Moonbound (Moonfate Serial Book 1) (9 page)

The
click-click-click
of my bicycle spokes slows as I dismount while the bike is still moving and get out my lock. Usually I put the bike in the garage out back, but now I hook the lock around the white wrought-iron fence and leave it there.

I wonder if Lawrence is home or out partying. He usually likes to spend his weekends at the club, finding some poor new boy-toy to pump and dump.

A boy-toy like Cooper.

Fuck. Cooper. Cooper’s boss. He’s still out there.

I stop fiddling with my lock and look up at the second floor of my house and Lawrence’s bedroom. The windows are all dark.

After putting down the kickstand, I finish locking up and give one more glance over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Orion striding down the street. But he’s not there.

Then, I fish the door key out of my purse and thrust it into the lock. I turn it, once, twice, but I don’t have to. The door’s already unlocked. Panic flares in my throat. Lawrence knows how I feel about locked doors.

My hand rests on the knob, debating whether to turn it. “Lawrence,” I hiss.

Should I call the police? But what would I tell them? That my door was unlocked? Hardly grounds for 911. Not to mention that if anything serious is actually going down, the cops will take one look at the mark on my wrist and call the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation. Weremates and werebeasts involved in any crimes don’t go to trial when the FBSI shows up. They just disappear.

I push open the door.

At first everything looks normal. We don’t have a foyer, so the first room you see when you enter is the living room. There are the same white walls, new hardwood floors installed courtesy of Aunt Jennifer. Even the smell is the same, a cloying vanilla from the air fresheners that Lawrence buys by the bucketload from Target.

But there is one difference.

A man is lying in the living room. Face down and in a pool of blood.

Chapter Fourteen

I drop my purse. My keys clatter as they hit the floor and a tube of lipstick rolls out, but I don’t scream. I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime. I’m not proud of the thought that blares through my mind instead.

It’s okay—it’s not Lawrence.

While it’s immediately clear to me that it’s not Lawrence, it takes me a couple more seconds to identify the man on the floor. The blood-stained yellow polo shirt is a tip-off, but it’s not until I see the spiky hair that I realize.

It’s the pufferfish. It’s Cooper.

Holy fuck. He said his boss would do something drastic.

I think he’s dead. I can’t look at him any longer. But I can’t stop, either. Just to prove that this is really happening, I sneak one quick glance at him. His neck is twisted way too far to the right, but the blood is coming from long cuts down the back of his head.

I close my eyes, yesterday’s lunch heaving up my stomach to my throat. Oh, God. I know those claw-marks. I know those odd angles. I’ve seen them before. There’s no doubt in my mind. This is a werebeast attack.

My whole body feels numb.

How did he get here? Did he come to try and warn Lawrence? Oh, God, Lawrence. What if whoever did this to Cooper hurt Lawrence too?

“Law—” I start to call out for Lawrence, but then snap my jaw shut so hard my teeth crash against each other.

What if whoever did this is still here?

On the landing above the staircase my bedroom door is open. I know the gun is in there. If I could just get it, I could… What? I don’t know. Kill the intruder? I’ve never even fired it before. I still have to load it, and I only know how from some YouTube videos. But if I leave now and call the police, I may never see Lawrence again. I may never even see the outside of a jail cell.

I take another few steps, my head doing 360-degree checks. The likelihood that there’s a werebeast hiding in the kitchen cabinets is slim, but the windows above the counter aren’t closed. The same cool summer breeze that tickled my bare flesh in that alley blows through the curtains.

I always shut the windows.

Bang.

I whip toward the sound. It came from Lawrence’s room upstairs. A gunshot, a hammer banging. I can’t tell. I don’t know anything anymore.

Bang. Bang.

I sprint up the stairs, taking them two at a time, before finally reaching my room and diving through the open door. Once inside I scramble to the duffle bag searching for the gun. The bag is still there, half-unzipped, just where I left it.

I pick up the gun and flip off the safety. But shit. It’s not loaded. Fingers fumbling, I pick up the box of bullets. At first I try to find a chamber on the side, but it’s not there. Shit, how does this work? I can’t do this. From the other room I can hear a creaking sound. It might just be the wind. Or it might be someone coming. I freeze, paralyzed, then my eyes catch on one of my Post-it notes.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

I try again, this time the bottom of the gun, and the magazine slides out. I press the bullet in, then push the magazine back up.

Then I stand, shaking, holding the gun in both hands, pointing it into the hall. It’s surprisingly heavy. I hope I’ll be able to aim straight.

I creak my bedroom door open further with my foot.

It’s not until I’m standing in front of Lawrence’s door that I realize I don’t know how to open it without taking a hand off the gun and losing accuracy. I kick the door hard. Unlike in the movies, it doesn’t bust down.

No sound comes from the other side. I take my left hand off the gun; the pointer finger of my right hand is hot and slick with sweat against the trigger. Then I turn the knob.

Nothing moves in Lawrence’s room. It’s incredibly clean, decorated with repainted furniture he bought off of Craigslist. Undisturbed. My left hand flies back to the gun anyway, steadying it.

Bang. Bang.

My gaze darts to the left, and I see it. A gust blows, sending the old transom window, the kind that latches at the center, slapping against its frame.

That was the noise. Not a gunshot.

For the first time since I entered the house, my heart slows, but I don’t lower the gun until I check the closet and under the bed.

Nothing. Just me and the dead body in the living room.

Cooper.

He didn’t deserve to die. And Lawrence—

No, I won’t think about that.

The numbness reaches my fingertips. All I want to do is pass out. I’m so tired. But even if whoever did this isn’t here now, he could be coming back. I have to get out of here.

I flip the safety of the gun back on and shove it in my waistband, but then notice a glimmer of silver on Lawrence’s dresser. His phone.

A weight bears down on me. Lawrence never goes anywhere without his phone. Never. There have been days when I’ve seen him forget his keys, his wallet, and put on mismatched hipster polka-dot socks. But he always has his phone.

I set the gun on the dresser and pick up the phone. Then I press the home button and it lights up. A notification of one text message blinks, but it was sent by Lawrence himself.

“Help, Artemis. Kidnapped. The Werebeasts want my blood.”

Chapter Fifteen

I glance around the room, searching for signs of a struggle, but I find none. Then I look back at the message. In real life you don’t get a noble death or a ransom note; you get a text that says, “They want my blood.”

I’m crying, I realize. I lean my hand on the windowsill, refusing to fall to my knees again. The tears come harsh and hot down my cheeks, burning my skin, and soon they turn to sobs so strong that I feel like I’m turning my throat inside out.

I couldn’t stop it. I never could. I couldn’t stop my parents from being murdered or Lawrence from being kidnapped. I glare at the useless gun.

The worst part is that all of this has absolutely nothing to do with me. I thought that if I kept myself safe and away from werebeasts they could never hurt me or anyone else I loved again. But I was wrong. There is so much in this world I can’t control.

I let out a shuddering sigh.

Suddenly, Orion’s offer doesn’t seem unappealing. To give up control to someone else, to have them keep me safe. Even a werewolf.

That thought gives me an idea. Reaching over to Lawrence’s phone, still sniffling, I hit the Tracker button. Again, the map unfolds in front of me. I see two dots, one for Cooper, lying here in my house, and another only a couple miles south of where I left Orion. My heart flip-flops in my chest.

He’s still out there. Is he still waiting for me?

Instead of scrolling out this time, I click on an hourglass in the corner of the screen. A simple blue line, dotted with timestamps, replaces the map. I swipe backwards a half-hour. That must have been when Cooper was attacked and killed. Any earlier, with the open windows, the whole house would’ve been soaked from the rain.

A map of Tracker shows up from approximately an hour ago. Nothing. No werebeasts. Except for the dot in the house—Cooper’s body—and the red dot — Orion. I press my lips together, trying not to remember the feel of his soft kiss.

Shaking my head, I click through the other timestamps, reviewing hour after hour of records. Still nothing. According to Tracker, no were except Cooper has been near this house tonight.

But that can’t be right. I know a were must have done it. Why else would Lawrence have texted out that message? There’s only one other option. The weres that attacked Lawrence haven’t been cataloged by Tracker. Which means the only way to find him is hunting the old-fashioned way.

Who can do that except the FBSI?

I tap the nearby red dot and am once again brought to Orion’s profile. It’s so strange seeing his name now that I have a face to put to it. It’s as if after meeting him I realize how little I actually know about him.

I scroll down a little farther. His profile is as empty as always, except for an addition that makes me pause.

A phone number.

I stare at it, the hazy beginnings of a plan forming in my mind. Before I know what it is completely, I know that it’s a bad idea. But the facts all point to it. I know the police won’t be of any help, and the FBSI even less so. There’s no way I’m going to be able to find Lawrence by myself.

There’s only one person who would be willing to help me.

You just need to see him again, touch him again
, I accuse myself.

Yes, and that need will save Lawrence
.

But dammit, am I really ready to lose everything, my mind, my body, my freedom…my soul?

I think of Lawrence, of that day we met in the McDonalds after the matemark showed up. How I noticed him whimpering into his super-sized cup of Coke. I recognized his face because we went to the same high school, even though we had never spoken before, so I sat down next to him and asked what was wrong.

He wouldn’t tell me, of course.

So I told him. Spilled out everything: the murder, the FBSI, my matemark. I knew it was a risk, but I didn’t care.

I remember he got very still then. At first I thought he was going to tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself, but he didn’t. Instead he started to tell me his story.

He told me that John, his boyfriend, had been killed in a drive-by by rival gang. Lawrence hadn’t even known that John was in a gang, let alone that the reason he was gunned down was because John was V-positive.

He explained all of this to me in a calm, even monotone broken only by the occasional long pause to hold back tears. The only time he ever actually cried was when he told me in a low snarl that not only had John been killed, but he had passed his disease on to Lawrence, as well. This was, of course, before Henderson’s cure rendered the disease non-transferable.

I remember grabbing Lawrence’s—this stranger’s—hand, and for the first time since my parents had died, feeling close to someone.

The truth is he saved me. Because I hadn’t come to McDonalds for the fries. I came there with a bottle of pills, knowing that their dinky bathroom was the only place I might be able to get some privacy to end my life. And Lawrence convinced me that just because someone leaves you doesn’t mean that you’re alone.

Now it’s my turn to save him.

I dial Orion’s number.

It seems like it takes forever before the phone starts to ring.

My stomach scrunches up with nerves as I imagine his voice. He let me go. I let him go. We know nothing about each other save for our connection. Why would he help me? I wonder if he’ll even answer. He doesn’t know my number.

It rings again. A third time and then a fourth.

I move my thumb to hang up. I don’t want to hear his voicemail, if he has one. I should just go to the FBSI. So what if Lawrence, whoever killed Cooper, and I all end up lost in their labyrinths of red tape forever? Better that than dead.

“Orion North,” he answers.