Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3)

by Samantha Cross

  “I—”

  “Don’t play dumb. Where’s your little group? I know you’re not here alone.”

  She was so close to me that every time she opened her mouth, I saw two little sharp fangs smacking against the bottom row of her teeth. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at them and said, “Molly, I swear I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  She went silent and a smirk crept in from the corner of her mouth. The blood on her lips had dried and was now flaking off, and she grazed her tongue across them for a taste. “Okay,” she said. “If you don’t want to tell me where they are, that’s fine. We’ll just have to get them out of hiding.” Her hand violently grabbed me by the back of my neck and forced my face within inches of hers. “I’m gonna need you to turn into a puppy for a minute, okay?”

  My lips parted to speak, but I was instantly cut off by a searing pain running up and down my abdomen. Suddenly my joints locked up and my body folded backward and snapped at the waist. My flesh was on fire and my heart pumped so fast that my vision went blurry. Oh, God…this pain…I knew this pain. I was shifting.

  But it wasn’t a full moon.

  Molly did this. Somehow, she did this.

  I wiggled like a worm on a fishing hook, trying to stand up straight and doing my best to fight against the changes my body was unnaturally going through. I was screaming, spitting, falling to my knees and crying. My body was like a duffle bag being unzipped in one swift jerking motion, with my skin being torn down the center and oozing with blood. Every turn was unbearable, but this felt different. I had no time to prepare, to ease into it. I felt like I was being torn apart.

  As I rolled around in the snow shedding my human form, I saw Molly, Tiffany, and Veronica standing over me and watching. Then, Molly smiled.

  Chapter Eleven

  PRISCILLA

  It may have been freezing cold outside, but I still left the door half open as I stood next to it. Max told me not to sit outside by myself, which I begrudgingly agreed to only because I didn’t want to get axed by a serial killer. But chilling in the store with a gushing dead body wasn’t really my jam either.

  I felt like blowing chunks again, yet Max and Daggett were content standing over the body inspecting it like some knock-off version of Holmes and Watson. I don’t know what the fuck they thought they were accomplishing. None of us were CSI or even cops. Hell, we were probably making it worse by getting so close to the dead guy. TV tells you that you should never touch or contaminate a crime scene.

  “Are we gonna get the hell out of here or what?” I complained.

  Max only briefly looked over his shoulder at me and then returned to talking to Daggett. Wonderful.

  I continued bitching them out, but all they did was ignore me. That is until a very loud, wailing animal sound screamed from somewhere down the road. If I didn’t have the door open I probably wouldn’t have heard it. Both Daggett and Max stopped everything they were doing and rose to their feet. They must have been using their little werewolf ears to listen more carefully because they both had dumb, scrunched up expressions on their faces.

  It took me a second before my brain registered that this probably wasn’t just some horny dog screaming in someone’s backyard. This was a long, deep-throated howl.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck…it was a fucking werewolf, wasn’t it?

  Max stared passed me and into the darkness of the gas station parking lot. “Get inside and hide,” he instructed.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere near that dead body, but I figured if my ass stayed out in the open like this, I was probably about to be a dead body too. I shut the entire fuck up and jumped into the gas station, locking it behind me. Max almost chuckled. “Locking that door isn’t gonna do you any good,” he told me.

  “It makes me feel better, all right?” I barked.

  “Max, Jesus, what about Dana?” Daggett said. He actually sounded worried. Wasn’t she a werewolf too? How much danger could she really be in?

  “We’ll get her, don’t worry,” Max assured. “You guys stay here and hide out while I take care of this.”

  “Wait, you’re leaving? Again?” I furiously asked. “Us constantly splitting up is what got us into this position.” I could practically hear Daggett’s hard-on growing, because I was talking just like him now.

  Max groaned. “We don’t know how many wolves could be out there, and if she runs into a pack, she’s dead. It’s not smart for you to be out there with me, so stay here where it’s safe.”

  “Safe?” I had to laugh. “There’s a dude decomposing in the bathroom as we speak. Nothing about this screams safe, all right?”

  “Whoever killed that guy hit this place already. They’re not going to come back, which actually makes this place more secure than anywhere else. Just sit tight and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  He didn’t give us any time to argue before he jetted out of the store, running so fast he practically vanished into the cold darkness.

  Daggett hit the lights, putting us in darkness. He walked up beside me and softly said, “It’s just us again.” He didn’t sound scared, he sounded like he was popping wood.

  I moaned and sighed. “Can the werewolf just kill me now?”

  “Oh, come on. You and I were getting along just fine.”

  “You do realize the last guy to drool all over me the way you are right now ended up having his decapitated head flung in my direction, right?”

  Daggett shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”

  “Gross.”

  He started laughing and lightly shoved my shoulder. “Come on, lighten up.”

  “Lighten up? We’re both probably gonna die tonight. You are aware of this, right?”

  “You survived Rookridge, I survived Lunar City. I think that makes our odds of surviving this pretty high.”

  “Did you actually play a hand in making it through the night, though? Or did you just get lucky because Max and Cora were there?” I hated to admit it, but that’s probably the only reason I didn’t get eaten in Rookridge.

  That playful demeanor Daggett had sort of fizzled and his lips drooped into a frown. He walked a few steps away, found a milk crate, and sat down on it. “Cora saved my life,” he began. “She found me with a bullet lodged in my body, and I’d be dead if she hadn’t gotten me help. But I was willing to die that night if I had to. My best friend was killed right in front of me, and if I had stood there and didn’t fight, I’d never be able to live with myself.”

  I wasn’t expecting this to get so heavy. I walked closer and leaned against the refrigerators with the milk inside. “Your best friend was killed?”

  He nodded. “Kerry was his name. We met at Aga’s compound a couple of years back.” Before I could ask who Aga was, he said, “Aga was Brinly’s grandpa. He ran the place before he was murdered by Paul.” Cora had probably told me about him, but she has a habit of rambling and I tend to tune her out.

  Daggett exhaled deeply. “Kerry and I were supposed to go someplace safe since it was a full moon, but all hell broke loose and we tried our best to help. It was the first time I could feel myself actually making decisions when I was in my other form. It was the same with Kerry too.” Daggett dropped his head low and shook it. “I don’t know how I was able to live through my injuries, but he couldn’t.”

  “Life’s a bitch like that. Someone could get shot five times and be fine, and other people could drink too much cough medicine and slip into a coma. None of it makes sense.”

  “Such is life, right?”

  “You’re not, like, feeling guilty, are you?”

  “About what? That if I hadn’t decided to play hero, my best friend may not have been shot to death?” I was usually a fan of sarcasm, but I didn’t like it used this way. This was just depressing.

  “At least you did something. You’d probably feel a lot more guilt if, as you said, you just stood by and did nothing.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I
t’s not like you’re the one that killed him.”

  “I know that. I just often wonder why I was the one that lived and not him.”

  I breathed in deeply. “If I tell you something, will you promise to keep your mouth shut?”

  “Okay.”

  I slid another milk crate across the floor toward him and then plopped down on it. “The guy whose head was thrown at me at the party? After he died, I spent a year or more writing back and forth letters with his mom.”

  Daggett’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I felt bad. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a bitch.”

  “No, no, I haven’t noticed at all,” he said plainly, trying not to smile.

  “I was so mean to him, and when he died, it happened so quick I didn’t really think about it. Until the next week, when I went back to work. I had to clean out his locker and send his belongings back to his family. There were all these photos of his sisters and his mom. There was even a half-eaten sandwich. It was just so fucking depressing. I treated him like shit because he annoyed me, but he was a real person with a real life.” I looked over at Daggett, and he was listening to me so intensely I had to look away. I cleared my throat. “Point is, I kind of know about the guilt you’re feeling. Henry actually had a family that love and miss him, yet it was an asshole like me that lived instead.”

  “You have people that care about you too.”

  “I have people who put up with me.”

  “They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t care.”

  I cackled. “I put up with people I hate all the time.”

  Now he was laughing. “I really doubt you put up with anyone, Priscilla. You speak your mind way too much for that.”

  “You’d be surprised at how often I bite my tongue.”

  He grit his teeth while shaking his head and said, “I’d hate to think about what you consider too vulgar to say.”

  I rolled my eyes and loudly scoffed. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Hopefully it’s nothing too bad about me.”

  “No,” I admitted. “You’re fine. For now.”

  Daggett smiled. I never noticed until then that he had these big, girly lips and super white teeth. Or maybe his skin was just so tan they looked extra white. Eh…okay, the dumbass was kind of cute. There, I said it.

  I opened my mouth to speak, and instantly Daggett lunged toward me, putting both of his hands over my mouth so hard we fell off of the milk crates and crashed onto the nasty-ass floor. The kind of floor that probably had roaches crawling over it and random liquids with human cells in them. I was ready to fight him off, but he shushed me and whispered into my ear, “Something’s coming.”

  I don’t think I’d ever gone so quiet in my life. I didn’t want to fucking die.

  Daggett peeled his hand off of my mouth and crawled to his knees. I could see my red lipstick smeared all over his palm, and figured my mouth now looked the same. Though, I figured if I was gonna die, I’d be covered head-to-toe in red anyway, so what did it matter?

  He peeked through the gaps in the display cases with the chips as I laid on the floor, wondering if I should join him or play dead. The whole time I was cursing Max out in my head. He said we’d be safe here, that the killer wouldn’t return to the site of the kill, yet I was lying on a porcelain floor that smelled like piss, hoping whatever was outside wouldn’t notice me. Ugh, men are such liars.

  I decided to get on my knees and hunch next to Daggett. Because we were in the dark, we only had the one singular lamp by the gas pumps outside for us to see. I could see Max’s parked car and the pavement, but that was all. I was gonna ask Daggett if he was sure that something was coming, but he was the one with the animal senses, not me, and I guess I was just gonna have to trust him.

  “What’s coming?” I whispered.

  He stared outside for a minute and then leaned close to my side, his eyes still on the window. “A werewolf. I can smell it. It’s lurking around outside somewhere.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “Don’t panic. We’re gonna be all right.”

  “How?” I asked. Daggett looked at me but had nothing to say. “We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

  “No, we’re not. It might get scared off when Max comes back.”

  “He’s been gone, like, five minutes. He’s not gonna get here anytime soon.” Daggett’s tan face went white and I regretted ever saying anything. I knew we were fucked.

  There was a loud bang that sounded like something was throwing its weight against the brick wall of the building. My hands were shaking as I placed them over my mouth to keep quiet. Under my breath, I said, “I can’t believe I’m gonna die in the chip aisle.”

  “We’re not gonna die,” he weakly and quietly assured me.

  “I work in a dumpster fire just like this one and now I’m gonna die in it. This is probably karma for me laughing at that old lady with the spoon.”

  “Huh?”

  I dismissively waved my hand. “It’s a long story.”

  “If we make it out of here, you can tell me all about it.”

  “That’s cute how you think we have a shot,” I said sarcastically. Why were we talking? That thing could probably hear us. Though, I think it knew we were in here already.

  Daggett could see that I was shaking, and he took my quivering hand into his. I didn’t pull away, because I was sure this was the last moment I was ever going to have. A little comfort couldn’t hurt. If there weren’t a block of ice around my heart I may have even found the gesture cute.

  BAM.

  It happened so quick, so loudly. The glass windows didn’t just get broken, they were shattered, and a million shards of glass came flying over the display cases and landing in my hair. The light from outside was blocked because something was standing in the path of it. Something that could throw its body through a window and not even stumble.

  A high-pitched howl ensued a few feet away from us. Jesus Christ! With it this close, it sounded absolutely monstrous. My eardrums rattled inside my head and I felt dizzy. There was a weight to this thing’s vocal cords, because the candy bars were vibrating and bouncing out of their boxes and then falling to the floor.

  I thought I was going to throw up again. I was too terrified to even peek to see what this thing looked like. Rookridge was enough. I didn’t want to experience that again. If it was going to kill me, it was gonna have to do it with my eyes closed.

  A hand grabbed me by the arm and before I could shriek, Daggett put his hand over my mouth again. He gestured for me to follow him, and I watched as he got on all fours and crawled low to the ground, just below the display cases and out of the view of the werewolf. I didn’t know what else to do so I went along with his plan. But what the fuck was his plan? This monster was standing at the doorway, and we were stuck in here with it.

  We got to the end of one aisle and sat. Against the wall, I could see the blackness of the werewolf’s shadow slowly taking over. It was standing on its hind legs and it was massive. Fucking massive. Completely freaked out, I accidentally let out a tremble. Daggett whipped his head in my direction, his glossy eyes now the size of tires, and I knew I fucked up.

  The end of the display case suddenly slid out from behind me and the entire thing was lifted into the air. We skidded across the floor with our asses in an attempt to run and get to our feet, but it was like we were in slow motion. I turned and saw the beast. It felt six foot, seven foot, I don’t even fucking know, and it was holding the entire row of chips and candy bars in its hands, as if it were as light as a beach ball. It was brown with a white stripe going down its face, and the ugliest, most fucked up yellow eyes I had ever seen.

  This wasn’t a wolf. This was some kind of demon. Its mouth hung wide open with a row of pointed teeth covered in dripping saliva. It wanted to eat us.

  We were about to die. I knew it.

  Just as we got to our feet, Daggett threw himself in front of me and yelled, “Run!”
/>
  “Have you lost your mind?!”

  “Go! Now!”

  I wasn’t about to hesitate and play selfless hero. I ran as quickly as my legs would let me, literally leaping through the busted open window and sliding across the shards that had spread all over the pavement. I could hear Daggett screaming from behind me. He was in pain. He was dying.

  The only place I knew to go was the car. I ran, ran, ran until I was wheezing and could barely keep going. I picked the wrong day to take up smoking again.

  I hopped into the driver’s seat and locked all the doors. I frantically searched for the keys on the dashboard, behind the visor, under the seat, but I couldn’t find them. “You gotta be fucking kidding me. Really, Max?!”

  The werewolf jumped through the opening in the store, stood on its hind legs again and howled so loudly the car shook. It knew I was here. “Shit, shit, shit…why didn’t I learn to hotwire a car?” My hands were roaming all over the seats for the keys. Fuck, I’d take finding a pointy object if I could use it to get this thing started.

  The entire car shook and I looked over at the passenger seat and screamed. The werewolf’s yellow eyes and matted fur was looking directly through the window and at me. It’s like it knew me. Then it threw itself against the car one more time, and the vehicle nearly toppled over. I kept screaming in hopes that someone would come and put a stop to this, but after a while, I figured I was screaming to no one.

  Its fist broke through the glass and reached for me. The claws were long and white with yellow tips, and the arms were covered in all this long lightish brown hair. It scratched my shoulder in one quick swoop, and I yelped. It didn’t get me deep, but it was stinging like a motherfucker already.

  And then there was a dark flash of something, and it charged the werewolf so hard that its arm was yanked out of the car and its entire body was thrown. I peeked over the dashboard to see what was going on and, holy shit, it was another werewolf. They were rolling around on the pavement fighting, and after a few seconds, they took off behind the gas station.

  I sunk into the driver’s seat and tried to catch my breath. “Fuck my life.”