when Chance had cut her throat.
Choking on her blood earned an even more wicked smile from Kate. Luna panicked, all attempts at breathing failing her, and she knew what Kate had done, what she planned to do—she wanted Luna to drown in her own blood. Luna gasped and tried to throw herself forward, to force her blood to go out rather than down her throat.
Kate stopped her attempts by setting a hand on her forehead, holding her in place, and tsked. “See, now? It’s your turn to suffer.”
A loud bang sounded out, as if to punctuate the end of that sentence, and Kate disappeared from Luna’s line of sight. Even through her pain and her panic, Luna managed to turn her head enough to see Kate slam into the wall, the top of her head a mess of blood, brains, and gore. With another shaking attempt at a breath, she turned to the perpetrator and saw Cody walking toward her, smoking gun extended.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE SIGHT OF the madman should’ve made Luna feel worse, not better, since the encounters they had shared had not been good ones. Cody was crass, evil, and something worse than Chance could ever be because from everything she had gathered, he had created Chance to be what he was. Luna suddenly had the feeling that she wished she’d go unconscious again as the man approached because she had no idea what he planned to do.
“I told the bitch to bring you to me, and what did she do?” he grumbled, tucking away the gun in his belt. Luna’s eyes were wide as she watched him pull off a black leather glove. Slowly, he lifted a finger to Luna’s throat. “Good help is so hard to find these days.”
Luna’s eyes bulged as her emerald eyes stared into his forest ones. His eyes dropped to the mess of flesh on her throat, and he reached out, finger prodding the wound. Luna clenched her teeth together, braced for some sort of pain when none came. Gently, his finger moved, the wound sealing behind it. When it was closed over, Luna took the deepest breath yet and looked up at him, confused and wary.
“What…what’s happening?”
“I’ve done you two favors now,” he informed her curtly, picking his black glove back up to slip over his hand as he stared at her.
Luna licked her lips. “You brought me here?”
He nodded. “It’s time for you to return my kindness.”
This is bad, her intuition warned, but she couldn’t figure out why that would be. For as terrible of an individual he was, he had helped her as he had noted.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything,” he said.
Luna frowned, recognizing some of Chance’s psychological mind games in the sentence. In the context of everything she had experienced in the last hour, it annoyed her. “Can we cut the shit, please?”
Cody’s bushy eyebrows raised as if he was impressed by her boldness. Maybe he was. “My Elder is sick, very sick, and we can’t lose him. Not yet.”
“Heal him then. You’re obviously capable of it. What does that have to do with me?” Luna
asked.
“You have power,” he said simply.
As Luna stared at him, she found herself wondering exactly how much Cody knew about her, about Chance, about his entire attempt at fusion. Was it possible he knew about Max too? Luna felt dizzy, wondering how deeply they were all intertwined while part of her worried she would never know it all.
“I thought I lost my power,” she said.
He shook his head. “You didn’t lose it. It’s there, deep inside you. You just need to learn how to unlock it, how to use it.”
I do somewhat, she thought, remembering the way she had shielded Sarah from Morpheus at one point in time.
“What happens if I say I don’t want to help your leader?”
“I kill you,” he said and shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing ever.
“That’s it? Straight to death?”
“What else would I do with you?” he asked, clearly confused.
“Fair enough,” she said and tried to tug her arms free, thinking of the options ahead of her.
She certainly didn’t want to help Cody with anything, but part of her liked the idea of being in the grace of people so dangerous. Although the thought of dying didn’t faze her anymore, she didn’t think Cody would make it an easy death, and she winced at the memory of the pain of Kate’s nail. Cody’s torture would be much, much worse.
“Okay, I’ll try,” she said. “But that’s the most I can promise because I don’t know if it’ll work or not.”
Cody peered at her from the shadows of his black hair. It was as if he could see into her soul and gauge if she was telling the truth just from the look. “That’s all I need.”
“I’d give you a handshake to seal the deal but…” Luna said, glancing to the ropes.
Cody bobbed his head and pulled out a knife, the blade much longer than Chance’s snake-handle dagger, and went to work cutting the ropes. Just as they thumped to the floor, Luna heard a new voice in the room.