I folded my arms and gave a shrug. "Usually when a woman goes M.I.A, it's because the boyfriend did something to piss her off. You know, take off for a few days to make him sweat it out, teach him a lesson."
"This might come as a shock to you, Priscilla, but not all of us infuriate people by our mere existence."
I cocked an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
He threw his head back and twisted his jaw. "I don't even know why I'm here. You're about as useful as a broken condom."
"Good one. Your dad use that line on your mom?"
"No, but he used it on yours."
"If you think that's gonna bother me, know that my mom is a dirty bitch," I said with a pointed finger.
If I thought Max looked hot before by how irritated he was, he was practically oozing sex right now. "I'm really fucking glad we're trading mom jokes while Cora is missing. You're a real stand-up kind of best friend."
I scoffed. "I'm not Cora's best friend."
"Yeah, all right," he said and began walking away.
Wait, was he for real? I made fun of her all the time. She was like this annoying little troll with her corny jokes and her blind optimism like the world wasn't shit. We were nothing alike. How the hell could I be her best friend? I mean, I liked her and we got along...you know what, nevermind.
"Wait," I called out to Max. The second I saw him stop midstep, I slammed my eyes shut, cringing at myself for ever calling out to a man like that. A man I wasn't even trying to sleep with. He turned back and looked at me, and I said, "Do you really think she's missing?"
"This isn't like her. She doesn't do this, especially with everything we've been through. She was acting weird all night, and now this...something's not right."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing." He didn't trust me to help, or didn't trust that I cared. I'm not sure which was more offensive. It's not like I'm a complete piece of shit.
"Seriously, Max, just tell me what to do."
"Priscilla, if I had a goddamn clue of what to do, I wouldn't be standing at your door right now."
"I guess I deserve that."
"You know what I mean."
I could tell he was frustrated, and he looked exhausted like he had been running around town all night looking for her. I wasn't really the type to worry or give a shit, but neither was Max, and him being this way kind of weirded me out. Was she really missing? People like Cora don't go missing. Every crime show has the family talking about what a joyful, funny, happy, innocent person they are and...oh shit, she was that kind of person. Fuck.
"Did you try Wendy's?" I asked.
"That's my next stop. Can't exactly go over to her house at 7 a.m, though."
Shit, it was that early in the morning? No wonder I was exhausted. I usually wake up around noon.
"She's an old lady, she probably went to bed at 7:30. I'm sure she's awake by now," I told him.
"Her granddaughter was buried a few months ago, I don't think I need to be barging in there making her think her other one has been kidnapped. No, I'm just gonna go back to her apartment and wait for her there, see if I missed a note or something."
"I'll come with you."
"Why?"
I had no answer. "You gonna turn down my help?"
"Fine, put your coat on. But I'm not waiting for you to throw some makeup on."
"Like I would do that," I said with an eye roll, and then internally died at the idea I could be out in public without my eyeliner.
Lucky for me, I kept a stash on the kitchen table and swiped one as I grabbed my coat and followed Max out the door. He had a full-blown bitch fit in the car because I was doing my makeup while he was driving in the seat next to me. "Cora could be missing, and you're putting your fucking eye makeup on?" he bitched.
"Excuse me, but this is no fun for me either. You're driving like a maniac and hitting every pothole, I'm about to have eyeliner on my damn earlobe."
“First world problems, huh,” he said coldly.
“Christ, and here I thought I wasn’t a morning person…” I completed my daily look. This cranky fucker was not about to have me looking like a mess just because he was one.
We got to Cora’s apartment a couple of minutes later. Normally I’d be down for snooping through someone’s place and their belongings, but Cora was pretty boring, and all I expected to find was a stash of vegan porn and 10-ways-to-show-your-cat-you-love-them books. That’s if she was even really missing because, let’s be real, these people are dramatic as fuck. She probably went to buy some plants to eat or something and lost track of time. That was just like her.
I was wrong, though. The apartment was, in fact, empty.
Max tore through that place like a madman, ripping open cupboards, drawers, and closets. I don’t know what the hell he was looking for. “You missed the toaster,” I said, pointing. “She might be in there.”
“Shut up,” he snapped as he ran past me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s considered a red flag when your boyfriend breaks into your apartment just because you didn’t return his calls after a few hours.”
“Knock it off. You know this is different. You wouldn’t be here if you thought otherwise.”
“Max, if she’s missing, you call the cops. Simple as that.”
“I’m ruling a few things out first.”
I cackled. “What, ghosts? You think a poltergeist took her?” In between going through her things, he glanced up at me, no words. Ha, I wasn’t too far off.
Oh, wait, he probably meant werewolves.
“Why would something not human go after her?” I asked.
“A lot went down over the summer, we have no idea who has an axe to grind or if someone would want to take her. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”
True. Cora’s dipshit self was always getting in trouble.
We went into her room, and right away Max said, “Shit.”
“What?”
Beside her bed, he knelt down and picked up a cell phone. He raised and waved it back and forth. “Now what person takes off in the middle of the night without their phone?” he quizzed.
“A forgetful clutz like Cora.”
Max shook his head. “No. Something’s going on.”
From the bed, he found her sweater and quickly picked it up, shoving it into his face and inhaling deeply. I side-eyed him for acting like a pervert. "Yeah, that's not creepy or anything."
Max lowered the sweater and rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to track her scent."
"Oh, that's right, you can do that. Why didn't you try that hours ago?"
"I did. I'm trying again."
"Not a very good tracker, are you?"
There was a dumb, sad look on his face like he took my comment to heart. "Maybe not..." Why did he sound so goddamn miserable? “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Max's eyes stayed on the sweater in his hands. He clutched it like it was a five-carat diamond. Very softly, he added, "You can't track the dead."
I waited for him to crack a joke or tell me this was all a prank, and when he didn’t, I instead nervously laughed. "Oh, come on, Max. You're not really going to stand here and act like she's dead, are you? If something happened to her, there'd be some kind of sign of struggle. Her shit would be knocked all over the place."
"Unless she was taken outside the apartment at gunpoint."
I refused to believe whatever was going on was as serious as this. “Use your little snout again,” I ordered him.
“I already did.”
“Then you’re not trying hard enough. And wait a second, dogs can totally track the dead. How else do they find bodies at crime scenes?”
“I’m not a damn dog, Priscilla.”
“Dog, werewolf, same difference. If there was a dead body, you could smell it.”
“I’m not saying I can’t smell a dead body when it’s in the room with me. I’m saying a dead body isn’t leaving a moving trail for me to follow.”
“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to keep up with what werewolves can do?”
“Easy. You don’t!” He threw the sweater down on the bed and stormed out of the room, and I sat back, aghast. The ass didn’t need to take it out on me.
By the time I got to the living room, Max was already trying to leave through the front door. It’s when I noticed Cora’s answering machine was flashing. “Did you check her messages?” I asked. Then I had to wonder who even has a landline anymore. Cora was such an old lady.
He hit the button, and the messages began to play. “I can tell you right now at least three of them are from me,” he said.
But the first message wasn’t him, it was a woman. It sounded like some chick with asthma having a mental breakdown, asking for Cora to meet her in Lunar City, and then it cut off abruptly. “I guess we know where she is,” I said.
Max said nothing at first and kept staring at the answering machine. I could tell he was letting the message sink in. “This is…not good,” he said calmly.
I laughed. “Not good? You know where she is now.”
“Someone calls her in the middle of the night trying to lure her to an abandoned city where werewolves lived, and you think this is good?”
“Well, Jesus, when you put it that way, I guess not,” I groaned. And people say I’m the negative one. “You gonna call the cops or what?”
“No, but I do have a plan. I’m gonna drop you back off at your place.”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t get involved in this.”
“Hey, I said I was gonna help, so I’m gonna help.”
“Really,” he said, his head cocked to the side. That didn’t sound like a question, but an awful lot like doubt. “You’re suddenly so eager to help? Out of nowhere?”
“Would you shut up and take my help?”
“Fine,” he replied as if it were actually painful. What a guy. “I have to make a stop first, but you can’t come. So in the meantime, you’re gonna have to wait for me.”
“Great. Awesome. I love waiting for men.”
“Oh, I knew you would,” he said so sarcastically, I almost punched him in the nose.
“So what am I gonna be doing while you’re on your stupid secret mission?”
I wish I hadn’t asked.
An hour later, he was dropping me off in front of her house. This huge ass home with a thousand snow-covered lilac bushes in the front yard, and dozens of wind chimes hanging and spinning from trees, making so much noise I thought I was having flashbacks from the war. The driveway was long and steep, so I knew I was gonna fall and break my ass from all the ice.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Max told me, and then rolled his window back up and sped down the road. I bet myself fifty bucks he wouldn’t come back.
The front door to the house screeched open, and there stood Wendy, wearing a dumb sideways baseball cap and an oversized sweater. She waved with one hand and yelled, “Hey, homegirl!”
Kill me now.
Chapter Four
MAX
I tried to keep it together as I drove down the empty road as fast as I could, but I was doing a pretty shitty job. That phone call replayed in my mind over and over again on a loop, and I knew I needed to record it and show them. You don’t get a mysterious call from Lunar City without it meaning something.
Goddamnit, I was so pissed at Cora. Why wouldn’t she call me? Why wouldn’t she just tell me, or anyone, where she was going? God, that girl drove me nuts sometimes. She’s like a magnet for danger, and was somehow still unaware of it.
I saw the street sign and exhaled. In a few minutes, I’d be talking to Brinly and Lincoln at their new compound. After the shitshow that was Paul and his crew, Lunar City wasn’t a habitable place for our kind anymore. Too much damage, too much blood spilled, and with all the attention that city got, we didn’t have the anonymity anymore either. They were basically forced into moving locations.
It was early in the morning for my visit, but if I knew them as well as I thought I did, I knew they’d be awake. They rose when the sun did.
The new compound wasn’t as large or luxurious as their old one, but it was gated and protected just as well, only on a lower budget. I knocked on the front door three times then five (our old code), and immediately the door popped open. The servant at the door wasn’t even able to get a word out before I said, “I need Brinly. Now.”
I was brought before Brinly mere moments later. It was surreal to see her seated in a chair that had once been Aga’s, with her floral dress draped over the arms and her hair braided up high on the crown of her head. She looked like a proper queen. I was tempted to bow, but she didn’t let me.
There was no time for catching up when I walked in. “Someone’s taken Cora,” I announced.
Her eyebrows raised. “Max, what happened?”
“The apartment’s empty, her phone left behind, her car gone, and then there’s this…” I played them the message left on Cora’s answering machine. I recorded it using my phone because I knew anything I said wouldn’t be as effective as hearing it for themselves.
“Lunar City?” Lincoln asked. He stood beside Brinly’s throne. “Lunar City’s abandoned. From what I’ve heard, it’s nothing but the homeless and hippies.”
“This ain’t no damn hippie,” I replied.
I suddenly detected at least two people in the compound eavesdropping on us. I could smell them, so I knew they were close. Probably hiding behind the edges of the room, which were covered in long, red drapes.
“Before we go down this route, is there anyone Cora has been having issues with? An old friend? A bitter coworker?” Brinly asked.
“Come on, Brin, you know her. No.”
Her face fell, and then she nodded. “So you think it’s someone from our world.”
“Who else would want to get her to go to Lunar City?”
“You have any idea of who was calling her? Does the voice sound familiar?”
I shrugged. “Not to me. They don’t say enough.”
“The woman mentioned something about Cora leaving her behind. Who could she have left behind?”
I shrugged again. “No one. Everyone there either died or are here.”
“It can’t be no one. Whoever this is knew Cora was here a few months ago and is using it to trick her. Did she ever bring up meeting someone at a bar? We went out countless times.”
“Brinly, she hung out with you, with Melanie and with me. That’s about it. She wasn’t making friends with people at a bar, this is why this makes no sense.”
“How far did you track her?”
“To the parking lot. I can only guess I went to where her car was.” Her bright yellow, obnoxious looking car. I never thought I’d miss the sight of it. I held my head down low and sighed. “I don’t get it. No matter if she was killed, kidnapped, or if she left willingly, I should have been able to get a scent.”
“Your tracking skills need work is all, Max. You’re still new, but you’ll get there.”
“It’s true,” a voice added. “The cold isn’t helping matters either.” Out of nowhere, Daggett popped in, cleaning the lens of his glasses with the edge of his t-shirt. I sensed only one other person was watching us now. “Our ability to track scents drops during the cold,” he explained. “Odor molecules move much slower in the winter than they do in the summer, it’s why you’re only getting a faint scent. For a more experienced tracker, it’s not an issue, but you’re…” He hesitated, like he thought I was gonna drop him on his head. “...less seasoned?”
I nodded, slightly irritated. “Right.”
Daggett threw his hands up. “Sorry about Cora, by the way. She’s a sweet girl, a real gem. She carried my naked body through the city and didn’t crack a single joke, so I know she’s good people.”
Was I missing something? Did I need to kick his ass?
“What’s the plan?” Lincoln asked.
I looked back at him and shrugged. “I
gotta go to Lunar City and see if she’s there, or who has her.”
“That’s not safe, bro. You go chasing after Cora like this, and you’re going to be walking into the same trap they set up for her.”
“I know, that’s why I’m here. I was hoping for some backup.”
Brinly and Lincoln exchanged looks, and it didn’t take a genius to know that wasn’t a good sign.
“I can’t come with you,” she proclaimed.
That blew me away. “Why not?”
“Her life is more valuable than anyone in our pack,” Lincoln replied. “She’s our queen now, and we can’t expose her to any level of danger. Even for you.”
“It’s not just that, it’s…” Brinly seemed apprehensive, but Lincoln gave her a quick nod, which seemed to confirm something she was already thinking. She set both of her hands on the arms of the throne and pushed off, slowly rising from her seat. Her huge dress fell to her sides and tightened at her stomach, right over a small, but extremely noticeable bump. “We’re expecting,” she announced.
I wasn’t anticipating that. Guess that explains the big dress.
“Oh,” was all I said at first. That wasn’t much of a congrats on my part, but I was never any good at that anyway.
“I love Cora,” Brinly said. “Maybe not as much as you do, but I do love her, and the idea that she’s in danger makes me sick to my stomach. If I was in a position to help, I would in a heartbeat. I feel like I owe so much to both of you.”
“You don’t. And I get it, what you’ve got going on here is important.”
“We still want to help,” Lincoln said. “Because of tradition, I’m unable to leave her side, but we have plenty of people here that could tag along. All you have to do is say the word.”
“Maybe I should do this on my own.”
“Not a good idea,” Daggett said. “The odds aren’t in your favor.”
“How could you possibly know the odds already?”
“You’re one man—albeit a very tall man—but going to their playground all by your lonesome puts you at a very large disadvantage. You’re worm food.”
Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3) Page 3
