Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3)

by Samantha Cross

  Priscilla sat on one of the stools and sort of threw her upper body across the counter, which immediately got the waiter’s attention. I had seen him working here countless times but never got his name.

  “What can I get you two?” he asked. I smiled because he probably thought we were a couple.

  “We’re looking for somebody,” Priscilla announced.

  “Not many people in here this time of night. Just spin in a circle, and you’ll have seen everybody.”

  “Yeah, well, if I could see her, I wouldn’t be asking you where she was. We’re wondering if maybe she swung by in the last twenty-four hours. She’s about yea high,” she began, raising her hand to just an inch above the counter, which would make Cora about the size of a large dog. If that. “She’s tiny, reddish-brown hair, talks like a Disney character.”

  The server tilted his head at her. “I don’t know about the talking part, but I did see a girl who I didn’t recognize come waltzing in here a few hours ago. She was all skittish-like.”

  “Skittish?” I asked.

  “She kept her voice real low like. I got the impression she was looking over her shoulder, like she was expecting someone to walk in at any second. I think she was hiding from something.”

  Priscilla and I exchanged glances. I don’t know what was going through her head, but I knew what was going through mine. It was a relief to know she was alive and in the city where we could find her, but the guy’s description didn’t sound too promising. If she was on edge and acting like she was being followed, odds are she was.

  I also couldn’t help but notice how quickly Priscilla clammed up.

  The man scratched the back of his head and very calmly said, “The weirdest thing might be what she ordered.”

  Both of us turned and looked at him. “What’d she order?” I asked.

  “A rare steak. She wanted it super juicy, super bloody, and she had me put it in a to-go bag. I like a rare steak as much as the next guy, but that was all she ordered. It felt like a drug deal,” he added with a laugh.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “It was all so secretive, you know? She kept insisting I make it ASAP and throw it in the bag.”

  I looked at Priscilla again, and at this point, I felt like we were telepathically communicating. We both wondered what any of this even meant. If she was in some kind of danger, why wouldn’t she tell anyone at the restaurant? Why take the time to order a meal and then run off into the night without saying a word? I wondered if the steak was even for her. It almost felt like it was an order for a dog. Or a lycanthrope.

  Did a werewolf take Cora?

  Our worry must have been dripping off our faces, because the man at the diner (whose name I never did catch) swallowed hard and asked, “Your friend’s not in trouble, is she?”

  Before I had a chance to cover it up, Priscilla cut me off. “No, she’s fine. It’s a messy breakup, is all. She got drunk last week and got this really ugly dragon tattoo across her ass, and we have reason to believe she might be on the brink of chopping all her hair off and becoming a Buddhist, so we’re trying to find her. We’re all terrified.”

  Wow. Just wow.

  “My sister-in-law is a Buddhist. She seems pretty happy. It might do your friend some good,” the man said, smiling.

  “Our church wants her to come back. The Church of Latter-day…” I can feel her struggling to remember a religion. Any religion. “...Latter-day Satan,” she finished, and then scrunched her nose like even she was cringing at her horrible lie.

  He didn’t buy it and said, “I hope your friend is okay.”

  “She’ll be fine,” I commented, and then grabbed Priscilla by the hand and pulled her out of the restaurant. She didn’t struggle to remove her hand from mine, which was a good indicator that she was thankful to get out of there.

  As soon as we were outside, I said, “Over four thousand religions in the world and you come up with The Church of Latter-day Satan?”

  “I couldn’t remember the last word, okay?”

  “Saints!”

  “Get off my ass, okay? I’m not one with Jesus the way you are.”

  “You just have to be one with common sense, Priscilla.”

  ‘Fine!” she groaned and waved her hands at me. “Can we get back to the main issue here? Like why the fuck Cora is ordering a bloody steak in the middle of werewolf city at night?”

  I stroked my chin. “Yeah, that’s highly suspicious, I’m not gonna lie.”

  “Highly suspicious? Either someone is forcing her to buy that shit, or she has lost her damn mind.”

  “Lost her mind? Look, it’s a strange scenario that I don’t quite understand yet, but her losing her mind is quite the leap, don’t you think?”

  Priscilla stepped toward me, the snow crunching beneath her big boot. She raised her finger to my face and with a cold breath said, “That girl has been a diehard vegetarian since before I even knew her. Tell me why a vegetarian would be asking a cook to serve her the wettest, juiciest, bloodiest, rawest piece of meat they have?”

  Cora being a vegetarian had completely slipped my mind. Priscilla was right, this was even weirder than I initially thought.

  I remained calm, despite Priscilla’s now nervous edge. “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “We need to get back to Max. He’s gonna lose his shit.”

  Chapter Eight

  PRISCILLA

  I was all ready for this to be quick and easy. I’d hitch a ride with Max, we’d do a little searching for Cora, and then maybe find her having a drink at a bar. She’d tell us a stupid-ass story about how she came down here to save the animals or something as equally nerdy, we’d laugh at Max for worrying too much, and then we’d go back to our boring lives as if nothing ever happened.

  That’s what I prepared for. But after the visit to the diner, I didn’t know what I was expecting anymore.

  Over the past few hours, I had grown used to talking Max down from his overactive imagination about where Cora was, but the second he wasn’t around for me to scoff at for being crazy, I was suddenly relating to his mindset. Her buying the steak shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but I knew this bitch, and this was not her. Not one damn bit.

  Daggett and I walked through the miserable snow back to the gas station. The whole time my cheeks were stinging from the cold air. I hated Michigan weather in general, but the winters here were absolutely criminal with how harsh they were. If I had more than fifty bucks in my bank account, I’d be living on the west coast and relaxing by the beach with a drink in my hand, not suffering in this ass of a town.

  Daggett offered me his coat, and I looked at him like he was insane. It had to be in the twenties and there was snow on the ground, yet he was willing to freeze to death just to be chivalrous. I told him to keep the coat because I couldn’t deal with his death on my conscience.

  When we got back to the gas station, Max’s car was still parked, but he and the werewolf girl weren’t back yet. I whipped out my phone and called Max, but because this place was an entire shithole I got absolutely no service. “Great,” I growled, and then slid my cell back into my coat pocket.

  “What?” Daggett asked as he leaned against the hood of the car. I don’t know if it was the lights above the gas pumps shining on him or what, but I was suddenly aware of how big, blue, and puffy his winter coat was. It was one of those insulated coats with the horizontal lines running across it, and with a long string hanging from the hood. It looked like it was swallowing him, and despite my urge to make fun of it, I managed to resist.

  “I can’t get a signal,” I told him.

  “What?” he shouted. I wandered a few feet away from him to try for better reception, and because of that, he was too far away to hear. He pushed off from the hood and approached me.

  “I can’t get a signal,” I repeated.

  “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t.” Daggett stood in front of me, and it blocked out some of the cold breeze. I felt actual
warmth coming from him. It was kind of nice, no lie. “Cellphone reception here was bad before, but with all the wires being down, I doubt you’ll ever get through to him.”

  “Well, what the fuck do we do now?”

  “We wait. Max and Dana said they’d meet us back here. Just chill.”

  “With how fucking cold it is out here, we’re gonna be doing just that.”

  From behind me, I suddenly heard a rustle in the bushes and what I swore to God was footsteps. I spun around, and with the ice beneath my feet, I almost fell and broke my ass. Thank God Daggett didn’t see. I didn’t need to look like a dumbass.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  Daggett practically threw himself in front of me. “I’ll protect you.”

  I rolled my eyes and shoved him out of the way. “Put your penis away,” I ordered. “I thought someone was coming.”

  “Max, maybe?”

  “I don’t know.” I waited another minute and heard nothing but the freezing wind howling. “Max?” I yelled out. No answer. “Hey, dickwad!” Still nothing.

  “I think you’re just hearing things.” Weird of him to assume I was imagining it over it being an animal.

  I felt too creeped out to stand in the open, so we headed back to the car and leaned against it together. At this point I was just staying close to him so I didn’t fall over and die from hypothermia. I had considered getting my purse from the car and finding a pack of cigarettes to light to keep myself warm, but I was trying to be good about that. Smoking gives you frown lines and yellow teeth, and if I didn’t want to look like an old hag in a few years, I needed to knock it off.

  “She’s gonna be all right,” Daggett said.

  “The fact that you feel the need to say that makes me think you feel otherwise.”

  He stared from the corner of his eye. “I’m just saying. If she’s been running around town doing strange things, odds are whoever is forcing her—if that’s even what’s happening—is keeping her alive for a reason.”

  “Who would even kidnap Cora? What the fuck would they want with someone like her?”

  “Someone like her?” he repeated.

  “Just…innocent.” It was the best adjective I could come up with.

  “It’s the innocent that are the best targets,” Daggett replied. “She could also be being used as leverage. Someone trying to find Brinly or Max and using her as bait.”

  “Are they really that important?” I was skeptical.

  “Max, probably not. Brinly? More than you can even imagine.”

  “Right. She’s a dog princess or some shit like that.”

  Daggett scoffed. “Yeah, something like that.” I got the impression he was laughing at me in his head. I must have been way off for him to be so dismissive.

  “Wouldn’t they get a hold of Max then?” I continued. “What kind of hack kidnapper takes someone and then doesn’t call the family for ransom? Better yet, what kind of kidnapper lets their hostage walk into a restaurant where she could call the cops or ask for help?”

  “You’d be surprised. You know how many news stories talk about people being taken and then going out into public together? If you put the fear of God into someone, they’ll never risk screaming for help, even with their captor standing several feet away.”

  “Well, I call bullshit.” I stomped my foot onto an icy patch on the ground until it shattered. I then kicked the separated pieces away and watched them slide across the pavement. “Cora is such a little shit for doing this to everyone,” I grumbled. “She doesn’t think anything through, I swear to God.”

  Daggett was staring at me again. “You’re worried,” he said, surprised.

  I was offended that he’d think I was so emotional. “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are. Why else would you be so mad?”

  “Because she’s being a dipshit.”

  “You came all the way to Lunar City because you think she’s a dipshit?”

  Now it was me who was wordlessly staring. “I’m hungry and cold. I’m going inside.” I stormed past him and to the gas station door and shocker, he followed me.

  Once we were inside, I headed straight for the snack aisle. My stomach was growling and I needed to stuff my face with something fierce. The whole time Daggett was pretty much breathing down my neck.

  “It’s cute,” he said as he danced around behind me.

  “What is?” I asked, not even turning around to look at him. I wanted him to be talking about my outfit.

  “That you’re worried.” Oh, for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t. Daggett stood beside me and softly said, “I guess you are human after all.” He was teasing me now. I was ready to swat him in the face, but then he smirked, and it was weird. He almost looked attractive.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I said.

  “What, that you’re worried? I won’t.”

  “No, that I’m human.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  He reminded me of Cora. They both had this obnoxious tendency to hyper-focus in on everything I say and try to make it seem deeper than what it really is. They were also both dipshits.

  I grabbed a Monster out of the refrigerator and then a bag of Cheetos, and waltzed over to the counter and threw them down. I had one hand deep into my purse before I realized the cashier wasn’t even there. I did a quick scan of the gas station but didn’t see him anywhere. I groaned. “Hey!” I shouted. “I’ve got shit to buy!”

  “Jeez, you don’t have to yell. He’s probably in the backroom.” Daggett was shushing me. I don’t know why. Must have been his idea of having manners.

  “Customers do this to me all the time, all right? It’s only right that I pay it forward.”

  “Isn’t paying it forward meant to be a positive thing?”

  “I’m giving him money. That is a positive.”

  “Technically you’re giving the company money.”

  “Who pay him biweekly, no?”

  Daggett’s face suddenly twisted in a weird way, with his nose scrunched and his bottom lip tucked into his mouth. For a second, I thought he was going to barf. “You smell that?” he asked.

  I inhaled. The whole place smelled like dirty toilet water. “Smells like a shithole,” I replied.

  “No, it’s—” He balled up his fist and pressed it to his mouth. “Oh God, you don’t smell that?”

  The fact that he could and I couldn’t started to make me think it was me. I had half a mind to check my pits. “They probably haven’t cleaned this place in weeks,” I griped.

  “It’s not a dirty smell, exactly, it’s…it’s coming from the bathroom.”

  To our right was a cream-colored door with a rusty knob, and a unisex blue sign nailed at the top. Just from the exterior of the room I could tell it was the kind of bathroom truckers fucked prostitutes in. And Daggett was actually walking toward it like he was going to go inside.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake don’t look in there,” I told him.

  “I need to check it out.”

  “Check what out? You’re smelling something rank and it’s coming from a bathroom. It doesn’t take fucking Sherlock Holmes to figure out what the cause is.” I shook my head. “The cashier had one of those chronic diarrhea faces.”

  Daggett pressed his ear to the door and said, “It’s not crap I’m smelling.”

  “Is it drugs? I could see this place pushing some seedy stuff behind the scenes.”

  Daggett ignored me and tapped his knuckles against the door in a weak attempt at knocking. I moaned. “Eww, don’t bother him.” I really had no interest in this nasty cashier rushing to pull his pants up over his shitty ass just so he could run out and put his hands all over my Cheetos.

  Just as I thought Daggett was going to give up knocking on the door, the weirdo actually put his hand on the germ-infested doorknob and began to twist it. I was sure he’d be locked out, but after one jiggle the door popped open. I threw my hands up, ready to protect myself from a view of the dude’s underwear around his
ankles and his bare hairy knees.

  Daggett pulled back the door and something heavy thrusted against it, forcing it to burst wide open. I flinched and covered my face, but through my fingers I could see an object as big as a person had fallen to the floor in front of us.

  My eyes drifted downwards and I screamed. It wasn’t something as big as a person, it was an actual fucking person, dead and oozing blood all over the linoleum. I stepped backward, still shrieking, and I collided into the chip and Combos stand.

  Nearly gagging, Daggett said, “That’s what I smelled.”

  Chapter Nine

  MAX

  We’d been out in the snowy forest for a good fifteen minutes, maybe even longer, and I felt no closer to finding Cora than I did when we left the gas station. Worse yet, it would be getting dark soon because of the winter season, which would make finding her on sight even more difficult. I could feel the frustration brewing inside of me, and I had to stop several times on our walk to catch my breath. Just so I wouldn’t lose it. But, God, the doubt that we’d never find her was taking over.

  In the thick of my worries, Dana knelt down to the musty forest ground, touched the soil with her fingertips, raised them to her nose, and inhaled deeply. “What is it?” I asked. “You onto something?”

  “It’s faint, but I think she was here,” she replied.

  I should have been relieved at her words, but they didn’t necessarily mean much. After all, Cora had been at the church too, and we still didn’t know where she was. I wondered why she was all over the city like this and, more importantly, why her scent was so weak even Dana was struggling to find her.

  She shook her head and said, “Dang.”

  “What?” I tried to keep my voice steady even though I was squirming inside.

  “I keep losing her,” she said. “It’s like I get a whiff of something, and then the wind blows it away. This is insane.”