Alive at Sunset (Rituals of the Night Series Book 2) (23 page)

T
hat night, Luna dedicated herself to packing her belongings as fast as she could. She had to be as quiet as she worked. Chance was home again. He and Amanda were sitting together on the couch in the front room watching television. The volume wasn’t turned up loud so she had to make sure she was as quiet as a mouse when she moved. She had plenty of alone time in her room, and she planned to take advantage of every second of it. She wasn’t going to tell Amanda anything of her new plans. If it was going to be successful, she’d have to stay silent.

She could hear footsteps in the hall (probably someone heading to the bathroom), and she tossed her blanket over her half-filled backpack. She turned away from the clothed bundle to see Chance standing there again, his form outlined in black from the hallway. He stopped walking to look at her, but she dropped her attention off of him.

Luna went back to looking for the bare essentials though she was going to make sure her backpack remained hidden in its blanket tomb. She didn’t care if he watched her scavenge to collect random items, so long as he didn’t know exactly what she needed them for.

“Hello, Luna,” he called in a false affable voice.

Luna ignored him as she continued to search; he wasn’t worth the time. Holding a conversation was the last thing on her mind.

“You’re planning something,” he said, face creased in thought as he tried to break her. It wasn’t a question.

“What does it matter if I am?” she asked, not turning to look at him as she glanced around her room.

“I hope you realize that that throws a wrench in my plans once again,” he said.

Luna glared at him. “Oh, well, I don’t care. You’ve done things that put a wrench in mine too.”

“What’s on your mind?” he asked, leaning against the doorway as he tried his best to seem casual.

“Nothing that’s any of your business,” Luna said gruffly, folding her arms over her chest.

“Ah, now that’s like the Luna that I remember. You’re always so cold to me. Except on one night of course,” he said knowing perfectly well that hit a nerve. A sadistic smile was plastered to his face.

Luna felt a twinge in her stomach (as if even her baby was upset by his words), and the desire to hurl was overwhelming. “You’re a murderer. You know that I don’t like you,” Luna said as she tried to regain herself.

“Sounds like you’re just repeating yourself now.” His smile was haughty as he sought out what she was thinking.

Luna winced, she
was
repeating herself. The day of David’s funeral, when Max noted that she changed, he had been right. Even Sarah noticed the difference in her. Luna used to be a different person. She had been fiery and vivacious; she’d speak her mind and fight for what she believed in. After all the years of fighting, she was defeated and tired. She only wanted to achieve whatever future she could manage to pull together. She only said things that she remembered saying in high school.

“Maybe so,” she muttered, turning away from him to continue looking around her room.

Luna could hear footsteps as he approached her, coming into her room. He grasped her shoulder roughly and turned her towards him. “Will you just answer me already?” he demanded.

His face was an inch from hers as she looked at him through bleary, grief-filled eyes not knowing how else she could feel in that moment. “I’m done doing this, I’m done suffering. I mean, you should’ve got that from my car accident,” she said, her voice void of emotion.

“You’ve always been a complicated part of my life,” he remarked.

“Three years,” Luna said quietly.

“Huh?” Chance asked.

“Every day for three years I visited you in the hospital just to make sure you stayed in your coma,” she said. “My mistake was that I didn’t kill you.”

Chance smirked. “You could never kill me.”

“I could now.”

Chance raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked.

“I owe it to Max.”

“Okay, here, let’s see how prepared you are to live up to that promise.” He dug his snake-handle dagger from his pocket and handed it to her. “If you hate me so much, then go ahead. End it for both of us right now.”

Luna’s lip quivered as her fingers twitched an inch away from the blade. She glanced between him and the knife. In her mind, she could picture taking it and sinking it into his neck, ending all of her problems.

“I’m not putting my fingerprints on that crime-ridden thing,” she said.

Chance smirked as he tucked the knife away. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“So what? You’re just gonna torture me for the rest of my life?” she asked. “Every time I make a friend, you’re going to kill them?”

“If you live that long,” Chance said.

Luna sighed. “I wish you’d either kill me or move on with your life. You’ve gotten your revenge…why draw it out?”

“That’s the worst part, isn’t it? The psychological tension…it keeps you on edge.”

“There’s only two possible endings to this situation,” she said, taking a brazen step towards him. “Either you kill me or I kill you.”

“Well, we can rule one of them out.”

“I
refuse
to let this be how the rest of my life goes. You may think you’re winning, but you’re nothing compared to me.”

“Finally, a challenge!”

“Get out of my room,” Luna said with dwindling patience. “Don’t make me put a lock on the inside of my door.”

“Fine, I’ll go for now. But just know that I’ll be watching every move you make,” he said. “I can guarantee that I’ll find out what exactly you’re planning to do.”

“Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t,” Luna said, glaring at him eye-to-eye.

He stared back at her and left the room.

Luna watched him go with a solemn expression on her face. She couldn’t help but take note of his mood swings. How could he be broken one day and then back to his old menacing ways at the drop of a hat? What would happen if he saw her leave? Would he follow her again?

Or would he hurt Amanda in order to keep her from leaving?

Sarah and Luna were right when they said that they could never escape from him; he always had a watchful eye on her. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if maybe running away wouldn’t be the best move after all.

She had to try.

So far, nothing else had been successful in ridding her life of the pure evil that went by the name ‘Chance’. Ignoring him didn’t work, moving didn’t work, trying to live her life as a normal person didn’t work. She had to try running away and leave her old life behind her.

She still wondered about finding the girl that had broken Chance. She was almost positive that that wouldn’t be a useful lead. The odds of her figuring out who had devastated Chance so badly were slim to none with the time rapidly falling to the bottom of the hourglass. Chance purposefully gave little clues, and she didn’t want to believe that Sarah’s opinion could be the truth.

Running was all she could do if she wanted to live and save the life of her unborn baby.

Because I have to make right the wrongs of my past. You’re my favorite toy. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt too much,
he had said to her.

Luna didn’t know exactly what ‘plans’ Chance had for her, but she knew that he was almost out of people to kill. That meant the time was rapidly approaching when he would turn on her. If she didn’t get out of her rut then she would be another name on Chance’s list of victims.

                                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luna finished packing not too long after Chance had left her room. She made sure she had all her essentials and even a few things full of memories in case she hit a place where she felt as if she wanted to come back. She didn’t know if or when she would ever return. She knew that if she truly wanted to escape Chance then coming back would be far too risky.

Finally, six in the morning came the following day, and Luna hadn’t been able to sleep an ounce. Luna climbed out of bed and put her backpack on. As carefully as she could manage, she stepped out into the hall. It was dark since Amanda was still asleep.

She reached out a hand and set it to the wall to guide herself through the apartment. She followed the wall through the living room and out the front door. Quietly, she shut the door behind her. It was raining lightly but not enough to stop her from leaving. She pulled her hood up over her raven-colored hair and began to run from the apartment complex.

Most of the fields she was used to cutting through on her way out of town were flooded with inches of water that she was positive would make for an uncomfortable trip if she tried to use the route anyways. She guessed that even though it was misting, it had been raining hard most of the night. She went around most of her usual cut-throughs, and finally, she ended up at the entrance to Chance’s cemetery.

Being at higher ground, it was the only field of grass in town that wasn’t flooded. Luna ran through it trying to get to the other side where the line of trees at the edge of the dreaded forest began. She knew that Sarah was probably worried since Luna was taking a much longer time than usual. She had to make it there before Sarah decided she wasn’t coming.

She ran through the cemetery -trying to speed up her pace- her breath puffing in rough gasps as she moved. The rain dripped from her hood and into her eyes making it harder to see the longer she moved. She was so close that she didn’t want to lose her momentum. Suddenly, her foot hit something hard, and she lost her balance. She went flying forward to the ground.

Her instant reaction was to protect her stomach from the impact. She ended up hitting her face on another tombstone on her way to the ground. She sat up, groaning in pain as a trickle of blood from the cut in her forehead ran down her face. Her head was starting to throb, but at least it didn’t feel as bad as it had from her wreck.

She was dazed as she sat on the soaking wet grass trying to regain herself. Even though she still felt dizzy, she looked back over her shoulder to see what it was that she had tripped on. It was a small stone, a gravestone. She stood up and looked at it. She wrapped her arms around herself as she recognized the name engraved in it.

“Violet Bulrey, rest in peace,” she read out loud to herself as the rain fell around her.

For a long time, she stared at the name on the gravestone. The rain began to soak through her clothes to freeze her skin, but she didn’t move. Her mind was trapped in too violent of a whirlwind to think about anything else.

Violet, her late best friend.

The sight of the tombstone was like a sucker punch to the gut. Luna remembered that Violet had been the first of many that Chance had killed that was dear to her. The only reason he had killed Violet was so that he could get to her like most of the rest of the people he slaughtered for seemingly no reason.

Luna collapsed to her knees beside the plaque, feeling the rain from the soaked grass seep through the last dry place in her jogging pants. It was her fault that Violet was dead. She glanced at the nearby plaques which belonged to Max and David. All of them had died because of her.

She couldn’t leave town, not when Chance was back to his old tricks. She needed to fight; she needed to find her fire, her courage. She couldn’t give up; she had a baby to protect. There was no way she could do that by constantly running and worrying for her life. She had to eliminate the threat.

Luna had to stop him once and for all. Running away wouldn’t do that; it wouldn’t accomplish anything except maybe keep her safe for a little while. Once he discovered that she was gone, he would look for her. He’d find her, and her safety would be compromised once more.

So what if she was the next one on his list? Those people all lost their lives for her. The least she could do would be to stand up to their killer and try to put a stop to him.

Suddenly, the weight of the backpack felt ridiculously heavy as it pulled on her shoulders. She realized that she was suddenly in a terrible dilemma. Sarah was waiting on her to arrive so that they could flee, but Luna wasn’t so sure. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it was the worst plan imaginable. There was no way she’d go through with it- not when her eyes had been opened to her own ridiculous ways.

F
inally, Luna made it to the cabin. She was panting heavily by the time she made it to the door. Sarah was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a backpack beside her as she aimlessly drew lines in the dust that had corroded the old floorboards. She looked up at the sound of Luna’s approach.

“Where have you been? I thought you changed your mind!” she said, sounding relieved as she stood to her feet.

“I had to take a detour route here,” Luna said feeling a bit awkward.

“Oh, that’s alright. You’re here now so let’s get going,” Sarah said, grasping the strap of her backpack as she heaved the bag onto her shoulders.

“Wait a minute,” Luna said to her.

Sarah turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow as she looked at her through her bright blue eyes. “What’s wrong, Luna?”

“Um, well, I did some pretty deep thinking on my way here,” Luna said, barely managing to meet her friend’s gaze. “I don’t want you to be upset with me, but…we can’t go through with this plan.”

“What? Are you nuts? If we stay in this town, Chance will kill us!” Sarah said, sounding hysterical. “Don’t tell me that you’ve lost your mind too!”

“I want you to think about something for me. What happens if we do leave? We might be safe for a while, sure, but he’d find us again. He’ll do whatever he can to hunt us down for the rest of our lives. Instead of running like a dog with its tail between its legs, don’t you think we owe it to Susan, and the others that Chance killed, to stay and fight? To try to stop him before he kills anyone else?”

“I hear what you’re saying, and I understand that completely. What you’re choosing to do, that’s the noble option of the two that we have. You don’t think I feel horrible for doing this? For saving myself when my sister died so miserable and alone? Luna, you gotta understand that I’m just thinking of what’s best for us. If he could kill all of them and get away with it, he’ll do the same to us. I want to live, Luna, we’re too young to die.”

“I can’t leave now that Chance is back,” Luna said, shaking her head. “I know that might not make a lot of sense to you, but Chance is dating my roommate. I know that means she’s in danger too, maybe more danger than we’re in. I want to try to help her see some sense.”

“You already tried that, Luna, don’t you remember? She doesn’t want to hear the warnings you’re giving her. Don’t you see that she’s choosing to stay with him? She determined her fate the moment she decided that Chance was a different person. Why would you risk your life for that? She knows that he put you through hell, killed your best friend, and yet she stays. Forget her,” Sarah said. The more she talked, the more obvious it became that she was desperate to have Luna join her.

“Wouldn’t you stay if it was Susan dating him instead of Amanda?” Luna asked, hoping Sarah would understand.

“Yeah, of course,” Sarah said, stunned Luna would ask. “I’d do anything for my sister; I spent years trying to find out what happened to her.”

“Then you have to understand why I’m doing this. She might make some mistakes, but everyone does. That doesn’t mean we give up on the people we care about. I do what I feel is right. At least that’s what I used to do. In high school, I fought for what mattered. I’d never run away from a challenge then. You know what? I miss
that
Luna, and I think avenging my friends’ deaths is the way to get her back. Besides, I’m the one he wants to kill. As long as I’m around you, you’ll be in danger. If you get out now, you’ll be safe.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” She sighed. “I wish I could change your mind,” Sarah said, crunching up her face as her lips parted slightly. “I know you would’ve been a formidable ally, and I just really hope that you’ll be okay staying here. I’m sorry, Luna, but I’m getting out of here when I actually have the chance.”

“I understand,” Luna said, wishing things had worked out a different way. She knew the fear she felt every time Chance was around; she knew that Sarah felt that as well. They had different morals, different principals, and they certainly handled the situation in polar opposite ways. “Thanks for all your help; maybe someday our paths will cross again.” She put her hand out for Sarah to shake. “Good luck with your trip, I hope you find a place safe for you.”

“Thanks,” Sarah said nodding at her before she let go. “I know I’m gonna need it.”

Luna nodded back at her and turned to leave the cabin. She opened the door and stopped dead in her tracks. Before her stood Chance. He wiggled his snake-handle dagger back and forth as he leaned once again in the doorframe; a backdrop of a gloomy rain-filled sky completed the horror scene. Luna’s eyes widened as she realized he was wearing all black.

“I knew you were plotting something,” he said jeering. “I told you I’d figure out what it is. This is an interesting little meeting place, and a reunion to boot.”

Luna gasped and took a step backwards into the cabin. She hadn’t expected him to actually find her. Not when he hadn’t even been near the apartment.

“You,” Sarah said to him, staring him down through bright blue eyes blazing with a mixture of terror and bitterness.

He nodded, smiling politely at Sarah as if she was an old friend of his. “Sarah, it’s been a long while.”

“What are you doing here?” Luna asked him, trying to bring up her courage.

“I wanted to join in on your little meeting,” he said innocently. “I’m not allowed to join?”

Sarah scoffed. “No way, this doesn’t involve you.”

“It was about me though, wasn’t it?” he guessed, glancing at the light that glinted from his sharp blade.

“We’re not telling you anything.” Luna hissed through clenched teeth.

“That’s a real shame, I thought we’d all have some quality bonding time,” he said with mock hurt.

“You have no business here. Leave,” Sarah said, the bitterness flowed throughout every letter of her sentence.

“You know what? I think it’s about time I killed you,” Chance said, looking at Sarah with venom in his eyes.

“You’re not killing us today; you’re never going to touch us. We might be the last of the survivors, but we’re gonna stay that way,” Sarah said determined. She held her backpack out menacingly as if she was going to hit Chance with it. Luna wished that she would, it might give them time to get out of the cabin.

Chance approached the two girls slowly, smiling. He enjoyed the fear that he instilled in his victims. Luna stood her ground, staring at him without an ounce of fear. She was tired of letting him get the best of her. She remembered what was growing in her stomach, what belonged to
him
. He messed her life up in more ways than one. She couldn’t let him know she feared him; she had to be brave if for no one but her unborn baby.

“After all that we’ve been through the past month, do you really think you’ll kill me now?” Luna asked, jutting her chin out as she looked at him.

Chance’s eyebrows raised as another smile carved its way into his face. “Well, well…I haven’t heard
this
Luna in a while. It’s kind of refreshing.”

“I’m not in the mood for this,” Luna replied flatly, glaring up at him as her stance held steady.

Luna shifted the weight of her backpack on her shoulders as she prepared to leave. She made a move for the door. Chance’s arm reached out to block her path. He stared at her disbelievingly.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “I haven’t gotten to have my fun just yet.”

“We’re already scared to death, you’ve done enough,” Sarah growled. “Just let Luna leave.”

“Tell me where you’re going, and maybe I’ll consider it,” Chance said running his fingers along the blade of his knife.

“I’m going home,” Luna said tiredly.

He grabbed her arm suddenly, and Luna glared at him, the weariness fading and replaced with anger. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Sarah dropped her backpack. “You leave her alone!” She ran at Chance, prepared to bite and kick until he let Luna go. All she could think of was what he had done to Susan in her final day on Earth.

Chance kept a hand on Luna’s arm, and with the hand that clutched the dagger, he lashed out at the oncoming girl, leaving a ragged, bloody wound across Sarah’s chest. She gasped in pain and fell to the floor on her hands and knees. Luna clenched her eyes shut to avoid seeing Sarah fall to the ground. She knew exactly what the knife felt like.

It was scarring enough that she watched Violet die from a bullet wound to the head. She didn’t want to see someone else go through that. Luna felt a cold metal press into her throat, and she opened her eyes. Chance’s knife was pushed to her windpipe; his eyes were glaring into hers as he held the blade still.

She looked back at him, feeling oddly emotionless. She should’ve been scared when he put the knife to her skin, but instead she was listless. Whatever happened, happened. She knew she had no control over it anymore.

“Kill me if you’re gonna do it,” she urged.

“I will kill you!” he snapped, sounding suddenly angry, but the blade didn’t cut into her flesh.

“Well?” she asked, challenging him. Part of her wondered if he would actually do it. She knew Chance was probably used to his victims begging for their lives instead of asking to be killed.

Chance growled in frustration and took the blade off of her throat. He stood still for a minute, and Luna wondered what was running through his mind.

“I knew you wouldn’t do it,” Luna scoffed. “Now, let me go home.”

“No,” he growled.

He lashed out suddenly. The blade of the knife gashed open a long wound in her arm that stretched from her elbow to halfway down her wrist. Luna gasped and reached up to cover it as Chance released his grip. It burned with an unearthly chill. It didn’t hurt as bad as the stab to her stomach had, but it was a close second. He closed his eyes and angled his face towards the ground, not looking at what he had done. Luna clenched at her wound as warm crimson fluid easily flowed between the cracks in her hand and over her fingers. The pain was immense from the ragged laceration, and she knew if she stayed with Chance then the pain would only get much worse.

Sarah was a goner already she was sure. The gash on her chest was deep and studying to be a doctor made Luna sure that she would bleed to death in a few minutes’ time. Luna looked at Chance to see that his eyes were still closed; he was avoiding looking at her new wound. She felt as if he was in the same strange mood he had been in on the night of her wreck. Something was obviously bothering him, and she knew that was her opportunity to escape.

She didn’t waste another second as she ran. She ran from that cabin without a single glance back at the macabre scene that she was leaving behind.