Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3)

by Samantha Cross

  I was still in pain and sitting on the floor, but managed to squeeze out a chuckle. “You’re really going to stand there, with a straight face, and say you never thought you’d be disposing of a dead body one day? I personally feel like it’s quite on brand for you.”

  She put her hands on her hips and inhaled slowly. “Yeah, but somehow reality isn’t as sweet as my fantasies.”

  We were really joking about covering up a dead girl. Boy, life sure comes at you fast.

  I crawled off the floor, stood up, and winced. The cuts and blood from my arms had worried everyone else, but it was my back that was killing me. My entire body felt stiff. “I move like my grandma,” I groaned.

  “You look like your grandma.”

  “I’m talking about my other grandma. You don’t know her.”

  “You have a grandma besides Wendy?”

  “I do have a whole family on my mother’s side, you know.”

  Priscilla’s eyebrow raised. “Wait, Wendy is your dad’s mom?”

  I tilted my head at her. “Do you ever pay attention?”

  “You act like I’m supposed to remember your family’s entire genealogy. Excuse me for having more pressing matters to think about.”

  “Pressing matters,” I mockingly repeated with a long giggle. “You out here fighting crime when I’m not looking?”

  “You say that like it’s so far off. I did come all the way to werewolf mountain, or whatever the fuck the city is called, to save your demented ass.”

  “Or did you come because Daggett is here?”

  She stared at me like I had lost my mind. “What in the blue hell are you talking about? Have you been smoking crack again?”

  “I don’t know, you guys seemed awfully comfortable when you showed up here,” I said with a shrug.

  “You’re seeing things. We said maybe two things to each other since we got here. Not all women are trembling horn dogs ready to be mounted the second a guy says one thing to them.”

  I scoffed. “You literally just described yourself.”

  “Okay, fine, but not with him. He’s needy and nerdy and probably has a scab collection.”

  “The lady doth protest too much.”

  “Is that some Lord Of The Rings bullshit or something?”

  “Try Shakespeare.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  I exhaled. “I don’t know, there’s a vibe going on with you two, Priscilla. I could feel it in my bones.”

  “You ought to get that checked out. Could be cancerous.”

  I was in the middle of replying to her when the front door was practically broken down, and Max and Daggett came running in. They were covered in sweat, snow, and their clothes looked disheveled and thrown on in a hurry. Max was in a panic and checking around the room, but once he saw me, he settled down a tad and seemed relieved. “Oh, shit, thank God.”

  “What happened?” Priscilla asked. “You two look like you’ve been humping in the woods.”

  “We gotta get out of here. Quick,” Max said. I hated the tone of his voice. It was panicked, and Max wasn’t one to easily panic, so I knew something bad was heading our way.

  “Priscilla, get the girls,” I ordered.

  Priscilla did as I asked, and as she passed the three of us, I heard her under her breath say, “Hi butthead,” to Daggett. Daggett did his best not to smirk but failed.

  “What’s going on?” I inquired quietly.

  “Molly and one of the other girls jumped us. I was able to fight Molly off, but who knows how long she’s going to stay down. They’re probably following us, so I need to install the battery now,” Max replied.

  “Can you do it fast enough?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll push the fucking car if I have to.”

  “Oh, god.” He really was spooked. I hated it. I hated it.

  “I just needed to come here first and make sure they hadn’t gotten to you and—” His eyes trailed down to the bandages wrapped around my arms and he suddenly went pale. “What the hell happened?”

  “Tiffany happened.”

  Max took a step back and rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. “I left you,” he said, pained. “I said nothing would happen to you. Jesus Christ.”

  “Nothing did. We took care of it.” I gestured over to the sheet on the floor that was covering Tiffany’s body, and Max followed my eyes. He took in the sight, but there was no relief in his stare that we had defended ourselves. There was only guilt and regret. “Hey,” I said as I stroked his left bicep. “We don’t have time for the pity party, all right? We gotta get out of here.”

  He nodded. “I’m gonna start on the car, but I want you all out there with me. No more splitting up.”

  “Finally!” Priscilla said as she reentered the room and threw her hands up. It was a fair assumption that this was something they had argued about previously, especially when Max looked like he was restraining himself from rolling his eyes.

  Within the next few minutes, we all grabbed a few warm blankets and headed outside. Max worked under the hood of the car while the rest of us packed ourselves inside. I sat in the front passenger seat, and they all squished together in the back. Priscilla ended up on Daggett’s lap, which put a smile on his face, and she did her best to act as irritated as possible. She wasn’t, though. She was flattered.

  “We can swap,” I told her.

  “No. I’m not taking the seat with no window. I’ll freeze to death,” she replied.

  I looked over at the gaping hole where the glass should be and asked, “What exactly happened here?”

  “Dana tried to kill me.”

  “That’s not exactly the full story,” Daggett commented.

  Priscilla twisted her body till she was facing him, their noses mere inches apart. “What part of her ‘turning into a werewolf and trying to eat me’ is not the full story?”

  He hesitated. “That she felt bad about it?”

  Priscilla groaned.

  Looks like I missed quite the event.

  “I do feel bad about that, in case you were wondering,” Dana whispered. “You have every right to hate me for it. I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Priscilla rolled her eyes. “My body has a limit to how much hate it can carry before I start getting premature wrinkles.”

  I smiled. That was Priscilla’s bitchy way of saying she didn’t hold it against her.

  I got to my knees and peeked over the seat at Melanie in the back. She had been quiet and a little fidgety, so I wanted to check up on her. “Are you doing all right? You haven’t said much since we walked out.”

  “I’ll be alright,” she said. Usually, I don’t believe someone when they say that, but her voice sounded genuine. She and Dana must have had a nice talk. I was thankful for that.

  “Are you gonna be able to handle being cramped in here with all of us, especially when my cuts are still mildly fresh?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s okay, Dana gave me some of her blood to help with my hunger.”

  That was about the last thing I expected to hear. I probably should have been aghast, concerned, weirded out, you name it. Instead, I was mostly curious. “You can do that?” I asked.

  “It didn’t hurt that much,” Dana said with a casual shrug. She explained it like she would if she were getting her ears pierced for the first time.

  How was something so strange and brand new almost normal for her? But then I realized I was also talking about a werewolf. Strange was her normal.

  I glanced down at Dana’s arm and saw a large gash where Melanie had drank from, and I felt a chill go up and down my body. The concept of being bitten and slowly drained was unsettling and, quite frankly, terrifying. It was surprising that Dana was willing to do something that dangerous for a virtual stranger.

  That’s when I noticed how close they were seated, and that Dana’s one leg was draped over Melanie’s at the ankle. Sure, we were all scrunched in the tiny car together, but something about this felt different. It was
almost intimate.

  I wondered if I was reading too much into it.

  Melanie put her hand on the headrest of my seat, her cold fingers touching mine. “I’m sorry I let that girl hurt you,” she said.

  “You saved my life,” I told her. “You saved all of ours.”

  “Does me saving you from danger really count if I’m the cause of it?”

  I wanted to argue with her, but I really couldn’t. Anything I said wasn’t going to change that they were after us because they wanted Melanie. It was flat out a fact. She just needed to know none of us resented her for it. “We’re in this together,” I began as I placed my hand on top of hers. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

  There was almost a smile growing on Melanie’s face.

  “Try to start it!” Max yelled from outside. I reached across the seat and turned the keys in the ignition. I fully expected this moment to go full horror movie with me shakily inserting the keys and weeping when it didn’t start, but it started up just fine. Thank God. Max slammed the hood shut and promptly returned to the car, and we backed out of the apartment building driveway faster than we had any right to given these snowy roads.

  Because of Max’s crazy driving, the four in the back were jerked back and forth, and Priscilla’s face slammed into the glass. “Slow down, Flash Gordon!” she shouted.

  “Where are we going?” I calmly asked.

  He reached into his pocket for his phone and attempted to get a signal. “We have to lose this car and get a new one.”

  “You think they saw the car?”

  “If they sent Tiffany to check out the apartment building, it means they recognized my car. We’re a big moving target right now.”

  Daggett leaned forward in between our seats and said, “You can rent a car not far from here. Lincoln did side work on their vehicles all the time.”

  “It’ll be open?” I asked.

  “Yep. It’s open till midnight and it’s—” He checked his watch. “It’s only around seven now.”

  “Seven?” Priscilla repeated. “Shit, it feels like we’ve been out here for a hundred years.”

  It really did feel like the longest day ever. It didn’t help that we were in the thick of winter and it got dark in the afternoon as well. It was hard to tell the difference between the morning and night.

  “Okay, good, we’ll hit up the car rental and dump this one in the woods,” Max said. “But that means we’re gonna have to walk there.”

  “What the hell was the point of fixing the car if we’re not using it?” Priscilla asked.

  “You’re right, we should walk these fifteen miles in the snow instead. If Molly doesn’t kill us first, there’s always frostbite.”

  I looked back at Priscilla, who was already staring at me. “Your boyfriend has an attitude problem.”

  I shrugged and replied, “My boyfriend has a not-wanting-to-die problem.”

  Max glanced over at me, almost smirking that I beat him to a sarcastic response.

  Once we were five miles away from the car rental agency, we ditched the car. Max tried to get it as deep into the nearby woods as he could, but there was too much shrub, trees, and snow to form an easy pathway. We settled on using these things to cover the car and our tracks. Then, we headed off.

  Walking five miles through the snow was about as much fun as you’d expect it to be, which, of course, was none. The snow soaked through my shoes and drenched my feet, my nose and ears were red and stinging, my legs were aching, my teeth were chattering, and to really amp up the fun level Priscilla complained the entire time. I was also painfully aware that we could get jumped at any moment. I had hoped that them losing Tiffany and their trio being dwindled down to two would make them rethink attacking a group of six. We at least had numbers on our side. Even with two pathetic humans like Priscilla and me.

  It may have taken us a long time, but we arrived at the car rental place in one piece. I think we were getting better at maneuvering through towns trying not to die.

  While we took a seat in the waiting room and had some water, I could hear Max talking to one of the desk clerks about a good place to stay for the night. It hit me that we really were coming up with our plan as we went along. Was staying at another hotel the right idea? Hell if I knew.

  As we left in our rented minivan, I brought my thoughts up to Max. He shrugged and said, “They’re gonna be looking for us. We’d be insane to lead them back to our homes.”

  “So we’re really gonna run forever?” I asked.

  “Until we kill them.”

  I swallowed. Having to end someone’s life was sadly a concept I had grown familiar with, but it was usually done in the heat of the moment to defend ourselves. Actually plotting to kill someone, and someone we had a history with on top of it? I didn’t know if I was ballsy enough for that. I knew they were dangerous and needed to be stopped, but all I could think about was that we were planning to kill Owen’s sister. My stomach felt rotten.

  We were recommended to a log cabin style hotel deep within the woods. It was a luxurious two-floor building with all wood interior, a big crackling fireplace, a wraparound porch on each level, and it overlooked a vast hill covered in a blanket of snow. It looked like the kind of place you’d read about in a romance novel with two lovers getting snowed in for a weekend. Unfortunately, we weren’t there for a romantic rendezvous, so none of its pleasing aesthetics meant a damn to us.

  When we walked in, the place was empty. There was one man who offered to take our bags, but we had none, and then he said he’d throw a few logs into the fire and start making us hot cocoa.

  “Wow,” Priscilla marveled. “I haven’t stayed in a place this nice since I broke into my step-dad’s condo.”

  “Your step-father couldn’t just let you stay there?” Daggett asked.

  “He installed the extra lock to keep me out. He had weird trust issues.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why,” Melanie commented with an eye roll.

  We all sat down in the living room in front of the fireplace. Typical, of course, that there were deer heads mounted on the walls and a throw rug beneath the coffee table with a bear’s head attached to it. I never could understand why people thought cabins needed to be draped in as many murdered animals as they could find. When I think of cabins, I think of skiing and hot chocolate, not skinning creatures once I’m done hunting them.

  We waited for our cocoa to arrive before jumping into a serious discussion.

  Daggett leaned forward and dropped his voice. “So what are we doing here? It’s still the middle of the night. They’re gonna find us and—” He checked to see if the desk clerk was still around, and when he saw he was nowhere to be found, finished with, “They’re gonna mess us up.”

  “We handled one cheerleader. Can’t we handle the other two?” Priscilla asked.

  “You guys got lucky,” Max replied as he sat down on the coffee table opposite of us. “Look, we only swapped cars and are here because we’re trying to lose them and buy ourselves some time. They’ll be here before long, which is why I think some of you need to go home.”

  I was surprised, but perhaps not as much as Daggett and Priscilla. “What?” they asked in unison.

  “It’s for the best. Daggett, Priscilla, Dana—you guys should get out of town before one of you gets hurt. They’re not after you, but if you get in the way, they will be. That’s a lot of unnecessary bloodshed we could avoid.”

  Daggett shook his head. “I get where you’re coming from, Max, but it’s not a good idea. Sure, Tiffany is gone, but you still got their leader somewhere out there. That puts you at three versus three, and all three of theirs are supernatural with strengths we don’t even fully understand yet. Your odds are not good.”

  “Our odds are shit no matter how we look at it. At least this way, if things were to go south, some of us will be alive to talk about it.”

  Priscilla scoffed. “That sounds promising.” For once, I agreed with her cynicism. What a grim place w
e were in.

  Dana sat down on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. “Splitting us up before didn’t work,” she said. “Why would we do it again? We’re stronger together.”

  “That might be true,” Max replied with a shrug. “But this isn’t your fight. There’s gonna be casualties, and I’m not expecting you guys to sign up for that. Melanie, Cora and I…we have no other choice.” He glanced in my direction, his eyes full of regret. “I hate it, but it is what it is. We can’t change the course we’re on, but we can try to limit the damage. You guys get out while you still can.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Dana proclaimed.

  “Me neither,” Daggett echoed.

  Max groaned. It wasn’t out of anger at them, but anger at the situation. He really, really did not want their deaths on his conscience. I didn’t want theirs on mine either. Max placed his hands over his mouth and through his fingers said, “No offense, guys, but I’m not asking here. I got you into this, and now I’m putting an end to it.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you have a hard-on for dying,” Priscilla said.

  Daggett added, “Cora, talk some sense into him.”

  They looked to me, waiting for me to cosign their argument, but I wouldn’t. “Max isn’t wrong,” I said. There was a small gasp amongst the group. It was almost comical.

  “You’re serious?” Priscilla asked.

  I nodded. “You guys shouldn’t be here. Especially you, Priscilla.”

  “Why are you singling me out?”

  “Because you’re human.”

  “So are you.”

  “Believe me, I know. But I’m not leaving Melanie ever again.”

  Melanie’s head hung low, and she only raised it when I mentioned her by name. “You shouldn’t have to babysit me,” she said.

  “I’m not. This is what family do for each other.”

  Dana stood up. “Okay, Priscilla can go home, but I’m going to stay.”

  “No,” Max replied.

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “I can help, Max. I’m not useless.”

  Max rose from the coffee table and met her eye-to-eye. “This has nothing to do with who is and isn’t useless. This is about saving lives.”