Chapter Twelve
MAX
“Dana! Dana!”
I’d circled the area ten times, each time my yelling for her louder than the previous. She was nowhere to be found. Footprints scattered throughout the snow, but it looked like there had been several people standing here. I couldn’t figure out which belonged to Dana.
And that’s when I saw it.
In the snow was a pile of clothes and a winter coat. The clothes were torn to shreds and thankfully blood-free, and the coat was in one piece. The coat was pink with fur around the edges of the hood, and I recognized it as Dana’s. Fuck, this wasn’t good at all.
“Dana! Dana!”
Still, no answer.
I could attempt to rationalize why she had turned when there was no full moon, but I didn’t even know where to begin with that. She had no control over it and this was the absolute worst time to experiment. All I knew was we needed to regroup and figure out what the hell was going on.
I scooped up her belongings in my arms and felt a small object slide out of my hands and to the ground.
Oh, Christ.
It’s the necklace I gave Cora the night before she disappeared. It’s right here, but Cora isn’t. Shit.
“Where’s your girlfriend gone to?” a female voice suddenly whispered.
I turned around quickly, but couldn’t find where the voice was coming from. I was sure I had imagined it until a giggle accompanied it, followed by footsteps that seemed to be dashing away through the woods. Like it wanted me to follow them. I was tempted to, until I heard howls and screams from a few miles away. It was coming from the gas station.
I pocketed the necklace, threw down the destroyed clothes, and went running.
Chapter Thirteen
DAGGETT
I must have momentarily passed out after shifting, because I woke up in a field fifty feet from the gas station with no recollection of how I got there. I hated having to do it, because it hurts like hell, but I wasn’t going to be able to protect Priscilla and myself in a human form. You can’t go up against a werewolf and expect to walk away unless you are, in fact, a werewolf. So, I ripped off my clothes and forced my body to turn as quickly as I could, knowing Priscilla’s life was on the line as she ran to the car.
I thought it strange, at first, that the wolf didn’t chase after her right away, until I was in my form. That’s when it became clear. When we take our werewolf shape, we have a telepathic connection, and as soon as I was on all fours, all I could hear was crying in my mind. These were Dana’s tears. She was trapped inside that form and was screaming to get out and make it all stop. I had been prepared to fight this werewolf to the death, if I had to, but all that changed as soon as our minds were linked. I just needed to incapacitate her.
We ended up in a brutal fight, with me doing my best to lure her away from the car with Priscilla in it. We bit, we clawed, and we rolled around in the snow. Every second of it I was pleading for Dana to try to come to her senses, to find the strength to control her body and her mind. But she wouldn’t stop, nor could she. All I ever heard from her were whimpers.
Eventually, I was able to take her down. I didn’t want to do it, but I bit as hard as I could on her forearm until blood was spraying through the air and coloring the snow. She shrieked and, for whatever reason, it managed to knock her out of her trance and she went limping away behind the building.
I think that was around the time I collapsed from exhaustion and passed out.
When I woke up, my flesh was on fire. The snow beneath my body had melted and put me into a puddle of shallow water. I was tired, overheated, and covered in dirt, but I got to my feet and walked to the gas station. Several feet away, I saw the parking lot with Priscilla, and I sighed with relief to know she was alive.
As soon as I arrived at the door I pressed my hands to the driver’s seat window to let her know I was there, but I must have startled her pretty bad because she squealed and then shouted curse words I don’t think I even knew existed.
“It’s me, it’s me. I’m sorry!” I yelled.
She put her hand to her heart and closed her eyes. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” Priscilla looked at me, and with realization said, “You’re alive. I thought you got torn apart.”
“No, I just—” I was still out of breath. “I needed to draw it away from you.”
Her eyes became misty. “You saved my life,” she said. Was that gratitude I detected in her voice?
I tilted my head at her and smiled. “It was nothing.”
Her eyes trailed down my body. “And I can see your dick.”
Instinctively, I covered my package with my hands. My skin was so heated that it didn’t allow me to feel the cold air, so it didn’t even register for me that I was in the buff. I’ve turned so many times and was always aware of my physical state, yet when I’m in front of a pretty girl, I let myself stand there butt-ass naked. Maybe Priscilla wasn’t in the wrong to make fun of me all the time.
“What the hell is going on?!” I hear Max yell as he ran across the pavement and toward us. I turned around and Max’s nose immediately scrunched and his head jerked away for a second, followed by him raising his gaze in an attempt to divert away from my very naked body. “Daggett, Jesus Christ—”
“I lost my clothes,” I said.
Priscilla tore out of the car, slamming the door behind her, and then went running toward Max. “Where the fuck were you?!” she screamed, and then shoved her hands against his chest. Max barely fell back a step. “You left us to die!”
Max nodded, and very calmly, as if he knew Priscilla had a right to be hysterical, said, “What happened?”
“The werewolf tried to kill us!”
“Dana,” I clarified.
Both Max and Priscilla looked at me, but only one of them were confused.
“Where is she now?” Max asked intensely. He wasn’t confused at all.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. She was injured, so she couldn’t have gone far.”
“Then we find her. Now.”
Priscilla folded her arms. “Is it really a good idea to go looking for her when she’s…like that?”
“She’s not going to be much of a danger,” I told her.
The three of us eventually agreed to search for her right away. Well, right after I found my clothes in the store and put them back on. I was probably going to be sweating with them on, but I’d take a little perspiration over Max memorizing my dick size. He was a big guy, so I really didn’t feel like comparing inches.
It took us only a few minutes before we found her in the snow behind the store, crumpled into the fetal position, half-conscious, shaking violently with a gash on her arm that was dripping blood.
Max removed his coat and draped it over her body, and then took her into his arms and carried her bridal style back to the store. He then set her down on the floor, propping her up against the wall so she didn’t swallow her tongue. There was a small display of hoodies and sweatpants by the cash register, and Priscilla swiped them so we could dress Dana. But first, we had to tend to her wound. There wasn’t much to work with, just napkins and tape, so we bundled them together until it was as thick as a bandage and then wrapped it around her arm. When she was a little stronger, some of her werewolf healing would kick in and help to close the open hole. We didn’t have crazy super healing, but our body did its best to repair itself after a transformation. It’s how we were able to continuously shift.
Her bleeding out wasn’t too much of a worry for me personally, it was everything else about her that had me anxious. She dripped with sweat, her skin was white and delicate like porcelain, and her eyes remained shut as she feverishly moaned and mumbled.
“Is she gonna croak?” Priscilla asked.
“No,” Max responded quickly as he secured the wrap onto Dana. He pressed his hand to her skin and said, “She’s burning up. We need to get her some water. Priscilla?”
Without saying anything, she w
as halfway to the fridge grabbing a bottle of water. When Max put the tip of the bottle to Dana’s mouth and tried to get her to drink it, the water dribbled from her lips and spilled all over his coat that was currently being used as a blanket for her.
“Dana? You in there?” he called out.
Her head swayed back and forth like her neck couldn’t support it. “Th-they…” she mumbled.
“What is she saying?” Priscilla asked.
“I don’t know. Hey, Dana. Wake up.”
Dana’s eyes remained sealed tight, but her lips kept moving. “M-M-Molly. She did this…she did this to me…why...”
We were all pretty confused. It had to be a past trauma that was resurfacing because of her feverish brain. I was always told she was turned by a male werewolf, not anyone named Molly.
Suddenly, it dawned on me. “Molly?” I said out loud. “Didn’t you mention someone named Molly when we were in the car?”
Priscilla looked directly at me. “Yeah, but she’s dead. Remember?”
I turned my attention back to Dana who was still tossing and turning in her upright position.
The name Molly never left her lips.
Chapter Fourteen
Max
We couldn’t stay at the gas station. Aside from the body in the bathroom, the windows had been smashed open and the store was in complete disarray. It wasn’t a good idea for any of us to stay there, especially with how bad off Dana was. She had fallen asleep when we put her in the backseat of the car, and I figured as long as she was breathing, we’d let her get some rest.
Daggett told me all about the diner and the man that claimed to have seen Cora, but before I could even feel any form of relief he filled me in on the rest of the story. The bloody steak, the discreet way she wanted it given to her, the impression he got that she was on the run.
The worst part was, as he told me this story, I had that ominous voice from the forest playing in my head. Someone was out there waiting for me, letting me know that they knew Cora was missing, and the sick shit was laughing about it. Before I came to the city, I still had that small hope that Cora was here willingly, but that hope was quickly stomped out. I had never been much of a worrier, but the last several hours left me feeling sick inside.
I didn’t know what else to do other than to go straight to the diner so I could talk to the man myself. I brought everybody inside with me so we could rest up and get some food in Dana’s system to bring her back to life. Daggett and I had to practically carry her in, and Priscilla was no help. We slid her barely conscious body into a red seated booth and let her lean against the window beside Daggett.
I then left to get the server to tell me everything he told Daggett and more. Unfortunately, it was more of the same. Cora came in, she ordered a steak, she was fidgety, and then she left. I even made him explain what she looked like in the most detailed way possible and I knew, without question, it was her. It was at that point that my hands began to shake. I don’t know if it was from nerves, worry, anger, or frustration. Fuck, maybe it was all of the above. I just knew Cora was out here somewhere, and yet I couldn’t find her. It killed me.
When I got back to the booth, everyone ordered something to eat except for me. My stomach was in too many knots to feel hungry.
Daggett, from across the table, leaned forward and hushed his voice. “What’d he say?”
I rubbed my fingers into my forehead and muttered, “Nothing new.”
“Sorry, Max.”
With her mouth full of a cheeseburger, Priscilla said, “It’s not like his story was going to change.”
I dropped my hands from my face and glared at her. The mixture of her lips smacking together and her casually being a know-it-all made me want to put her in the car and drop her off somewhere. “How can you eat that shit right now?” I spat.
Priscilla swallowed. “Excuse the fuck out of me. I almost died, all right? I need food.” She wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her sleeve and added, “You all brought Tiny Tim over here to get something to eat.” She meant Dana. “Why can’t I eat?”
“You can eat,” I scoffed. “Just do it quietly.”
“Dana isn’t, like, dead, is she?”
“No,” I grumbled.
“Then I guess I’m not gonna worry. She did try to kill me, after all.”
“She had no control over that,” Daggett informed her. “You weren’t in her head. She hated what was happening just as much as you did.”
“Then why was she a werewolf? I thought you guys turned under a full moon. Last I checked the moon was at Pringle status.”
She meant a crescent moon, and she was right.
I looked at Daggett and asked, “You sure she’s not able to shift at will?”
“Positive,” he answered. “Dana gave up trying a while back. Even if she could, why would she do it now?”
“Maybe she saw something that spooked her and she wanted to fight it off.”
“Did you find any trace of a fight in the woods? Any blood?”
“Nah.” I suddenly remembered the necklace in my pocket, and I placed it on the tabletop. “I did find this, though.”
“What is it?”
“Cora was wearing it the night she went missing. For whatever reason, she was out in the woods and she dropped it.”
“That’s good, right?” Priscilla asked. “Finding a trail is good?”
I stared at the surface of the table, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Don’t sound so gloom and doom. If she was out there, that probably means she’s moving around the city, and we’ll find her.”
“Or someone wants me to think that.”
Both of their eyes got big. “What are you talking about, Max?” Daggett asked.
I exhaled loudly. “Somebody was out there when I went looking for Dana, somebody who knows who Cora is and my relationship with her.” They stared at me, listening, but clearly confused. “A woman asked where my girlfriend was, and then she ran off laughing.”
“You didn’t see her?”
“No. It was like she was in the trees or something. I could hear her voice in my ear, but I couldn’t find her. A part of me wants to believe I’m just going insane.”
“So, what? You think whoever this is planted Cora’s necklace there?”
“Maybe.”
“What for?”
I shrugged. “To throw us off. To confuse us.”
Priscilla raised a cup to her lips and sipped. “Yeah, well, it’s fucking working.”
“But for what?” Daggett asked again. “If someone was using her to get to you, why not show themselves? Why run off as soon as you were out there alone? Wouldn’t the point be to get you by yourself so they could do whatever they intended to do?”
I was getting a migraine. “I wish I could make sense of it,” I said with a heavy breath.
“What about the body?” Priscilla asked.
“What about it?”
“Uh, gee, I don’t know, maybe about the fact that it’s fucking rotting in a public restroom right now.”
“We’ll deal with that later.”
“Later? Our DNA is probably all over that place. Won’t it look bad if we don’t call someone? Won’t we look like we’re the ones that did it?”
“I can’t deal with that right now.”
“Sounds like a pretty solid alibi for court,” she said sarcastically.
“Look, his problems are over, all right? We can’t do anything for him right now, but we can for Cora. We can be upstanding citizens later.”
Our bickering must have gotten too loud, because suddenly Dana was rustling in her seat. Her head swayed back and forth, and then very, very slowly, her eyes peeled open. She was awake, and she looked confused as hell.
“Morning, sunshine,” Priscilla said as she drank from her cup.
Her voice was hoarse as she asked, “Where am I?”
“We stopped at a diner,” Daggett told her. “Yo
u’re recovering.”
Dana straightened herself out, and even though she was weakened, she began manically looking around at our surroundings as she panted. “Where are they?! Are they here? Did they follow us?”
I furrowed my brow and asked, “Who?”
“Molly!”
Priscilla scoffed. “How far back did that little tiff of yours send you? Molly’s dead and buried, in case you forgot.”
“Not anymore,” she trembled.
“What?” I said, almost laughing. I didn’t find it funny, but really out there.
She swallowed and licked her lips, before steadying her voice. “Molly, Tiffany, and Veronica. They were out there in the forest. I thought I was hallucinating or dreaming, but they were real. Only they weren’t really alive.”
“Hold up.” I was trying to wrap my mind around what she was saying. “Are you serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean not alive?” Daggett asked.
Dana took a slow breath inward. “I didn’t sense that they were coming until they were standing a few feet in front of me. It’s only then that they made a sound or created a scent. Everybody has a smell, and theirs reeked of death.”
“No way,” Priscilla groaned. “No fucking way. People don’t come back from the dead.”
Daggett shook his head. “Is it really out of the realm of possibility considering what the three of us are? A few years ago, would you even entertain the idea of someone turning into a beast?”
Her mouth hung ajar for a second and then she slumped into her seat. That stumped her. “But back from the dead? I mean…”
I leaned forward with my arms sprawled across the table, desperate for more information. “What happened after you saw them?”
“They circled me,” she answered. “They wanted to know if I was alone. They wanted to find you.”
I knew it.
Dana was nearly hyperventilating at this point, with tears streaming down her red cheeks. “She made me do it,” she cried. “I don’t know how she did it, but I was normal one second and then I was changing the next.”
Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3) Page 9