“What? Are you serious?” she asked him, knitting her eyebrows together.
“Well, mine’s not to the exact same detail. Some things are different from my perspective,” Max said.
“Like what?” Luna was dying to know anything that could help her figure out the dream’s meaning.
“Well, in mine I see Violet get murdered right away, and I see you get kidnapped. I try to help you, but I get shot,” he explained.
“That’s so weird,” Luna muttered as she remembered the hooded figure in the dream shoot into the woods. “Do you know who that guy is?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped. “Well, what do you think that dream means anyway?”
“I think I actually have an idea on that,” Max said.
“Really?” she asked, perking up in interest again.
“Yes, but I think we’ll have to talk about it another time. I have to go.”
“Okay, ‘bye.”
Max was her only hope of figuring out the dream’s meaning. If she hadn’t been sure before, she was positive now that the dream meant something. Could it be that it was warning her of what Chance’s Satanism could do to people? Max had an idea about the dream, but he had no idea of Chance’s secret.
The link couldn’t be Chance.
Still, Max had an idea, and that was something. Luna needed to hear what he knew. The dream was important to her, and she took it more seriously than she probably should.
She had Chance’s Satanism to worry about, and that was a real and definite threat.
Chapter Twenty
“WHO WAS THAT?” Chance asked Luna, and she turned to see him standing behind her again. She wondered how much of the conversation he had heard.
“An old friend of mine,” she replied and tried to push past him.
“Would it be someone I know at the high school?” He stood in front of her so she couldn’t pass.
“Perhaps it is or maybe it isn’t.” She pushed him out of the way without looking at him. If he was going to give her evasive answers she could easily do the same.
“Where are you going?” he asked, and she could tell he was growing annoyed with her.
Luna stopped walking and faced him. He towered above her, his blue eyes cold as he stared back at her expectantly. Luna realized she wasn’t scared of him, and she thanked the conversation with Violet. She had aired her weakness, gone into hysterics, and come back. Without the weight of her burden, she was ready to face the problem head on.
“I’m going to bed.”
Her mind bubbled in excitement from what Max had mentioned, and she wanted time to herself to sit and think. She didn’t want to deal with Chance.
She couldn’t deal with Chance. Not now.
“It’s like four in the afternoon,” Chance said, glancing at the clock.
“Yeah, so what?” she replied, turning back toward her door to push it open. Just a minute more with him, and then you’ll be alone, she thought. When she got inside her room, she’d close the door on him just as she’d done before, and he’d have no choice but to go home.
***
“HMM, SOMETHING TELLS me you don’t want me here.”
Once again, she stopped in her tracks. “You just now figured that out?”
“If it’s about the whole business earlier at school, I’m sorry.”
Luna looked at him, at the blank emotion that clung to the edges of his face. He hoped she believed he meant his apology.
“Why can’t you just tell me why you do it instead of apologizing?” she demanded. “You can choke on your apology for all I care, just explain to me what the Hell is wrong with you.”
“Why do I do what?” He swallowed nervously.
“Why did you hurt me like that? And why don’t you care that Kate is dead? Don’t you feel anything knowing you’ll never talk to her again?”
“Things…um…happen that I can’t always control,” he said, not sure how to answer that question. He felt extremely uncomfortable that she had the nerve to call him out on it, especially after she had seen what he was capable of. “As for Kate, she and I were never exactly close, so of course I don’t really mind that she’s gone.”
“Why do you worship the devil?” Luna spit the question as if it had been sitting on the edge of her tongue for a while.
Chance tensed and stared at her completely speechless for a whole minute. She had caught him off guard with it. He knew she had seen the bones, but how did she know what they meant? “I don’t worship the devil.”
“That’s why you attacked me today, right?”
He frowned. “I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t tell what you saw. Fear’s the best way to go about it.”
“I looked up what the pentagram was for, and it’s for worshipping the devil. There’s no point lying to me.”
He stared back at her, still speechless, for another moment, and a moment was all it took for him to slip into that mind. In an instant, his hand wrapped around her throat, and he slammed her up against the wall, holding her a foot off the ground before she even had a chance to scream. “You cannot, and I mean cannot, tell anyone about that,” he barked at her in as menacing of a voice as he could manage. “Do you understand?”
She gasped and stared up at him, fear shining in her eyes.
“Nobody in that whole fucking school knows about it. You’re not associated with them, but you have a mouth, and if you spill it, it’ll be all over the school in a day. I can’t have that. If you’re gonna keep talking about this then maybe I’m going to have to do something to make sure you can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Luna managed to squeak. “I promise.”
Chance exhaled loudly before he let go of her neck; a red finger pattern was left in a ring on her pale skin. Luna slid to the floor, gasping for air as she set her hand slowly on her throat. She looked up at him, her face ashen and her lip trembled as he looked back at her.
That’s when he realized the mistake he had made.
She wasn’t safe from that mind, and he almost killed her. But he had stopped, and he had a feeling it was due to that nagging little voice in the back of his mind. The one that reminded him that even monsters had feelings. He looked down into her sad, scared face and knew he had to get away from her before he snapped again.
“Oh, my God, I’m sorry,” he stammered, and his voice sounded oddly hollow as it echoed about the room.
Luna stood up slowly and didn’t speak as she backed away from him without breaking her mortified stare. Her back hit the wall, and her eyes darted around nervously, almost like she was searching for an exit strategy to get away if he snapped again.
***
HE DIDN’T MOVE; his mouth hung open for a moment before he turned away. The next second, Luna heard the front door slam shut and she guessed he was going home. Sighing in relief, she turned and fled to her room. She closed the door behind her, making sure to lock it carefully in case Chance came back.
She stared at the closed door. He was so prepared to defend his secret that she wondered to what lengths he would go to make sure it stayed hidden. She didn’t understand why he had looked so horrified after he had snapped out of his rage—hadn’t he been aware of what he was doing?
Luna frowned. Was it possible he didn’t control all of his actions? Was he like a puppet, only moving because of the strings which someone else pulled? She wondered again if he had been responsible for Kate’s death…or at the least, her disappearance. The mention of the marks still bothered her since she didn’t know anyone else besides a Satanist who would do that to their victims.
She breathed out slowly, turning around to rest her back against her door and glance at her room absently. They hadn’t caught Kate’s killer, and Luna didn’t know for sure that Chance had done it, but that didn’t make her feel better. She set her fingers to her sore throat again. She didn’t know what to feel, but she definitely didn’t feel safe.
**
*
VIOLET PACED WORRIEDLY back and forth in front of the phone, waiting for it to ring, though instinct told her it wouldn’t. It had been an hour since she left Luna alone with Chance, and she hoped more than anything that Luna was alright. She had asked her friend to call, but she knew Luna was upset and probably wouldn’t even after Chance left. Violet had betrayed her. She could understand if Luna never wanted to talk to her again.
She stared at the phone, contemplating the pros and cons of her situation. Waiting was killing her inside; she had to know what was happening even if Luna decided to hang up on her. She picked up the phone and dialed Luna’s number in a flash. It rang a few times, each one that passed seemed to fill her heart with a feeling of dread and doom.
“Hello?” Luna’s emotionless voice rasped.
“Luna, are you all right?” Violet asked, glad she was able to keep her desperation clear of her tone.
Luna coughed like she had something in her throat before she replied. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Did Chance leave yet?”
“Yeah, a while ago.”
Violet exhaled quietly as she sank into the nearest chair. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Just peachy.”
Violet was silent for a moment, not convinced. “Are you still mad at me?”
“It’s only been an hour, Violet. I need time to think still, and I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
“Oh.” Violet clenched her jaw. She wanted to say so much more but nothing came to mind.
Luna sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I’ll be over it soon.”
“I’m worried though.”
“I’m okay, don’t be worried.”
“If you say so.”
“Did you hear about Kate?” Luna asked, changing the subject.
“What? That she was missing? I know, I told you that, remember?”
“I meant the new one. They found her dead today.”
“Wait...what?” Violet almost dropped the phone.
“She’s dead. Her body was found in the woods by an old road just out of town.”
“This is unbelievable,” Violet said, reaching up a hand to cover her mouth.
“That’s what I said.”
The girls fell silent for a long moment.
Luna spoke first. “Look, just be careful, all right? I gotta get going.”
Violet slumped her shoulders. “All right, see you at school tomorrow then.”
“Yeah,” Luna said and hung up.
Violet stared at the phone as the line clicked off. She didn’t feel any better for deciding to call, not at all. Luna sounded even more upset, and Violet knew something must’ve happened in her absence. Now it was her turn to sigh, deeply dismayed.
What had she gotten Luna into?
Chapter Twenty-One
CHANCE DROVE TO Susan’s house, a bouquet of flowers in the seat beside him. He figured she would have heard about Kate, and she’d be grief-stricken. He was confident that he could pretend a lot better with her than he had with Luna since their entire relationship was fake.
He pulled up in front of her house and climbed out of his truck, flowers clutched tight. He walked up to Susan’s house and right inside. She had always insisted her friends not knock; they were more than welcome there. Chance liked the fact their parents were gone a lot. It was oddly comforting to be able to come and go as he pleased without the questioning eyes of the girls’ parents.
When Chance got to Susan’s room, she lay on her stomach on her bed with her feet bent up as she stared intently at the laptop in front of her. Sarah sat in the bean bag chair on the floor with a nail file, which she ran gingerly across her fingers.
“Hi, Chance,” Susan chimed.
She didn’t appear upset; she was nearly radiant with her rosy cheeks and her dark hair pulled back with her hair ribbon. She hadn’t been crying, and he guessed she didn’t know about Kate yet.
He was fine being the bearer of bad news.
He nodded in greeting and stepped toward her, flowers held out. “Here, these are for you. I never got the chance to properly thank you for helping me out with Luna.”
Susan took them and smiled into them as she held the petals up to her face. “It was no problem really, she’s a sweetheart.”
Chance froze for a minute—he hadn’t expected that reaction. “You like her?”
“She’s nice, yeah. I might try to talk to her more sometime.”
Chance’s stomach knotted up at the thought. Susan didn’t know about his darker half, but Luna did. If the two girls became friends, it’d only be a matter of time before Susan found out.
“Did you see the news today?”
“No, I haven’t, why?”
“They uh…they found Kate.”
“Is she alright?” Sarah mumbled from her place on the floor.
“No,” he said slowly, trying his best to wrap his words in sorrow. “She’s dead.”
Susan and Sarah gasped in unison, their eyes all for him. Their mouths hung open in clear shock; neither of them seemed to know what they could say.
“You’re kidding, right, Chance? Please, tell me you’re kidding.”
He shook his head and sat on the edge of her bed, slumping his shoulders in what he hoped looked like sadness. “I’m being serious.”
“Oh, my God,” Susan muttered as it sunk in. Tears filled her eyes as she slammed the bouquet down to the bed.
“It’s unbelievable!” Sarah whispered.
“I know,” Chance said doing his best ‘sad’ voice, glad to see they were falling for it.
“I’m going to call Maddie and see if she knows about this,” Sarah decided, getting up from the bean bag chair and leaving the room.
After a few moments, a knock sounded downstairs. Through her tears, Susan managed to look irritated. “What is she doing down there?”
“I don’t know,” Chance said, directing his keen hearing downstairs. Alongside Sarah’s muffled voice, he could hear a new one, a deeper one—obviously a male.
A few minutes later, two cops appeared in the doorway, both of them staring at Chance and Susan with hard-to-read expressions on their solemn faces. They were dressed in full uniform, professional manner.
“Susan Cross and Chance Welfrey?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” they replied at the same time.
“Good afternoon to you both. I’m Officer Smith and this is Officer Novak, we’d like to ask you some questions about Kate Red.”
“Yeah, of course,” Susan replied.
Chance stayed silent.
“Okay, well, Mr. Welfrey, you come out here with me,” Officer Smith commanded, gesturing to the hallway. “And Officer Novak will stay in here to question you, Miss Cross.”
Chance gritted his teeth but walked toward the cops. He had dealt with cops enough that he had learned how to keep his cool around them, but they still managed to make him a tad nervous. He never knew when he would slide into that mind, and it would be disastrous if it happened around an officer of the law.
They stepped around the bend in the doorframe, and Officer Novak closed the door so that only a crack was open, enough for Chance to still hear inside.
“Were you close to Miss Red?” he could hear Officer Novak ask Susan at the same time Officer Smith asked it to him.
“She was a good friend to Susan and me,” Chance lied and listened as Susan replied almost the same thing.
“And do you mind accounting for your whereabouts last Thursday between five and six p.m.?” both officers asked.
“I was getting a milkshake with my sister, Sarah Cross, and my friend, Madeline Hertz,” Susan said.
He could hear Officer Novak scribbling down her response, probably in a notebook similar to the one Officer Smith clutched.
“I was here.”
The officer nodded. “Okay, and were you visiting either of the Cross sisters?”
“I was, but they left.”
“Did
you go with them?”
Chance shook his head slightly. “No, I stayed here.”
“Why?”
“I’m close to Susan. Her house is like a second home to me.”
“Okay,” Officer Smith said, breathing out a gusty sigh and scribbling down Chance’s words. By his drawn brow and deep frown, Chance could tell he suspected something, but he didn’t know what.
“Okay, well, when was the last time you saw Miss Red?”
“We both saw her when she stormed out of here on Thursday,” he heard Susan say. “Chance, Maddie, Sarah, and I were all talking about Prom, and she got upset when she found out that Chance was taking someone else, and she stormed out. I never caught up with her.”
“I was hanging with Susan, her sister, and a friend. Kate was here too, and she left in the middle of us all talking.” Chance shrugged.
“Okay, that’s about all,” he heard Officer Novak say to Susan. He glanced at Officer Smith, waiting for the same response, but he stared hard at his notebook.
“One last question, Mr. Welfrey,” Officer Smith said as Officer Novak appeared from Susan’s room.
“Sure.”
“When we were looking for Miss Red before our unfortunate discovery, her mother found some jewelry in a pawn shop that she was wearing the day she disappeared. We checked the records, and the clerk says you brought it in. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Care to explain that, Mr. Welfrey?”
“Not really, sir. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“You do realize that this doesn’t look very good for you right now, don’t you?”
Chance bit his lip, silent for a moment as he composed his thoughts. “Yes, sir, but I have an explanation.”
“It’d be wise for you tell me what that explanation is, mister.”
“Well, you see, she had a crush on me. Like, a really big one. And she really wanted me to take her to the dance, but I told her I was taking someone else and she”—he stopped for a moment to fake a laugh, but really, he tried to find the rest of his lie—“she wanted me to take her so bad that she gave me her jewelry as a kind of bribe. I took it because, like I said, we were friends, and I was already hurting her feelings. I didn’t want to do any more damage by refusing her gift. But of course, I didn’t want it either because it was so girly…so I took it and I sold it. Is there any harm in that, Officer Smith?”