Rise at Twilight

by Kayla Krantz

  “Cody.”

  It was Chance.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “AH, CHANCE, SO glad you could join us,” Cody said as Luna rubbed at her sore wrists.

  Chance’s face was flushed red, his eyes on the cuts on Luna’s face and chest, the marks of the ropes, and the body in the corner of the room. “What is this?” he demanded.

  “Me and your darling girl were just having a little conversation,” Cody said.

  Chance stepped up to Cody, so close their noses were brushing. Even though Chance was taller than Cody, Cody didn’t back down. “And did that conversation leave these marks on her?”

  Cody shook his head, head tilting toward Kate’s remains in the corners. “I believe your little admirer over there is responsible for that.”

  Chance looked to Luna for confirmation but all she could do was nod.

  “What do you want, Cody?” he asked, stepping around the mysterious man to take his place at Luna’s side. He glanced at her wrists, noticing the way the bronze skin was flecked with red marks.

  “The same thing I wanted when I first tried to get in contact with you. The same thing I wanted when you ignored me,” he said. “Because I might not have seen you directly, but I would bet money that Layanna told you I was looking for you. It’s why you hid more.”

  Chance felt a wiggle of frustration in his chest. He wanted Cody to stop talking, but it was too late now—Luna had already heard. She looked up at him through narrowed eyes, eyes plagued with questions and mistrust.

  “He hasn’t died yet?” Chance asked, wicked smirk pulling up the corner of his lips.

  “No, and he won’t, because me and your girl here have made a deal,” Cody said.

  Chance narrowed his eyes, not liking the sound of that at all. He glanced at Luna. “Tell me he’s lying.”

  She was silent. Chance closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose.

  “I saved her life. Seems only right she does a favor for me,” Cody said, burning smile on his face.

  “You’re going to make her heal him, aren’t you?”

  Cody reached out his arms, extending his palms. “You know me so well, brother!”

  Chance scoffed. “Too well.”

  “Do we go now?” Luna asked, her voice weak and raspy. Chance glanced down at her, studying the way the blood around her jaw was beginning to darken as it dried.

  “No, you need to get some rest first,” he said, staring at Cody from the corner of his eye, just waiting for him to argue.

  He already knew the man had been about to say “Yes.”

  “Fine,” Cody agreed.

  Chance didn’t wait for his agreement before he scooped Luna into his arms. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said and disappeared from the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  AMY HAD LIMITED knowledge of the girl who had entrusted her with the infant. The encounter had been the first and only time they had spoken to one another. The rest of what she knew was secondhand information from Max and Luna.

  That made it hard to think of the possible places where Amanda could be. The point of the game would be for her to go somewhere people would not expect her to go.

  That was the only real way Amanda could hide. That made the entire situation worse. When Amy made it to the old burned building where Amanda had lived, she looked around at the spare things that had been left behind and wondered if they were enough to piece together where she would go next…and why she hadn’t come back.

  Sighing, Amy went through the entire home, all the way to the back door, and saw the footsteps in the backyard. She didn’t have the urge to follow them—knowing they would most likely lead to Amy’s place—and instead turned to head in the direction of Max’s place once again, ready to call it quits and certain that all her effort had been for nothing.

  Barking filled the clearing, and instinctively, she ducked behind a tree. There were far too many uncertainties to stay in the open. Was the dog alone? Who did it belong to? Why was it barking? When the dog ran past her hiding place, Amy allowed herself to peek at it, catching sight of its white and black fur. That wasn’t one of Chance’s dogs—that much she knew.

  She watched the tip of the dog’s tail disappear into the foliage before she decided to go in the opposite direction it had come from. If she had her guesses, she would say it had been running away from something…or chasing someone.

  Moving through the trees, she tried to keep as straight of a path as possible, but there were times she’d have to diverge from the path to move around objects she couldn’t just hop over, things like trees and giant boulders. Then, all at once, the trees ended and the mouth of a cave loomed ahead of her. Amy’s nose twitched as she stared at it.

  Surely Amanda hadn’t gone in there—she was the furthest thing from a tomboy—but maybe that was why this was the perfect spot. Trepidation overcoming her, she pushed forward, fingers fumbling in her belt for her tiny pocketknife. Inside the line of stones, it was dark and cold. Amy couldn’t see a yard in front of her face and glanced back over her shoulder, at the light and the trees.

  Did she really want to do this?

  Better yet, did she really want to do this alone?

  What choice do I really have?

  Amy’s head whipped back to look into the darkness. No part of this had ever been her choice, but that was the thing—she didn’t have one. She never had. Not then and certainly not now. She took the first few steps into the cave, listening to how her steps echoed through the darkness, hesitant and soft.

  “Amanda?” she called, pausing after just a few steps into the darkness.

  No response, not that she really expected one.

  Swallowing heavily, Amy dug into her pocket for a lighter and pulled it out, flicking it to life with a swipe of her thumb. It roared for a few seconds before it grew hot, and she let it go out, taking a few steps forward. Over and over, she repeated the process, slowly making her way deeper into the cave. Mentally she debated about how far she would actually go before she decided enough was enough and would go back.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she could still see light from the entrance and figured if there was anything, she still wasn’t deep enough in the cave to find out. Flicking the lighter again, she forced herself to keep going until there was nothing but darkness far behind her, and she knew she’d have to rely heavily on the lighter to trace her way back out.

  “Amanda!” she called out again. Her voice bounced around the cold walls, coming back to her in whispers, before it faded completely. “Are you here?” she asked but didn’t bother to shout it.

  There was no point. She was here alone—that much she could guess—and even if she wasn’t, it was apparent that Amanda wasn’t going to come out of hiding. She wasn’t going to make this easy for Amy, Max, or anybody apparently. Sighing, Amy slung her hair over her shoulder and turned, flicking the lighter to start working on her way out of the cave.

  The light went out, and her foot hit something. It was heavy and solid, but not in the way that rocks were. She swallowed roughly, squeezing her eyes shut, and guessed what it was. Everything she could imagine in the cave would not be so soft, so pliable. Only one thing could be like that—a body, one without life.

  Very slowly, she let her eyes flutter open, and she squeezed them shut again almost as soon as they did, letting the lighter go out once more. When she had looked down, though the glance had been brief, it was enough to confirm all her doubts, fears, and worries. The light had glinted off of still blue eyes and pale skin streaked with black liquid.

  Amanda was very much dead.

  Sniffling with the memories of her trip to Chance’s cabin flashing through her mind, she tried to backtrack and figure out her way through the darkness. She tripped over her foot, elbow slamming into the wall, and cried out though it was with relief not pain. In a hurry, she dropped the lighter and pressed her hands to the wall all the way out to the entrance. When she was in the light of the for
est again, she bent over and breathed in the biggest breath she could before she let herself scream out.

  Now that she knew the truth, she wasn’t sure what to do with it. What did this mean for her, for Max, for Asher? She didn’t know. All she did know was that she needed to get far from the cave. Although she hadn’t been able to see much of Amanda’s remains, what she had seen would haunt her for a long time.

  She bolted through the trees, navigating both unfamiliar and familiar territory alike as she left the grisly scene in the cave behind. An image flashed through her mind of the black and white dog, and she frowned, wondering if it had been there when Amanda had been murdered, and where it was going now.

  Before she knew it, Amy’s lungs grew desperate for air, and her muscles cramped. She dropped to the forest floor in a painful ball, trying to regain control over her body and her mind. Everything was in chaos, and she was caught between pain and dizziness. For the slightest of seconds, she wished she would pass out so her body could reset itself.

  Breathe, she told herself and forced a handful of breaths in and out of her nose and mouth.

  Tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes from the pain, and then she heard voices. At once, everything wrong with her vanished, and she wondered if it had all only been in her head. The sound of a different person’s words drifted to her, and she swallowed. They were louder. They’re getting closer.

  Amy hurried to drag herself out of the clearing, not standing up for fear that she didn’t have complete control over her body yet. Her fingers dug into the dirt, foot after foot, until she was completely surrounded by a swath of undergrowth. There was a gap, just large enough for her to peek through that allowed her a good glimpse of the scenery.

  The voices came again, all of them familiar though she couldn’t put her finger on any of them. Then, they stepped into the clearing, and Amy felt her body work itself into a panic attack all over again. In the woods before her stood Chance, Luna in his arms. She could’ve expected that, but what she could not was the figure beside them—the figure with them she reminded herself.

  Cody.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  BACK INSIDE THE cabin, it hadn’t been difficult for Chance to make Luna fall asleep. It was literally as easy as waving his hand and making it happen. He took off her frayed, bloody clothing and used a cold wet rag to mop away all the blood. He had hoped the wounds would look better once they were cleaned up, but they didn’t. Against her caramel skin, they glowed an ugly red that he hoped didn’t signal early infection. The ones on the left side of her face were especially bad, and he had a moment, just one, where he let himself cry over the pain Luna must’ve felt.

  He blotted his eyes with her wet, bloody rag and pretended the fit had never happened when he heard banging at the door. He already knew who it was and ground his teeth, swallowing back his pain, his sorrow, his fear, and let only his anger out. Tossing the wet rag onto the end table, he pulled the sheet across Luna’s body, kissed her on the forehead, and left the bedroom, traveling down the hallway.

  Cody was banging on the door again, and Chance nearly trotted across the room, whipping the door open with such intensity that Cody smiled, sensing Chance’s aggravation. He was cloaked in a black flowing robe, the hood pulled up to hide his messy hair.

  “Time to talk,” he said, pushing his way inside the cabin.

  “Why, Cody, please come in,” Chance said sarcastically and slammed the door shut behind the man.

  “Where is she?” Cody asked.

  Chance frowned, folding his arms across his chest. “Resting as we just agreed.”

  “Okay, good,” Cody said, reaching up to push down his hood. His black hair stood everywhere, and Chance stared at him, eyebrows raised.

  “That’s good…why?”

  “I have something to tell you, and honestly, I’m not sure how it’ll make you feel. Maybe it’ll make you more inclined to help me rather than her.”

  “Doubt it but continue anyway,” Chance said, cutting his eyes at Cody.

  “Your girl, and I say the term loosely, betrayed you shortly before she came here. Did you know that?”

  Chance drew his eyebrows together as his frown deepened. He didn’t like being caught off guard, but Cody’s statement took him a step beyond that. Betrayal was his game, not hers. “What are you talking about?”

  Cody sighed. “Now, I knew you weren’t going to take this well, so I brought proof,” he said and reached into his robes. Before that, Chance hadn’t noticed the lump beneath the black fabric, but he did now. Right before his eyes, Cody summoned Chance’s Rosebone from his pocket.

  Chance immediately felt his mouth go dry as he studied it. “How did you get that?”

  Cody smiled and held it up even higher, making sure Chance could see every detail.

  “Did Luna…” Chance began and trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence as his brain conjured a hundred scenarios at once, all of them telling worse and worse stories.

  “Her and her Keeper friend brought this to me. Seems they were desperate to break your bond with her.”

  Chance couldn’t speak, the hurt radiating through him. He had a feeling that Amy had been behind the Rosebone’s disappearance but hadn’t suspected Luna. “When was this?”

  “Does that matter?”

  Chance’s eyes flicked up from the Rosebone. “How the Hell did they get the idea to bring it to you?”

  Cody shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know they trusted me to destroy it, and they think I did, but I switched it, and I kept it.”

  Chance stared at it, knowing the next words out of Cody’s mouth.

  “Now you owe me a favor too.”

  Chapter Forty

  AMY DIDN’T KNOW how long was the proper time to wait until she moved, but she stayed under the bush, curled into a ball long after the sound of voices drifted away. Her head rested on the cold grass, her brown hair splayed out around her, catching every loose branch and twig possible. She didn’t see it. All she could see were the images in her mind—Amanda’s body in the darkness and the scene of Luna, Chance, and Cody.

  She hadn’t been conscious, that much was apparent, and Amy wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Max, Amy, and Amanda were all under the impression that Luna was working with Chance of her own free will, but what if—after everything—that wasn’t the case. A single tear broke from the corner of Amy’s face and trailed across her cheek to soak into the grass beneath her head. It was hard to think about Luna, hard because it hurt worse than a lot of other things she had felt before.

  In her life, Amy had really trusted Luna, yet when she thought of the girl, she couldn’t think of anything but the animalistic gleam she had had in her eyes when she had delivered Amy the death blow.

  Had she really been under control of herself or is there more to this story? Amy wondered and wanted to both laugh and cry. There was always more to the story, whether she wanted there to be or not. It was like an onion, layer after layer of the story wrapped around itself, and she wondered what lie at the core…or if there was one at all.

  Amy thought of Luna’s unconscious body again before thinking of Cody and Chance. They had been talking, but they didn’t sound as if they were snarling or on the verge of fighting. They were having an amicable conversation with one another, and Amy’s skin crawled with the sudden certainty that Cody had betrayed her and Luna.

  He had never broken the bond.

  Luna had never been free of Chance.

  With that thought, Amy finally forced herself to her feet. Swiping away leaves and twigs from her hair, she pressed herself against the nearest tree trunk, listening again for any sign of the voices but heard none. They had gone wherever they were headed, they weren’t interested in her.

  That thought should’ve brought her comfort, but it didn’t. The entire walk back to Max’s, she had to force herself to take the big deep breaths that made her even dizzier if she didn’t time them right. Even with those, she felt as if she
was being watched, as if someone would jump out of the shadows and drag her into the darkness with them.

  In her paranoia, the trip to Max’s happened in an indeterminable amount of time, and she banged on the shack door like her life depended on it when she arrived. Max’s eyes were wide when he pulled it open, screaming baby in his arms.

  “Well?” he asked instantly, shooting her an irritated glance before he bounced the infant, trying in vain to quiet him.

  She pushed past him to go inside, not knowing where to begin. Slowly, she turned toward Max, watching as he juggled the infant and closed the door before turning in her direction.

  “Amanda’s dead,” she announced, the words cold and flat. There was no emotion in them, but in her head, there was plenty.

  Max’s mouth was pressed into a grim line. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, and he didn’t need to add that that was the outcome he had expected because it was what they were both thinking.

  “I think she knew it would happen,” Amy said quietly, looking down at the baby.

  Max narrowed his eyes, catching the look on her face. “What else happened out there?”

  “I…I saw Luna,” she said, eyes narrowing to catch herself before she could start to cry again.

  “How’d that go?”

  “I don’t think she’s in quite as much control over her life as we thought,” Amy said.

  Max frowned at this. “Okay, you’re speaking to me in riddles, and it’s frustrating as hell. Sit down, and tell me what happened. Everything that happened. No more cryptic shit.”

  “I found Amanda in a cave. I don’t know how she died because I didn’t stay long enough to study her and find out. I left and, on the way back I heard voices so I hid. Chance was carrying Luna and talking to somebody. I don’t think Luna was even conscious.”

  Max breathed in but looked down at the baby, smiling at it in an attempt to hide his true emotions. “Who’s the ‘somebody’ he was talking to?”