by Kayla Krantz
Sarah licked her finger and turned the page—the only sound in the house came from the swooshing it made. She frowned and set the book down onto the table, spine up. She glanced at the clock again anxiously, waiting for Susan to get home.
It had been six or seven hours since she had left with Chance, and she had still been in a nightgown. Sarah was surprised—and worried—that she hadn’t come home to get a change of clothes. She got up from her chair and paced to the living room to peer out into the street. Still no sign of Chance’s black truck. She frowned deeply, wondering what Chance and her sister were doing.
***
LUNA LAY IN bed. She felt exhausted from staying awake the entire day but too uneasy about what might happen in DreamWorld to sleep. Chance’s escape-proof design left her completely helpless there. No matter what happened, she couldn’t change it.
Max’s info about the dog pack earlier had only succeeded in frightening her more. As if it wasn’t bad enough that a murderer had her trapped, she also had to deal with knowing her biggest fear surrounded her. That bit of information had managed to kill her curiosity. She had no desire left to go to DreamWorld.
She sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she sat in the cabin again. No surprise there. She blinked and glanced around to see if anything seemed different than it had been last night. The candles were out and a bit of light streamed through the black paint on the nearest window.
Though still considerably dark, she noticed Chance sitting in a chair across the room from her. A table sat next to him and a bone with a familiar rose wrapped around it lay on top. Her eyes flicked back to Chance to see that he clutched a white rag in one hand. In the faint light, she caught a gleam from his dagger as it sat on the table beside the bone. The rag and dagger were both clean of blood, though Luna worried about why he had taken the time to clean them.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
After a few long, drawn out minutes, he still hadn’t said anything.
“What are you doing?” she asked, feeling like she didn’t want to know.
He looked at her and smiled but didn’t say anything. She sat with her wrists surrounded in the white cloths and shackles, staring at him. After a while, Chance still hadn’t spoken. He picked up the dagger, and with his other hand, he wiped the blade as if shining it.
Luna swallowed nervously as the silence engulfed her. The clean, polished blade brought about an eidetic image of the last time light had shone off the dagger—though, last time, it had been marred with blood. He stood up and set the white cloth on the table while his hand clutched the dagger by the handle. Luna stared at him, wide-eyed.
“I think your friend has been locked up long enough,” he replied. “It’s time I take him for a little walk next door.”
She stared at him; next door meant the stone temple.
“You can’t do that,” she whispered.
His smile grew. “You forget, I can do what I want.”
“Why do you have to sacrifice him?” she challenged, her voice louder as she found that she could speak.
“He’s taking up space.” Chance shrugged.
“But you’re the one who brought him here.”
“You’re the one who brought him into the picture in the first place,” Chance retorted.
“So what? He’s never done anything to you,” she said, looking up at him through pleading eyes.
“Yes, he has.” He held the dagger up so it came into view once again.
“Tell me what that would be then,” she demanded, watching the dagger as he swung it back and forth like a pendulum.
“He’s in my way of getting to you,” he said. “With him here, how can I possibly get you to listen to me?”
She opened her mouth to respond but closed it again. What could she say when she didn’t quite understand what he meant? Was he fully aware Max knew his secret?
“I’ll leave you alone to think for a while. I have some business to take care of.” He whistled a jaunty tune, tossing her a half-grin as he crossed the room, dagger in hand, to disappear down the hallway.
Once again, she pulled against the chains, and once again, they didn’t break. If Chance stabbed Max with that dagger it would be game over for him. Max would die tonight. He had kept Luna safe, and she hadn’t done a good job of returning the favor.
She pulled her wrists against the chains as hard as she could. Grunting with the effort, she heaved and panted as pain flooded through her wrists from the force. She observed them, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the pain as red began to soak through the white cloths. She stared at it, feeling her jaw slacken as a nauseous cramp seized her stomach.
A sudden crash sounded from the hallway followed by a loud thump. Luna glanced that way then closed her eyes as she remembered what she had been trying to stop. She heard quick, uneven footsteps approaching and opened her eyes back up in time to see Max—the spiky blond-haired dream version of him—come running out of the hall.
He turned to Luna and dropped to his knees beside her. Max’s brown eyes stared at her from the strange face, and he surveyed the shackles, his eyes growing wider by the second. “Luna, let me help you.”
“No, Max, go now while you still have the chance,” she pleaded. “You won’t have another one.”
“But this might be your only opportunity to get out.” He set his hand to her right shackle as he followed its length to the wall, muttering curses under his breath.
“Chance won’t kill me if I stay here, I’ll be okay. But if he catches you, he’s gonna sacrifice you!” she said, trying to catch his gaze while wishing he would stop arguing.
“Your wrists are bleeding. Luna, you’ll die here! Let me help you out!” he said, flaring his nostrils as he met her gaze. “I won’t go.”
“Why?” Luna asked, wishing he would leave already.
“Because if you die here, it’ll be my fault.”
“Go before you get killed.”
Max didn’t seem keen to argue anymore as he heard the echo of movement from the hall. He stood up, and with one last fleeting glance at Luna, ran through the door without wasting another second.
She heard a louder scuffling and turned to see Chance walking in slowly. His hand pressed lightly against his face, and as she stared at him, he moved it away. Fresh, red blood coated half of his face and covered his hand. Max had gotten in a decent punch as he had escaped his closet prison.
“Felix! Sniper!” Chance yelled out, and instantly, two Rottweilers stood side by side outside the open cabin door, waiting patiently for an order.
“Get him!” Chance snarled, pointing in the direction Max had fled into. “Tear him to pieces!”
The dogs took off running after him, barking and howling in excitement. As she watched the dogs disappear into the forest, she hoped Max would make it someplace out of harm’s way.
Luna focused her attention back on Chance as blood dripped down his face from a cut underneath his eye. He stared back at her, his eyes blazing; he was angry at her for what Max had done. He stalked over to her, and she flinched as she realized he still clutched the dagger in his hand.
He knelt down beside her and set the blade to her knee. She looked away; she could smell the blood on his face. He ripped the white cloths out from her shackles. At his silence, she turned back and followed his gaze. Huge gashes tore through her wrists where the metal had sliced into the skin. Chance blinked, his eyes darting away before he shuffled the cloths to the whitest part and wiped his blood off onto them. He crumpled them up in his hand and looked at her.
“Your friend will pay deeply for what he’s done here tonight,” Chance snarled. “You can tell him to run as far and as fast as he can, but I’ll get him. Just let him know that once this is all over, it’s just gonna be you and me and a world full of corpses.”
Luna stared back at his narrowed blue eyes. They smoldered with his rage, and she realized he meant every single word. Luna tried to speak, but nothing she could
say would be capable of changing his mind—even though it was a dream, Max had been added to his list of victims that were to be exterminated forever.
***
MAX RAN FOR his life, the two huge hounds right behind him. They howled, the sound echoing death as their beady eyes twinkled with their urge to kill. Max kept running. He tried, tried his best to wake himself up. If he couldn’t do it in time, he never would wake up again. He knew that as clearly as he knew the sun would rise again each morning. He kept running, though he tired and lost speed while the dogs stayed unrelenting.
Every stride brought them closer to him, and Max grew desperate. He tried harder and harder to wake up. The forest still surrounded him. Hot pains radiated from his calf when the first dog made contact, its sharp teeth locked into his leg.
With a jolt, he pulled out of the dream and woke back in his own room…and so did the dog. Max screamed and rolled over, kicking at the large beast, desperate to get it to loosen its grip. Its teeth slid out a bit, and it growled as it released his leg to lunge at his throat. With as strong of a force as he could manage, Max kicked the dog in the face.
It went flying backwards from the impact and right through his window. The glass shattered with an ear-splitting crash, and the dog whimpered in pain as piercing stray shards pelted it. Max regarded the animal warily, waiting for its next attack.
When it stood up, it lifted its lip to snarl at him before it turned tail and ran away toward the horizon. Max was left in his room, staring after the dog through his shattered window as his calf gushed blood from the massive dog bite.
***
CHANCE LURCHED OUT of sleep as sunlight hit his face. He groaned at the pain in his neck and sat up. Startled at first, and more than a little confused, he realized he wasn’t in his own room. Then, he recognized the interior of his truck; he hadn’t gone home last night. He had buried Susan’s body in the woods, hidden the empty duffle bag beneath his seat, and been so exhausted that he had fallen asleep in his truck when finished.
He yawned and covered his mouth with his hand and a bit of blood smeared off onto his fingers. He stared at it before punching the steering wheel as memories of his dream flooded back. That kid…that “mystery kid” had hit him clear in the face when he had opened the door and escaped—escaped—from the cabin. No one had ever gotten away from him before!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had a reminder on his face of his failure. He glared at it in his rearview mirror as blood dripped from the cut beneath his eye. He growled in his throat at the ugly wound and pulled Susan’s hair ribbon out of his pocket. He dabbed at the wound with it and cleaned away the blood before cramming the stained ribbon back in his pocket.
He looked at the clean wound on his cheek. He wasn’t happy at all that Luna’s friend had escaped. He would get back at him, he would.
And he had the perfect plan to make it happen.
Chapter Thirty-One
LUNA’S EYES SHOT open, and she stared up at the ceiling, drenched in sweat. The look on Chance’s bloody face as he had snarled his rage at her still burned in her mind. She thought through her dream, to their dire situation. At least Max had escaped Chance’s clutches…though just barely. She hoped he had been able to outsmart Felix and Sniper.
Even if he did escape the dogs, she didn’t have high hopes for him. Chance hated him. Did he want to kill Max so Luna would be clueless of DreamWorld, or did he know she had told Max his secret? She sat in bed for a long while watching images float across her mind.
About an hour later, she sat up. She wiped the sweat from her forehead as she pulled the covers off. She walked over to her single window and moved the blinds to open it. Outside, the sun sat on the horizon line as the rays stretched into the sky. The bright pink color of dawn filled her gaze.
As she peered outside, she noticed a figure cloaked in black who stood unmoving on the grass in her front yard—Chance. He still didn’t move, even when she made eye contact with him. He had a deep gash across his face…in the same place Max had hit him in the dream. The blood had been cleaned away, but judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t happy.
He stared back at her through cold eyes. Holding his chin high, his gaze challenged her. She could tell the wound Max had given him didn’t count as a loss, it counted as a dare to do his best. Her heart fluttered in fear at the sight of him. Images of her dreams flashed through her mind. She swallowed unevenly and pulled the blinds shut as fast as she could, staring at the material clutched in her hand. Here she was, hiding from Chance, when maybe she should be confronting him. Her home was far from the old rundown house he lived in, and she didn’t see his truck anywhere.
He had walked, but why?
She had a moment of self-hatred as she thought of how ridiculous she felt for hiding. This was her house! She had every right to know what he was doing! In one quick movement, she ripped open the blinds, prepared to confront Chance, but he had gone. She glanced up and down the street, and in the distance spotted a black-cloaked figure walking away at a brisk pace. She pulled the blinds open the rest of the way and observed the yard carefully.
Shaking her head to clear it of all thoughts of Chance, she turned and walked across the room. She went to the bathroom, brushed through her jet black hair, and brushed her teeth quickly. She pulled her hair into a tight ponytail before she crept into the living room. Her father wasn’t awake yet, and she frowned at the silence filling the house…it reminded her too much of being in the dream cabin.
Luna picked up the remote from its usual place on the couch and flicked on the television. This early in the morning, there weren’t many good things on so she flipped over to the news for background noise. She went into the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge for the orange juice. After pouring herself a glass, she brought it to her lips.
“Another teen disappearance…” The news anchor’s voice drifted faintly from the living room.
The sip of orange juice stuck in her throat. She forced herself to swallow as she nearly dropped the glass to the floor. She strode into the living room to see the TV. Sitting on the edge of the couch, she stared at the screen, turning up the volume. A brunette sat at the news table and stared back through the TV as she spoke her report.
“Last night, local high school senior Susan Cross was reported missing. She is described as being five-foot-six, brown waist-length hair, emerald green eyes, and a distinguishable heart-shaped birthmark on her arm. If anyone sees her, they are asked to call the police immediately.”
Luna stared at the picture of Susan, her jaw hanging open. Chance had been thorough on his threats it seemed. She thought back a few minutes to when she had seen Chance standing outside her window. He had worn a somber expression.
Was he on his way home from killing Susan?
She shivered again and shut off the TV. She didn’t want to listen to it anymore.
A loud knock distracted her. Instantly, her head snapped toward it, and she stared at the white front door uneasily as her fingers gripped into the couch. It wasn’t even seven in the morning…who could it be?
Is it Chance? a small voice seemed to whisper inside her head.
Answering the door to him could end badly. Luna peered through the peephole but saw no one beyond. She stared at the door, mentally contemplating whether or not to open it.
“Luna, for Christ’s sake, open the door!” She recognized Max’s strained voice on the other side.
Without further hesitation, she unlocked it and pulled it open. Max rushed in and closed it behind him. As fast as he could, he put the lock back into place. He rushed up to her and pulled her into a tight hug, nearly squeezing the breath out of her.
“Thank you, Luna,” he breathed in her ear. “Thank you so much.”
Uncertainly, she reached her arms around him in return. He had never done this before…ever.
Something must be really wrong, she decided.
Finally, he pulled back, and Luna turned her gaze to him. “Max,
are you okay?”
“No, everywhere I go fucking dogs are trying to kill me!” He shook his head back and forth as he paced a few steps into the room.
“What? Why?” she asked, watching his frantic movements as she remembered the twin dream dogs.
“It’s something Chance did,” Max said, pausing for a minute to focus on her. “I barely escaped that dream alive. I mean, look at me.” He pulled his pant leg up to reveal a deep, red, bloody gash on his calf.
Luna gasped, holding a hand over her mouth as she stared at it. Rugged punctures marked the outline of the wound while the middle looked as if it had been skinned. Fresh, red blood welled around it, making it impossible for her to tell exactly how deep the dog had managed to sink its teeth in.
“H…how did you get that?” she finally managed to ask as she swallowed back a sickening wave of nausea.
“One of Chance’s dogs bit me before I woke up,” he said, dropping his pant leg to cover the ghastly mark.
“Did you pull it through?” she asked, knitting her eyebrows together.
Max blinked a few times but didn’t respond right away. “Yeah, of course I did!”
“Max, you need to be careful.” She clenched and unclenched her hand at her side, unsure of what else to do.
“Duh,” he retorted. “Hell’s hounds are following me wherever I go, and all you tell me is to ‘be careful?’ If only I’d thought of that!”
“There’s more to it than just the dogs.”
“What else could there be?” He snorted, putting his hands up into the air like he didn’t think it could get any worse.
“Chance hates you. In the dream, he told me you stood in the way of me and him. That sounds like a threat to me—he’s after your blood,” she said, skin tightening under her eyes as her lips curled downward at the corners.
Max frowned, and all traces of his bitter sarcasm faded. “You’re right, it’s really serious.”
