Dead by Morning (Rituals of the Night Book 1) (27 page)

“There is, but I doubt it’ll do any good,” he said. “At the rate Chance’s fusion is going, it might already be too late.”

“Tell me anyways,” Luna said. “It might still work if we just try.”

“Well, after fusion, the dream character is still weakened by their biggest fear, and if they’re exposed long enough it pushes the dream character away back to the depths of DreamWorld,” Max explained.

“But Chance has no fear,” she said frowning.

“Exactly,” he said.

“We have another problem that we have to deal with,” she said.

“I doubt it’s worse than Chance’s fusion being complete,” he said.

“Violet’s going camping today,” Luna said. “She’ll be in the woods just outside of town. She said it was Chance’s idea. I have the feeling that that might be the same woods where the dreams began.”  

“You need to stop her!” Max said anxiously.

“I tried, Max! She won’t listen to me,” she said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Meet me at the edge of the forest in fifteen minutes,” Max said. “We’ll stop her together.”

“Right,” Luna agreed and hung up the phone.

She charged outside and ran faster than she had ever run before. The time quickly slipped by, and Luna hoped that they weren’t too late to save Violet’s life.

                                                        Chapter Forty-Six

Luna stood impatiently by the line of trees. Ten minutes had passed since she left her house, and Max was still nowhere in sight. Time was precious. Every second he wasted was time that Violet spent getting closer to her death. Luna looked at her watch; another minute had passed. She hoped the dream dog hadn’t found him again. She gritted her teeth and looked both ways down the road. It was deserted. Suddenly, she lost hold of all her patience and bolted into the trees. If Max was going to be late then she’d have to help Violet on her own.

As Luna got deeper into the foliage, she realized the trees around her were all frighteningly similar. The bark, the sticks beneath her feet, and the sky high above produced a sinking feeling in her chest that made her realize that she had just stepped into the first part of her nightmare.

She ran through the trees as quick as she could, desperate to find Violet. She had no idea where to find begin, but she had to find Violet before Chance did. She pushed a low hanging branch out of her face and frowned at the sight of the foliage ahead of her. She didn’t know where to go, and at her current rate, there was no way she’d find Violet on time.

She stopped for a minute and heard a sound by her. She strained her ears as she waited for it to sound again. When she heard it, she realized that they were footsteps. She crept towards the sound and peeked through the foliage uncertainly, waiting to see what approached. In the clearing ahead of her stood Violet. Luna pushed the foliage out of her way as she ran towards her friend. Violet was still alive, and Luna needed to warn her before it was too late.

“Violet! You need to-“ she said but her words were cut off by the sound of a gunshot.

Luna watched in horror as a bullet pierced through Violet’s forehead. She fell to the ground instantly. Blood poured from the wound, Luna had been too late. She looked at Violet, and blinked as her eyes welled with tears. She heard the sound of a gun cocking and turned slowly to see Chance. He was pointing a revolver at her.

“That’s far enough, Luna,” he said. “It was nice for you to try to help your pathetic friend though.”

Luna stared at him warily. “How could you do this?”

“She was just a pawn. You, I need,” he said.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll help you,” she said standing her ground.

He stalked towards her quickly, and the gun didn’t falter off of her once. He was unrelenting. Instantly, she turned and began to run. She was certain that staying put meant facing her own demise. In that desperate moment, she didn’t know where she was going, all she knew was that Chance was right behind her.

Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard she thought it might explode. It didn’t matter, she could hear Chance’s footsteps closing in. She was crying as she forced herself to move as fast as her body would allow. Up ahead, the clearing dropped into a thick patch of forest. Luna knew that she couldn’t turn to skirt along the edge or else he would catch her. She held her breath and hoped that the Teardrop of Knowledge would keep her safe once again.

Chance’s weight slammed into her back suddenly. The two of them rolled over and over as they plunged down the hill, their bodies slammed together leaving a trail of bruises on both of them. Finally, Luna’s back hit the ground. She struggled to breathe from the force, and Chance landed on top of her. He crouched above her, an angered glint in his green eyes as he glowered at her. He sat back so that he was straddling her hips as he pointed the gun at her head. Tears streaked down her face as she watched him.

“You thought you could run from me?” he asked.

Luna closed her eyes, anticipating her death. Chance laughed, and she felt his weight climb off of her. When she opened her eyes, Chance stood beside her, gun still ready.

“Get up,” he said simply.

She stared at him blankly.

“Come with me or I will shoot you,” he growled.

Luna whimpered in fear but obeyed him. Chance wrapped his arm around her waist and held the gun to her temple as if he was afraid she’d try to run again. He forced her up the rise like that, back to Violet’s dead body. Luna stopped walking as she caught sight of the body once again. She stared down the barrel of a gun as he stood beside her. She wasn’t the dream that she was certain wouldn’t kill her if she woke up in time. She was living her nightmare. She knew that if his finger slipped, she’d be dead. She’d share the fate of her friend that lay a few feet away in the grass.

Luna sighed and stepped closer to him. “Fine,” she said quietly.

“Good,” he said not moving the gun. “Now walk.”

She felt a trill of fear as she walked ahead of him.

“Luna!” she recognized Max’s voice from the depths of the woods and turned to look at him.

“Luna, you can stop him! Chance’s biggest fear is being-“ he said.

Chance turned from her in a flash. She heard the sound of the gun go off again. She turned just in time to watch Max fall to the ground. He disappeared into the foliage. She couldn’t see him anymore, and she had the feeling that she wouldn’t want to. She turned to look at Chance.

“How could you?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Easily,” he said shrugging. “That’s what I wanted to do all along.”

Luna felt her anger rise in her throat. She had just watched both of her friends die, and it didn’t matter to him. Finally, the rage got the best of her. She couldn’t hold it in anymore.  Instinctively, she reached up and slapped him as hard as she could.

In less than a second, he grabbed both of her wrists in one hand and held the gun to her temple with the other one. She could feel the cold metal on her scalp- the sensation added to her heart-wrenching terror. She knew that at any minute it could cut her world to black. She closed her eyes as she waited for him to pull the trigger. After a minute, he hadn’t shot her, and she opened her eyes to look at him.

“Go,” he said simply.

He started walking and pushing her ahead of him, the gun still held to her head though he let go of her wrists. She felt a tear run from her eye, but this time it wasn’t the Teardrop of Knowledge. This time it was her sorrow for her lost friends. She wouldn’t wake up, and they’d be okay. What happened would be forever.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced down towards the nearest pocket. She couldn’t see the handle of his dagger, but by the way the pocket was shaped, she knew it was there. She smiled.

Luna moved her hand slowly, hoping she wouldn’t attract his attention. She flexed her fingers for a minute, mentally running through her plans once before she plunged her hand inside. She grasped the handle of the dagger and pulled it out of his pocket.

He turned to look at his pocket at the same time she sunk the knife into his stomach.

Instantly, he pushed her to the ground, and she lay there stunned. She was watching Chance anxiously. He pointed the gun at her head, and she knew that if she tried to run she’d get shot for sure. He pulled out the bloodstained dagger and set it into his other pocket.

              Luna stared at him in disbelief. He seemed to be in no pain at all.

              “D…didn’t that hurt?” she finally managed to ask.

He snorted. “As if that would kill me. Get real, Luna.”

She stared at him in quiet horror. “You’re at least hurt…”

He lifted his shirt to reveal his ivory stomach in the spot where she had stabbed him. There was no wound.

“I don’t see any blood,” he said, pointing out the obvious as he gestured to his stomach.

“H...how is that possible? I
stabbed
you,” Luna said as she stared at the perfect unmarked skin, stunned. “I don’t understand.”

He snorted again. “I’ll tell you right now that a knife is not going to do any harm to me. I’d give you an ‘A’ for the effort. I gotta admit you got me by surprise with it.”

She stared at him and realized why Max had been so frightened of fusion; it made them invincible. Nothing could stop them once the dream character took over. She frowned as she thought of Max.

How could she escape Chance’s clutches if there was no way to physically injure him? Max had been about to say what the only weapon against Chance was. For all her thinking, she couldn’t seem to figure out what he had been about to say.

“Get up, I’m done playing around,” he said bitterly.

Luna stood slowly to her feet as he kept the gun aimed at her. He may be invincible, but she wasn’t. One gunshot and she could suffer the same fate that Violet and Max had shared. He held the cold metal to the back of her head as he pushed her through the trees. They stayed silent as they continued to walk, and the scenery seemed all the same to her. Chance was ominously quiet.

They walked for a long time. She didn’t speak in fear she’d only encourage him to shoot. She frowned as once again she tried to guess what Max had been about to say. Nothing came to mind. She noticed that the forest around them seemed to grow darker and darker until the sky above was ominously gray like smoke filled the air.

Luna turned to Chance as she felt another trill of fear pass through her. “Where are we going?”

“Shut up and walk,” he replied stridently.

Luna swallowed the anger that rose in her throat; she hated having to do as he said. As they walked, the ground beneath their feet was rocky, and the grass didn’t grow in the soot like stones. The trees thinned out considerably. The canopy of leaves no longer blocked the route to the sky, and the heavy gray air seemed to sit thickly above them.

She recognized the dark path they walked on now. There was no questioning where they were going. She remembered that in the dream it had led to the cabin in the clearing. Max was right all along. Chance
was
playing out the dream. He was impervious to pain, what could she do? She obeyed him of course, walking through the foliage to almost certain death.

It wasn’t a good feeling, knowing that she had to face death no matter what she chose to do. She swallowed heavily, finding that her throat had closed a bit from her quiet sobbing. In the distance, she could see Chance’s midnight black truck. Her heart started again with a new flutter of panic as she realized that he was leading her to it.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Silence,” he replied.

She swallowed again as they got closer to the truck. Was he leading her to it to kill her? He grabbed her waist with his free hand and with the one that clutched the gun he opened the back door. He thrust her inside and closed the door in a hurry. Instantly, she moved to open it. He was even faster to get into the driver’s seat and lock it. She pounded on the window, trying desperately to get out before he would have the opportunity to start driving.

“I got reinforced locks this time,” he said darkly. “Good luck getting away.”

Luna couldn’t help but cry as he began to drive.

“Where are you taking me?” she tried again.

“You’ll see,” he said, his voice just as ominous.

She bowed her head to cry, the tears were a torrent as they streamed down her face.

“Don’t cry, angel,” Chance said softly.

Luna didn’t say anything else; she wrapped her arms around herself as she cried. Chance’s driving was careless. The hardened dirt made the ride rough, and Luna moved with each bump. He swerved and the force caused Luna to crack her head against the window. Pain radiated through her scalp in the same spot that Chance’s gun had touched earlier. She pulled back from it long enough to see her own blood smeared in the cracked glass before she passed out.

                                                        Chapter Forty-Seven

When Luna’s eyes fluttered open again, Chance was hovering above her. His long blonde hair rolled down his face, and his hands rested on either side of her head. He was staring at her closely, studying the lines of her countenance for signs of life. She quickly realized that she was lying in the backseat of the truck. Things seemed surreal as her consciousness began to come back.

Luna knew instantly that it was Chance that crouched above her. When her eyes opened, they locked on his, and her heart filled with fear once again. She realized that his hands were empty as he crouched above her. She took the gun-less opportunity to push him away, and he smirked as he stood by the open door. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his gun again. She froze when she caught sight of it, memories of the past hour of terror flooding her mind.

“You’ll do better if you don’t push me again,” he warned.

Luna sat up slowly and backed against the other door. She pulled her legs up to her chest and stared at him as he threatened once again to shoot her.

“I’ll say this nicely,” he said as if he was talking to a child, “get out of the truck.”

She was so scared that her brain seemed to be failing her. She shook her head slowly.

“Get. Out. Of. The. Truck,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No,” she said, her voice a whisper.

Chance growled and tucked the gun away as he stepped back into the truck and lunged at her. His hands grabbed at her legs and her side as he tried to pull her towards him. She screamed and cried as she smacked his hands away. For a few minutes, he wasn’t detoured as he used his natural strength and size to overpower her. To his frustration, she didn’t show any signs of backing down.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said and summoned his dagger.

Luna stared at it, the tears stuck in her eyes as she watched him wield the blade he had hidden for so long.

He crouched above her once again, the tip of the knife hung precariously above her. She was crying the hardest yet as she tried to get out from under him. She tried to get out of range of the knife. Chance had her perfectly trapped. He sunk the blade into her stomach suddenly. The pain was worse than anything she had ever felt before. She could feel it ripping away her muscles and tendons. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She stared up at him in pain and agony. The look he returned was cold. He pulled the knife out gingerly and admired her blood that coated the blade. He ran his fingers down it so that the crimson stained his skin.

Luna clutched at the spot as blood leaked between her fingers. Chance set the dagger back in his pocket and grabbed Luna’s wrists roughly as she lie still against the backseat. She was crying hard -every jostling movement sent rays of pain all throughout her body. Chance didn’t care. He easily adjusted her to pick her up despite her pleas. He held her in his arms bridal style. Her bloody hands smeared the substance all over Chance’s shirt as she feebly attempted to get away. He didn’t seem to notice.

Luna clutched at her stomach again. “Ch-Chance…I-I need to g-go to the hospital.”

“No,” he said sternly.

In her heart, Luna was almost positive that she was going to die. That was the moment that her dreams had been warning her off. Her stomach felt like it was split in half. Her heart was pounding so hard it made her blood flow out much faster and thicker than it should have. Chance didn’t seem to care.

Chance kept walking. Luna swallowed, looking around desperately to try to find something that she could use to slow the bleeding. She realized that they emerged into a clearing...just like in the dream. Her eyes widened in horror as she instantly recognized the cabin from her dream. It was small, and the dark brown walls had ivy growing through the cracks. She could only see one window, and it looked like it had been painted over in black. The roof looked like it had been badly damaged by the weather. Every detail matched that of the dream cabin.

For a moment, her pain was nonexistent as she stared at it. She knew she didn’t want to go in; that would be her final destination. The sight of it (even from halfway across the clearing) brought her enough fear to deliver her heart the final blow. She felt Chance’s grip tighten on her as he grew annoyed again.

“Why?” he asked.

She turned to look at up at him. She realized horrified that he had her blood wiped on his face. “What?” she asked innocently.

“You know what happens next. Stop fighting it,” he said.

Luna frowned and turned back towards the cabin. The dream version of Chance couldn’t be tricked as easily as the real version had been. She looked at the dilapidated old building, but she knew she had no choice. Her other act of bravery had resulted in a blow that she might not ever recover from. She couldn’t imagine how much worse he would make it for her if she decided to fight again.

              The door was already open, and Chance forced her inside. It was dingy and dark, and the thick air smelled musty. A single white candle sat on a table in the middle of the room, and it was enough for her to see the cobwebs that stretched across the walls like white banners. Two more candles were placed, one on each of the two windowsills. She looked around at every detail of the cabin.

Chance stopped walking, and she stared at the dark wall. The silver dog-chain shackles sat at her feet. Chance set her to the ground. He closed each shackle around her wrist before she even had the chance to protest. He stared at her admiringly; his green eyes seemed black in the darkness as she looked back at him.

Suddenly, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. She felt her eyes widen in repulsion. Her first instinct was to push him away and spit rage at him like she had before. She couldn’t do that this time. Chance had a knife and a gun, and her wound was too deep to fight. She had lost a lot of blood already, and she wondered how much longer she would be able to stay conscious.

Finally, he pulled back and looked at her. His face was emotionless, and his eyes were just as blank. Was it possible that that had canceled his fusion? She frowned, that was impossible, his fusion was complete. He had done it to make sure. Chance stood up and turned his back to her like he suddenly didn’t want to look at her.

“Why me?” she asked him quietly, struggling to hang on.

She might be dying, but there was no way she’d let him trap her mind. She needed to be strong.

He turned back to look at her like he was surprised she asked. “Your Teardrop of Knowledge.”

“But you don’t need it,” she said pointedly as she held her blood-soaked shirt over the wound, trying to soak up as much of it as possible. “You’ve never needed it.”

He frowned. “Yes, I do. With your ability I can pull whatever I want from the DreamWorld in a matter of seconds. That gift will be able to help me greatly.”

“What is the point of all of this?” she asked him quietly. “Killing Susan, Violet, and Max? Kidnapping me?
Stabbing
me? If the cops catch you, your life is over. You could be living the last few days of your life doing this. Why?”

“I’m not worried about the police,” he said shrugging.

“But you
killed
three people! If you get caught you’re going to jail for sure,” Luna said, “and I’m a witness to it all.”

“Oh, Sweetheart, you’re so naïve. I’ve killed more than just three people,” he said, and his eyes flashed.

“But…how?” she asked. “And why?”

“I’ve been sacrificing people for years,” he replied. “Violet, Max, and Susan were just another number. Kate Red was on that list, and my parents were too.”

“I knew you were responsible for Kate! I knew it was you! You monster…” she said, and her voice trailed off as it caught in her throat.

“Don’t act like it was a tragedy, you hated her.”

She grunted in pain again as another wave overtook her. “I knew you never emancipated from your parents, you killed them!”

He shrugged again. “You say tomato, I say tomhato.”

“How many?” she asked in quiet disbelief.

“How many what?” he asked innocently.

“How many people have you killed?” Luna asked and her voice was rough with fear, pain, and disbelief.

“Enough for me to know that there’s no turning back,” he said.

“What was the point of taking all those lives?” she asked him.

“For the power,” he said shrugging again.

“What power?” she asked feeling confused.

“The power that I need to stop anyone that stands in my way,” he replied.

“Stop anyone opposed to you?” she asked in disbelief. “The world will be against you once they find out what you’re up to!”

“I’m not worried. With the power I can manage it,” he replied.

“Then why do you need me?” she asked him again.

“Your ability made me invincible to guns, knives, and anything else that could harm me. Now, I truly can accomplish my goal,” he said.

“So what, you’re just gonna leave and let me bleed to death here?” she asked him reaching a bloody hand towards him.

“It’s a possibility that I wasn’t considering,” he said looking at her with all the strength in his pale green eyes.

“Then what are you gonna do with me?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” he said, and she could tell he was growing quickly agitated with her.

“I just want to know,” she said in a small voice.

He blinked and turned his back to her again. “You’ll find out everything in time. Now, make yourself nice and comfortable. I’m going for a walk,” he said and moved over to the door. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Wait! You can’t leave me here!” she said desperately tugging against her chains as her blood began to drip to the floor.

The laceration he had given her was bad. If she didn’t bleed to death, she would die from infection. If somehow she managed to survive the cruel mark he had given her then she still had too many fears to count. What if one of the many candles that dotted the cabin caught the wood on fire? Or maybe the old rotted roof could finally give out. There’d be no way she could get out with the shackles holding her.

Chance turned and smiled. No thoughts of foreboding evil ran through his mind. “I can do whatever I want,” he said and smiled like the idea brought him nothing but pure joy before he turned and walked away.

He closed the door behind him submerging her in a wave of eerie darkness.