If Chance was in the hospital, how had it gotten there?
She pulled it out of the ground and held the cold metal in her shaking hands. A tiny piece of white paper had been wrapped around the blade. When Luna picked up the knife, it fluttered to the ground, but she didn’t pick it up. Instead, Luna dropped the knife in the grass and walked away. Some things were better left unsaid.
***
THE PAPER BLEW in the breeze, unread by the person it was meant for. The wind made it crinkle in the air, spinning a few times before it landed face up in the grass a few inches away from the knife.
It’s not over, Luna.
Alive at Sunset (Rituals of the Night Series Book Two)
Revenge can become an obsession of its own. After her high school experience, Luna Ketz moved on. She’s in college, studying to be a doctor, and lives an hour away from her old home in Lima, Ohio—where the worst of her memories lie. Three years have passed since her friend Violet’s death and the thought of that day in the woods hasn’t left her mind once. Every week, she visits the hospital where Chance Welfrey remains in a coma. She tries to move on…wants to move on…until once again, she receives a phone call from Max Cazmea warning her that things may not be over just yet.
Chance, having recovered from his recent coma, shows up on her doorstep. He has found a way into Luna’s life that she cannot escape—he’s dating her roommate, Amanda Grey. Back in her life once more, Chance has a list, and everyone on it ends up dead. As things escalate, Luna finds herself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse that will take all of her wits to survive.
Chapter One
LLUNA KETZ RELAXED against the passenger seat as Amanda drove them to school. She felt her usual trill of excitement at attending another day of college. Most people dreaded it, but she enjoyed feeling productive. She strived every day to learn as much as she could, and college was the perfect outlet to quench her thirst. For almost two semesters, she had attended Bowling Green State University with her new friend, Amanda Grey.
Beside her, Amanda let out a huge yawn.
Luna smiled. “Tired?”
Amanda glanced at her for a minute before she nodded and turned her attention back to the road.
“I told you, you should’ve drank that second cup of coffee,” Luna teased.
Amanda shook her head. “I think I need an energy drink. Coffee doesn’t work for me anymore, I swear.”
Luna chuckled as she looked at her for a long moment.
She had met Amanda at the beginning of the fall semester a little over a year before. Many late-night study sessions in the library had bonded them. Though their majors differed greatly, they had a lot in common. They moved in together before the semester began, when both of them needed a place to stay.
Amanda tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and Luna turned her gaze back out the window. She watched the scenery flick past and felt her heart well with anxiety as she anticipated the building that lay ahead. For three years, her life had slowly fallen back into place, but no matter what she did, the scars from that day in the woods weren’t fully healed. Six days out of the week, she pretended to be normal.
On the seventh, she needed to find peace.
The smile disappeared off of Luna’s face and her body grew rigid as her gaze fixated out the window.
Amanda frowned as she stole glances at her roommate. “That time of the week again?” she guessed.
Luna turned to look at her and nodded, shaking the bobbed locks of black hair that curled around her jawbone. Amanda put her blinker on, ready to leave the highway that lead to their ultimate destination. Luna looked at her, the corner of her lip turning up a bit. Her friend was loyal. Amanda had never actually gone inside the hospital with her, believing Luna’s lies about a sickly aunt. She didn’t know the truth behind the visits; she only knew the importance of the trip. Luna hadn’t told anyone what had happened to her all that time ago.
To the town, it was a secret.
“I won’t take long, I promise,” Luna said with distant eyes. Thinking of him, even fleetingly, was enough to take away every ounce of cheer in her body.
Amanda waved a dismissive hand. “Take your time. We still have an hour before class starts, after all.”
“I’ll be back in about five minutes,” Luna assured her.
Amanda fell silent as she pulled her car into the parking lot, her face blank, making it near impossible to guess her emotions. Luna, on the other hand, felt solemn—her weekly trips definitely weren’t pleasant, only necessary.
Luna hurried across the parking lot and through the sliding doors of the hospital. She checked in at the desk and, a few minutes later, found herself in the eerie white hallway of the third floor. She traveled all the way down the hall to the last door. None of the nurses she passed made eye contact with her, but she knew they recognized her like she recognized them.
They didn’t know what to think of her. Most of them watched her with pity, misjudging the relationship between her and the patient. Luna shuddered at the thought.
She stopped outside of the door for a minute and took a deep breath to settle her nerves. Slowly, she pushed it open. Inside was a single hospital bed. She had to force her eyes to look at the man lying on it as she cautiously stepped inside the room. She closed the door behind her as she eyed him.
Wired with a multitude of cords that ran from his arms and chest, a beeping monitor signaled he was still alive, though his closed eyes and unmoving head on the white sheets might’ve suggested otherwise.
He was unconscious.
That didn’t stop her from feeling wary. He wasn’t above trickery. Like usual, she stood at the foot of the bed, observing every detail of him. The blankets had been shifted about and changed by the nurses since the last time she had visited. Other than that, he looked the same. The boy had shaggy blond hair perched above his angelic face. To anyone who didn’t know better, he would’ve looked innocent.
Luna was fully aware of the demon that lay within.
She remembered back to high school. She remembered being stalked, kidnapped, and stabbed by the “angel” who lay before her. She had put him in the coma—the only way she had been able to contain his evil short of killing him—and it was the best thing she had ever done with her life.
She earned a new sense of peace by visiting the hospital every week to see him in the same condition. Each time, she feared she would open the door to find him sitting up and responsive. It was oddly comforting to see he remained the same, week after week, month after month. Her old friend, Max, had told her years ago that when—if—Chance woke up, his memory would be wiped clean.
Luna didn’t feel too certain.
On a few occasions, she had considered killing him. It would stop it all—the pain, the worry, the fear—but there was a voice in the back of her mind. She imagined it to be her conscience, the tiny piece of who she used to be that hadn’t been destroyed by the monster before her. It reminded her that killing Chance wouldn’t wipe the slate clean.
Grudgingly, she had to admit it was right.
As an alternative, she found peace by seeing his incapacitated state. She observed how hollow his perfect face looked. He had been in a coma for three years. Odds were, he never would wake up from it.
At least, Luna hoped not.
About the Author
Kayla Krantz is the proud author responsible for Dead by Morning, fascinated by the dark and macabre. Stephen King is her all-time inspiration mixed in with a little bit of Eminem and some faint remnants of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. When she began writing, she started in horror but somehow drifted into thriller. She loves the 1988 movie Heathers. Kayla was born and raised in Michigan but traveled across the country to where she currently resides in Texas.
She has ideas for books in many genres which she hopes to write and publish in the future.
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