Page 39 of Bad Moon Rising
“Chase… He turned into… He shifted into a… A monster attacked me…” I can’t seem to get my thoughts in order. They swirl around and around in my head like a whirlpool.
Becka’s lips thin. “He’s a werewolf.”
“What?” I gape at her in disbelief, sure I heard her wrong. Or, if I heard her correctly, she’s pulling my leg. I don’t know Becka that well, but she definitely doesn’t seem like the type who would try to tease me after what I just endured. But she can’t possibly be telling the truth, can she?
“That’s what the Bellua brothers told me.” She waves her hand in the direction of the school, the brick structure currently hidden by the dense canopy surrounding us. “Apparently, monsters exist.”
I notice she doesn’t sound too surprised by that revelation.
But me?
I feel as if I’m losing my mind. My grasp on reality is tenuous at best. Fear, horror, and disbelief vie for control inside my brain.
She can’t be telling the truth.
She can’t be.
Monsters don’t exist.
They don’t.
They’re just fables parents tell their misbehaving kids before they go to bed at night in order to convince them to stay beneath the covers. They’re the stories the Bellua brothers and I made up in our childhood games so we could have bad guys to beat together. Monsters are legends that have been twisted and distorted over time—real people that society has transformed into beastly creatures.
Werewolves don’t exist outside of Twilight.
“Look…” Becka blows out a weary breath and scrapes a hand through her short blonde locks. “I don’t have all the answers. To be completely honest, I know jack shit about the supernatural world, but I do know it’s real. And the Bellua family? I think they play a big part in it.” She leans forward and places a reassuring hand on my upper arm. “You need to go to them for your answers. I guarantee you they’ll do anything you asked of them…including telling you the truth of what happened tonight.”
My mind reels, but outwardly, I keep my expression placid. I know later, in the privacy and safety of my bedroom, I’ll fall apart and replay this entire night over and over in my head. I’ll wonder what I could’ve done differently, why Chase attacked me, how he became this…monster in the first place.
And I’ll think over his words—that parting warning he gave me as a slow, malicious grin tugged up his mouth.
“I’m so sorry about this, Lily Dean. But my master insisted it be done.”
What did he mean? What master?
I shudder.
“Come on.” Becka’s reassuring pat on my arm turns into a squeeze as she leads me farther down the path. The moonlight is barely able to penetrate the thick canopy up above, the silver and gold all but obscured now.
“Where are we going?” I whisper as a wind rattles the tree branches and skates along my bare arms. For all I know, Becka could be taking me somewhere to kill me, but I don’t think so. I feel…safe with her, an emotion that has been foreign to me for the last couple of hours.
“My house is just down here. We can grab my car, and I’ll take you home.” She points with her free hand. “Mom doesn’t mind me borrowing her car as long as I’m not robbing a bank or eating non-vegan food inside it.”
“That’s nice of your mom,” I say, realizing only then that I really don’t know anything about this strange girl.
Yet I already feel insanely close to her.
Becka snorts. “Oh yeah, she’s a trashy TV psychic with a penchant for tie-dying everything in sight – she’s just lovely. I suppose you can hazard a guess who I learned about the supernatural world from. Come on, I’ve got some candy stashed in my room. According to all the books, eating sugar after you’ve seen a monster makes you feel better…”
* * *
Becka pulls up outside my house a half hour later.
She’s stuffed me full of chocolate bars, and although I’ve stopped trembling, I don’t feel better.
For a moment, I don’t move, allowing the heat from the vents to blast at my face. It does very little to quell the chill permeating my entire body and turning my hands to ice, but it helps. For now, it helps.
I touch my fingers to the witch’s mark, wishing it was more than just a silly charm. I wish it had the power to undo everything that happened tonight.