Blood Moon's Fury: A Young Adult Fantasy Thriller (Curse of the Blood Moon Book 1)

by Leah Kingsley

  “So.” Zack guiltily drew out the word. “I guess this is my fault.” Amy gaped at him, thrown by his attitude change. Rich kids never accepted the blame for anything. Zack raked a hand through his messy red hair. “I accidentally implied to Chris that I don’t mind detention, and I guess he thought that meant I enjoyed it.”

  “But you said—” Chris shut up as Zack nudged him to be quiet.

  “I accept full responsibility. Don’t blame Amy for this.” He caught her eye and smiled.

  Amy’s expression softened. This was the first unselfish thing she had ever seen him do.

  Principal Castello fixed her with an icy stare. “Ms. Evans. Do you have anything to add?”

  Amy forced a relaxed smile, resisting the urge to squirm beneath the principal’s penetrating gaze. “Nope. Zack covered it.”

  Susan broke into silent giggles.

  Principal Castello set her mouth in a thin-lipped frown. “Susan says she told you what she and Chris intended to do, and you did nothing to dissuade her.”

  Amy scowled at her sister. “You never said anything about this.”

  “Yes I did. Remember on Friday?”

  Amy cringed, recalling their ridiculous conversation before Friday’s mad dash to school. “You mean right before we almost missed the bus?”

  “Yeah.” Susan beamed. “We were talking about it before we noticed we were late.”

  “So, it appears we are correct.” Principal Castello puffed like a spider who had succeeded in capturing a particularly juicy fly. Amy shriveled on the inside. She was sixteen, and this lady freaked her out. The poor children!

  She threw up her hands. “Come on! This is ridiculous.”

  “We know you’re right,” Zack cut in. “Great work by the way. You must be talented to get this much info out of them. These two love secrets.”

  “Yes.” Principal Castello allowed her face a smug smile.

  “We have lots of experience with secretive fourth graders.” Mrs. Peters twinkled.

  Amy tried to picture Zack in fourth grade. He was probably just as obnoxious back then.

  “How about you leave it to us to explain our mistakes to our siblings and let us off with a warning?” Zack beamed at the women.

  “All right, you’re free to go.” Mrs. Peters shared an amused look with the principal. “But Susan and Chris, you’d better stay out of detention. We won’t be so understanding if this happens again.”

  “We will! Promise!” Chris said with a hand over his heart.

  “Phew,” Susan said as the foursome fled the school. “I thought we were toast.”

  “What did you do to get detention?” Zack asked.

  “Toilet papered Caleb’s desk!” Chris said.

  Zack and Amy shared a glance and struggled not to laugh. “What criminals!” Amy snickered.

  “They’ll have to join you in prison.” Zack mimed handcuffing Chris.

  Amy gave him the finger and sauntered away. She paused at the curb and tossed a smile over her shoulder. “Later you two.”

  Eleven

  AMY’S HEART RACED as she peered around her darkened bedroom in search of what had woken her. She sat paralyzed in bed with her gaze locked on her window. Had it been a clatter from outside? Was someone spying on her house? Headlights passed her window, accompanied by the steady whir of cars on the highway. Calm spread from her thundering heart and relaxed her tense muscles. Everything was normal. A sudden crash from downstairs sent her scrambling out of bed. She darted into the hall and hovered at the top of the steps.

  She tiptoed forward like every hot blonde extra in a horror movie. Her muscles were tighter than the strings of a guitar, and her heart thrummed in her ears like the boom of a too-loud bass. She gazed at her front door with its broken lock. It was shut tight against the still, silent night. Everything was so quiet. Too quiet. Amy crept across her living room, rounded the corner into the kitchen, and screamed. She leapt backward, tripped on the narrow step, and fell gracelessly onto her rear.

  Her mother rushed to her side. “What are you doing up?”

  “Mom, it’s you!” Relief flooded her chest.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “I thought someone had broken into the house.”

  Amy surveyed her mom with a troubled frown. Her salt-and-pepper hair hung limply in ratty tangles. She reeked of cigarettes and booze. An open bottle rested on the countertop, and she clutched a half-empty wineglass in each hand.

  “Go to bed, honey,” she slurred, swaying where she stood.

  “I thought you were working tonight. Did you call in sick?”

  Tears filled her mother’s cloud gray eyes. “Rex is g-gone.” She engulfed Amy in a smothering embrace, sloshing red wine onto Amy’s tattered T-shirt. “All men ever do is leave.”

  Amy nodded sadly. Her dad had split shortly after Amy’s fourteenth birthday, and every other deadbeat boyfriend her mother had brought home since had done the same. Amy was thrilled to have seen the last of Rex, but it broke her heart that her mom was upset by his leaving. Didn’t she know she deserved a million times better?

  She guided her mom to the couch and pried the wine from her hands. “Come on, you’re going to be wicked hung over tomorrow as it is.” Her mom relinquished her glass with a sour look. “I’ll be right back.” Amy trudged into the kitchen and dumped the wine down the drain. She made a pot of strong coffee and brought her mom a steaming mug.

  She took the mug with shaking hands. “He didn’t even tell me in person. I woke to a text, and all his things were gone.”

  Amy’s heart soared with joy. No more stinky Rex clothes! She kept her expression sympathetic and put an arm around her mother. “That’s awful, Mom. I’m so sorry he treated you that way.”

  “I thought he loved me!” she wailed into her coffee. Hot liquid sloshed over the rim and dribbled onto her white uniform. Amy took in her mother’s outfit with a deeply troubled frown. She had paired her 7-Eleven shirt with jeans and black Sketchers. She must have dressed for work, seen Rex’s text, and ditched her job for a drinking binge. A knot of anxiety tangled in her gut.

  “I know you thought he loved you, but you can do about a billion times better.” She had shared this sentiment after every painful breakup, but it had never been truer than in regard to Rex Kastel.

  “You think?”

  “Of course!” Amy plucked a tissue from the box on the coffee table and handed it to her mom.

  She blew her nose with an explosive hoot. “It’s so hard to date as a single parent. No one wants to deal with kids.”

  Amy’s heart sank slowly into the pit of her stomach, guilt weighing it down like a block of cement. She looked away from her mother’s tear-streaked face. She and Susan were a burden. Message received. “Sorry, Mom. One day you’ll find the right guy. It just wasn’t Rex.”

  “What would you know?” She hiccupped and sipped her coffee. “You should go to bed. I’m fine.” More tears shimmered in the corners of her cloud gray eyes.

  Amy bit her lip. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Go to bed.”

  Amy returned upstairs, knowing her mom would reach for the wine the moment she was out of sight. She was far from fine. They both knew it.

  Susan stood in the doorway to her room, clad in pink pajamas and clutching her favorite stuffed animal, a plush koala bear. “Amy? What’s going on?”

  “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep, it’s the middle of the night.” She towed Susan to her bed and tucked a floral-print quilt around her.

  “Will you sleep in here with me?” Susan gazed up at her with worry clouding her gentle eyes.

  Amy’s heart twisted, responsibility weighing heavy on her shoulders. She leaned against the wall and longed for her pillow-top mattress. “Why do you want me to stay?”

  “Because Mom’s not okay.”

  “I’m taking care of it. Stop worrying so much.” Amy wrapped her in a hug. Susan refused to release her. Amy flopped into bed, resigning herself
to a night with her pillow-hogging sister.

  The burgundy walls of Susan’s eight-by-eight bedroom closed in around her as she lay awake while her little sister slept. Susan was growing up without a mother who cared about her, never dreaming that that, too, was all Amy’s fault.

  She woke to Susan elbowing her out of bed. Amy opened her eyes, came face-to-face with Susan’s alarm clock, and screamed. “Oh my God! Sue, wake up!” She shook her sister’s shoulder.

  “What?” Susan groaned into her pillow.

  “Our bus leaves in twenty minutes!” Amy raced from her sister’s room and tore around the house in a cyclonic frenzy of morning chores.

  “Wait!” Susan squealed as the girls chased after their fleeing bus. “Wait for us!”

  Frank let them on at the light. Twenty-five pairs of eyes gawked at them as they took their seats. Amy stared out the window with her cheeks on fire.

  “What happened to you?” Zack’s football friend stared as she charged up to her locker.

  “Slept through my alarm.” Why did this jock insist on talking to her? Zack sauntered toward them, looking hot in jeans and a T-shirt that showed off his well-toned arms. Her heart gave a traitorous flutter. Amy stuffed books into her bag and fled in the opposite direction. She was way too tired to deal with him.

  The rest of her day was a sleep-deprived blur. Amy had never been a morning person, and her middle-of-the-night adventure had furthered her chronic exhaustion. She plodded through the parking lot on her way out of school, fantasizing about a cup of French press and an enormous slice of cake. Andrew was going to make her day all better. She was going to power through her shift, hitch a ride home with Steve, and sleep for a year.

  A burly junior in a black leather jacket appeared out of nowhere and physically blocked her path. Amy halted midstride, narrowly avoiding a collision.

  “Hey.” He snarled. “Watch where you’re going.”

  Amy scowled. “You watch where you’re going.”

  His expression darkened. She went to step around him. This guy was bad news. He was decently attractive except for a jagged scar that disfigured his face. He spoke with a thick, Southern twang that made everything he said come out in a slow, menacing drawl.

  She caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Two more guys had appeared, each of them wearing a black leather jacket. One grabbed her roughly and twisted her arms behind her back.

  “Hey!” She struggled to wrench free. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I don’t like your tone.” The burly junior sneered. He appeared to be the group’s leader.

  “What is this? What the hell do you want?” She bit her lip to keep from wincing as the guy behind her twisted her arms tighter.

  “No one messes with us, Evans. No one. Certainly not little girls.”

  Her gaze flitted between the three huge guys. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She kept her voice level, determined to stay calm. “What the hell did I do? I don’t even know you.”

  “You know what you did.” The leader glared. “And soon enough, you’ll regret it.”

  “Wait! Seriously!” She giggled and his glare deepened. Amy had a bad habit of laughing when she was terrified. Her responses to danger had been screwed up from a young age. “You’re confusing me with someone else.”

  Her pleas were met with laughter. The leader shook his fist in her face. “Are you ever stupid? I got two words for you, Evans. Charles Banks.”

  Her stomach lurched as if she had left it at the top of a ninety-degree drop. These guys knew exactly who they were talking to.

  “We checked the bylaws,” Ash chipped in. “This parking lot isn’t city property like you said the other day. It’s school property. We’re all students, so anything we do here goes.”

  Amy glowered. Ash had been her chemistry lab partner last year. She had caught him stealing from the supply closet and had chosen not to turn him in. Now she wished she had.

  “Exactly,” the leader said, agreeing with Ash’s idiotic reasoning. He raised his fist.

  Amy had met plenty of bullies in her day and arguing with them had never changed their minds. She closed her eyes and braced herself for pain.

  “Hey!” Running footsteps announced someone else’s arrival. Amy cringed internally. More of their friends? “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She opened her eyes to identify the newcomer. The leader blocked her view.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Donnellson,” the guy holding her in place said with blasé nonchalance. “What’s up, man?”

  Zack? Zack had come to her rescue? Heat crept up her neck. She laughed when terrified and blushed while being rescued? She’d make one hell of a weird Disney princess.

  “Let her go,” Zack ordered in a tone cold as ice.

  “This does not concern you.” The leader’s brown eyes narrowed into two dark slits. “Piss off and walk away.”

  Zack strode forward into Amy’s line of sight. His crystal blue eyes briefly met hers. He clenched his fists, and muscles bunched beneath his navy sweatshirt. “Let her go. Or I promise you’ll go down for it.”

  Her heart fluttered with gratitude, even as her gut clenched with nerves. What the heck was he doing? They were never going to release her just because he asked them to.

  Zack stood his ground and held the leader’s chilling gaze. Their stance reminded her of a hockey face-off moments before one team won the puck. She winced. Did that make her the puck?

  The leader motioned for his lackey to release her. He shoved her toward Zack so hard she lost her balance and hit her knees. Pavement tore through her jeans and sliced into her skin. Amy barely registered the pain. She was held captive by the look in Zack’s eyes.

  Twelve

  ZACK STRUGGLED TO keep his cool. How dare Alex hurt her! Who were these creeps to push around a girl a foot shorter than them? And on top of that, three on one? He grabbed Amy’s arm and pulled her to her feet. Alex looked at them with a firestorm of hate in his eyes. Zack turned and marched her away. His stomach clenched with tension. His muscles screamed for action. He wanted to do something. Get Amy out of there fast, pick a fight with Alex, anything but walk away passively. But he had never been crazy enough to cross Assassin’s Honor before and had no idea what psychotic infamy came next.

  “Donnellson,” Nathan shouted at their backs. “You got lucky today. But don’t ever try pulling something like this again. You won’t get off so easy next time.”

  Zack ignored the empty threat. His connections had already saved them. He had three lawyers in his family, two uncles and a cousin. None of the gangsters fancied a lawsuit.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re gone,” he spat with contempt. He gentled his tone as he turned back to Amy. She looked pale but furious. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

  “No. I’m good.” They stood awkwardly for a moment before Amy met his eyes. Indifference clouded her gaze, but emotion swam just below the surface. She cleared her throat. “Uh, Zack? You can let go of me now.”

  “Right.” He dropped her arm. “What did they want with you?”

  She took a breath as if about to explain, then shook her head and shut her mouth. “Nothing.” She lowered her eyes and scuffed the pavement with the toe of her boot.

  “Nothing? Really? Looked like something when you were about to have your face smashed back there.”

  “It’s not your problem.” She shifted from foot to foot. “I have to go, but thanks for what you did. It was cool of you to help.” She raised her misty gray gaze and met his eyes. A jolt of electricity rushed through him, along with that same absurd instinct to protect her.

  “Don’t mention it.” He waved off her gratitude. “You should tell me what they wanted.” If this escalated into something he brought to his relatives’ attention, he needed to understand the situation as clearly as possible.

  Her eyes skittered away from his. “It’s not important.” She straightened her shoulders an
d strode away.

  Concern spiraled within him as the distance between them grew. Amy obviously knew something else, something she was refusing to share. “Hey, Amy!” She whipped around, her eyes wide with panic. She saw it was only him, turned on her heel, and marched away at an even faster pace. “Amy, wait!” He jogged to catch up with her. “You go that way to pick up your sister.” She raised her eyebrows. He winced internally and flailed for a way to undo his stalker-like comment. “I mean, you usually head in that direction.”

  Amy pressed her lips together. He struggled to work out whether she was amused or annoyed. “I do. But Sue has a playdate, and I missed my bus. See you around.”

  That stupid protective instinct spiked his concern. He didn’t want her walking anywhere alone. “Want a ride?” He held up his keys.

  “Oh, no. No, that’s okay.” A strong fall breeze blew strands of hair into her face. She took a flustered swipe at them. “It’s thoughtful of you to offer but seriously, I’m fine. I’m heading to work. It’s close by.”

  He resisted the urge to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Come on. Let me drive you. It’s going to rain.” The gray sky was blanketed with ominous storm clouds. If she refused his offer, he was going to have to follow her to make sure she made it to Pete’s in one piece. He was already late picking up Chris. He tried a different tact. “Afraid to be seen with me? In my fancy new car?”

  Her brows snapped together. “What? No,” she said, swiftly defensive.

  “So, what are we waiting for?”

  “Wow!” she said with reverent delight as they halted by his Lexus. “Is this seriously yours?”

  “Yeah. My parents bought it for my sixteenth.” He pressed a button on his keyless remote to unlock the doors.

  Amy rested her hand on the shiny black hood. “A 2019 Lexus LS!” Awe transformed her face. She climbed into the front seat and examined its sleek black leather interior.

  “You know cars?” Pretty girls who liked cars were a rare commodity in Zack’s world.