Page 29 of Bad Moon Rising
“You’re not.” Brooks snatches my phone from my hands and shoves it into the depths of his duster. I glare at him in dismay, and he offers me a glower of his own in response. Sometimes, my older brother is capable of making me feel like an absolute idiot without a single word needing to pass his lips. It’s a real skill. “They’ll be driving now, and the wolf will hear the call and suspect something. Just sit still, stop fidgeting, and try not to freak out. Jackson will handle this.”
Brooks sounds so sure, but I can see the vein twitching on his temple. I know my brother well enough to know that he’s trying to convince himself.
Just then, tires crunch on the gravel. Jackson’s car pulls into the lookout farther up the hill. My breath catches in my throat.
This is it. We’re going to do this. We’re actually on our first hunt.
Car doors slam, and I hear Jackson’s smooth, reassuring voice as he and Becka move down the narrow path. “It’s just down here. Trust me, this will be worth it.”
Brooks stuffs the flask into his pocket and ushers me forward. We crouch low and creep behind the walls around to the edge of the silo. The darkness and overgrown ruins obscure us from view, and the rush of the river below hides the sound of our footsteps.
“Why are we here?” Becka sounds wary. She fiddles with a strand of her short blonde hair and then runs her palms down the length of her peach-colored dress. “I’m all for an adventure, but I’m not exactly dressed to Indiana Jones this shit.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Jackson holds her hand while she steps over a rotting log. “Where we’re going, the ground is nice and even. I come here with my brothers all the time to party. It’s kind of a little tradition, and I didn’t peg you as a dinner at the Italian place kind of girl, so I’ve prepared a surprise.”
He lies so smoothly, so effortlessly, with not a hint of deception in his honeyed tone. I didn’t know Jackson could do that. I understand more than ever why Brooks made him act as Becka’s date.
“I love Italian,” Becka shoots back as she wobbles in her impossibly high heels. “And if I go down in these shoes, Bellua, I’m pulling you down with me.”
I blanch at her words. Is that a threat? Does she know what we’re planning?
“That would be only fair.” His tone is uncharacteristically grim before he tries once again to fake cheerfulness. “It’s right in here.” Jackson leads her to the low door of the old silo. We came here earlier and strung fairy lights inside, and they must twinkle through the narrow doorway like a fairy realm. Becka gasps as she sees them, and I know she’s thinking there’s some kind of romantic picnic on the other side—that’s the kind of thing Jackson would do.
“After you, M’lady.” Jackson sweeps his arm at the door.
“Okay, thanks.” Becka takes a tentative step inside. Brooks tenses, ready to pounce. “You know, I was pretty surprised when you asked me to prom, because I know you’ve got a thing for Lily. But I think this is going to be a really fun night, and maybe I’ll cut in on Chase and drag him off and let you and her—”
Becka disappears through the door, and Jackson leaps back and slams it shut. Brooks darts in beside him and slides the bolts into place.
“Jackson, what are you doing?” The door shakes angrily. “Jackson, it’s dark in here.”
“I’m sorry, Becka,” Jackson says. This time, he’s sincere. We’re doing what we have to do for the good of the town, for the safety of Lily and everyone else we care about, but fuck. Becka’s a classmate of ours, not the stereotypical monster our family usually hunts down. “But we can’t allow you to hurt anyone else.”
“Hurt anyone else? What are you talking about?” Real fear enters Becka’s voice, and it breaks my heart to hear. For the first time since this entire shitstorm began, I feel like the true monster.
“Come on, Becka, don’t play dumb,” Brooks snaps. “You know.”
“Who the fuck is there with you, Jackson?” Becka growls. Brooks is already climbing up the rickety metal ladder that leads to the top of the silo, where a hatch will let us in to finish her off once she’s changed.
“I’m their older brother,” Brooks says. “Perhaps your alpha told you about me. I’m kind of famous among monsters. He certainly knew my name before I killed him.”
“Jackson.” Becka’s voice wavers. “This is scary, okay? Can you let me out?”
“Come on, Becka.” Jackson comes and stands beside me, his stake clenched so tight in his fingers that his knuckles are white. “You know I can’t do that. You don’t have to play pretend. We know all about what’s been happening to you—the hair growing from strange places. The newfound taste for raw meat. Waking up in your bed after a full moon with blood on your clothes and not knowing where it came from. Think of all those people mauled to death by wild animals back in Oakland Heights. Surely you’ve put it all together?”
“Put what together? What are you talking about?”
“You’re a werewolf, Becka.” Jackson heaves out a weary breath and runs his fingers through his hair. “And there’s no cure. Except us.”
“This is crazy. I’m not a werewolf. Nothing bit me! Oh, wait!” Becka’s voice turns cold. “I get it. This is how you torment the new girl. You make me miss prom by locking me in this giant eggplant temple. Ha ha, very funny.”
Brooks snorts. “It does kind of look like a giant eggplant. But there’s nothing funny about the trail of dead bodies you and your alpha left across the state.”
Becka’s dark laugh drums in my ears. “You know, at my last school, they wrote ‘freak’ on my locker, and the school made me scrub it off. And the school before that, they sabotaged my art project. I get it, my mom’s a genuine fake psychic who makes her living scamming gullible people out of their money, and we’ve been run out of every town we tried to call home. But I really thought this place could be different. Your friend Lily is the first person in five schools who’s been nice to me, and since you’re all madly in love with her, I thought maybe you were nice, too. Especially when I heard what people say about your parents. I thought, ‘hey, these people know what it’s like to be the freak, so maybe I’ll finally have some friends.’ But the joke’s on me, right? You’re just the same as all the other shitty teenage boys who wanted to look cool by picking on me. Well, fine, whatever. I’m a werewolf. Can you just dump the pig’s blood on me so I can go home?”
Her words tear at something in my chest. I’ve been the outcast for most of my life, too. I don’t want to like Becka, but…she’s too much like me. I wince at the pain, praying my brothers don’t notice. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a hunter. I don’t know if I can go through with this, if I can truly kill her. She looks like a human, talks like a human, sounds like a human….
“You know that’s not how this ends.” Brooks flips open the hatch and peers down into the silo. The sharp silver tip of his stake catches the dying light, and Becka starts to scream. I try to resist the urge to place my hands over my ears to drown out the God-awful sound.