Page 45 of Blood Moon

For centuries we lived like this. The peace was almost overwhelming.

Article IV, Lost Letters from Aadan the First

Before my eyes opened, I felt the rising and falling. It was like drifting in a glass sea, the waves gradually pulling me with the current. The sensation was unrelenting.

A flutter, and daylight rushed to meet my gaze. Below, a laugh from someone on the Campus Center, the sound echoing and slipping through the cracked window. A warmness against me. The smell of charred eucalyptus, and the weight of an arm wrapped around my waist, pressing me in like a cocoon.

I’d had a hand on his chest, fingers hiding between the folds of the shirt he wore last night. My head had found a space beneath his shoulder, resting in the curve of it like we’d been carved together.

In the morning sun, his hair twisted in soft ringlets against his pillow, and here, right now, he looked more human than ever. It was an innocence that stilled me, pinched at my navel. How strange to think that Julian and I moved and breathed in the same world. A thought that seemed impossible.

Seeing him like this made me want to stay, made me want to cling to him and wear him around me, never unfolding. Made me want to wait it out until the sun fell and rose again and again. A loophole, we’d find. A disturbance to the ether. Time would be so very disappointed if it knew.

How had we gone from enemies to this? Knotted like a bundle of weeds with no starting point. It’d only been a night in this new reality, and I’d never felt so much peace.

I allowed myself a final look before undoing myself and carefully climbing over him. I collected my things that had been scattered nearby, slipped on my shoes. In a whisper, I leaned beside him to say, “Thank you.”

Somewhere between sleep and the present, Julian reached for my hand. It was only for a second, a gentle squeeze before letting go. Then he moved onto his stomach and fell back into slumber.

Only then did I realize I’d never found out how that movie ended.

As I trailed the sidewalk outside, I pulled out my phone to call Bobby. He agreed to meet me at a local coffee shop on Strawberry Hill, and when he asked if I needed a ride, I turned it down, telling him I’d find my way.

I called for a car after I was dressed, and safely tucked in my bag was the letter Rena sent.

The shop was filled with the whir of busy bodies, expected for a Saturday before noon.

Bobby was seated at a table toward the back, a steaming cup of coffee—black, no sugar—on the table before him.

Held up with both hands was the Kansas City Star , the local paper.

He was the only person I knew that read it.

At the counter, I ordered an iced coffee. It wasn’t until I collected it that I sat across from him and cleared my throat.

Bobby folded the newspaper, and when our eyes met, a fatigued smile set on his face. Lines creased in the corners of his eyes and the middle of his forehead. He patted the table before he stood to his feet and opened his arms. “Bring it in, Bug.”

When I embraced him, I bit down hard, clenching my jaw in hopes it would prevent the tears from coming.

Bobby and I never really fought, not like we had a couple weeks ago, nothing ever serious or life-changing.

When we lived together, he frequently got on my nerves, but it was always in the “I love you, you need to hear this” kind of way.

Never would Bobby abandon me. Never would he leave me in the dark or let me fall on my own, which was why I needed to know if he knew the same truth that I did. I wanted to know if he was aware of Rena’s troubled family tree. Because if he was, and he’d been hiding it, it would obliterate me.

He kissed my forehead before letting go.

When he returned to his seat, I saw the quiver in his lips, the lines piercing at his glassy eyes.

Bobby was such an emotional sap; I wouldn’t change it for the world.

In contrast, Rena had been more reserved.

Not necessarily unkind or remorseless, but at times emotionally distant.

At times, difficult to understand in that I felt I was getting more riddles than answers. More questions than solutions.

Bobby and I took a shared breath and sipped from our respective cups.

He was the first to speak. “I want to apologize for the other day. For snapping. For letting this case get to me.” At that, he folded his lips, cleared his throat.

“I imagine seeing me in that way probably scared you, and I’m sorry for that, kiddo.

I wanted to be sure—about everything with your mom—before I presented the information to you. ”

“I’m sorry, too.” I nodded, and all I could think about was how much I missed him, and how much I missed our old life.

I didn’t know it then, but it was so simple and so seamless.

And I’d be okay with letting him nag me if I could go back to before I knew about my death sentence, before I acknowledged the existence of werewolves and vampires.

“I overstepped a few boundaries,” I said, but then I was jolted by the cover of the newspaper. There had been another attack.

Bobby noticed me eyeing it. “I know. It’s unfortunate.”

I swallowed, understanding the truth now. Werewolves were to blame for this, and to know it continued to happen made my bones ache. I pulled the envelope from my bag and placed it on the table. There wasn’t a better time than right now.

Bobby widened his eyes. He looked at me before he grabbed it, and it was that look that told me he hadn’t heard from Rena since the day she left. My heart broke for him.

He opened it, pulled out the letter, and I watched his eyes flit from line to line. He read it twice, three times. After, he was speechless, blankly staring at the off-white paper.

“What do you think?”

Bobby shook his head, and he looked as if he wanted to set the paper down but couldn’t.

“Honestly, I’m stunned. Seems like she’s been keeping a low profile because she’s trying to protect us from something. Or rather, you , I should say,” he said, looking me square in the face, and then observing my pendant. “You know, she never wore that necklace. She kept it locked in a box.

“Don’t know why. Never questioned her about it, but now I see she’d been reserving it for you, risking whatever cover she’s had to make sure you got it.” He took a second. “But she had to have known we’d have questions after this.”

I pressed the opal between my fingers. “Do you know anything about her family? Could she be with them?”

He huffed, sat back, and placed the letter and envelope on the table.

“I wondered that. She always told me she’d lost touch with them, but that they were much older than her, had separate lives.

It’s hard to know if they’d be so willing to invite her in since they were practically strangers.

I did try looking them up, searching for them in the databases, but either she gave me the wrong names, or they just don’t exist. Your mother was secretive in that way.

” I wondered what else she was hiding if she never even told Bobby about her family.

“Did she ever mention being of … royalty? ” I asked, because I didn’t know how to announce that due to her bloodline, I was being hunted by wolves and vampires.

Bobby raised his brows. “Royalty?” he repeated with a slight laugh.

But then something in him changed. He shifted in his seat as he peered away.

“Huh,” he said. And then, “I don’t know.

” He shifted again, almost as if a light had switched on.

“It’s possible. Rena had what’s called ‘old money.’ We always had separate bank accounts because of it.

She paid for the wedding, our house, the cars.

I feel a bit silly saying this aloud, but I never questioned her.

I didn’t have a reason to until she was gone.

” He scratched the fuzz on his face. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, because of this opal … it seems expensive, sacred.” It was the easiest way to describe it because it wasn’t just sacred.

It was magical. But I wondered if he thought so, too.

“She mentioned the world wasn’t as it seems,” I said.

Bobby nodded, looking down at the letter again, as if memorizing every word in his head. “What do you think she meant by that?”

He held a knuckle to his lip, a tremor there.

“It’s hard to decipher. It’s concerning, though,” he said, and he sat upright.

“I don’t know, Bug. This letter … it’s making me wonder if you should consider coming home while we try to figure out what your mother meant.

It was a lot to digest, and until we can make sure this isn’t paranoia …

” He paused. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. ”

I swallowed, tapped my foot beneath the table.

Bobby had every right to want me to come home.

Perhaps it was safer with him. But what if the wolves and vampires followed me there?

What if something happened to him, and it was my fault?

I couldn’t go back knowing I could put him in danger.

“Dad …” I breathed. “I appreciate you looking out for me, for wanting to figure this out, but I’m safe where I am,” I lied.

“There’s security at my school. I have my friends, and if anything happens, I can always call you,” I said, trying to reassure him.

“I know you can get to me faster than anyone.” And even if he couldn’t, I knew he’d try with everything he had.

He folded his lips but nodded. “You’re right.” And after convincing himself, he said, “But you have to promise to call. Keep me updated.”

“I will. I will.” I took a sip of my drink, and then I pulled the newspaper closer to me, pointed to the headline. “Dad, um … what are your thoughts on werewolves?”

He scratched at his beard before merging his brows together. “Werewolves?” The word being repeated to me, from him, felt odd. His glance flickered around us, skittish almost.

The others in the coffee shop didn’t pay us much mind. It helped that Bobby wasn’t in uniform today, but he was Chief, so I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone recognized us without it. “Yeah …” I said, trying to read what he wouldn’t say. Something was afoot. He was fidgeting. It wasn’t like him.

“I mean, what do you want to know, Bug?” He asked, lowering his voice. “I suppose it makes for good television, books, fandoms, this old town.”

“That part,” I noted. “This old town. What are your thoughts on the lore here?”

A chuckle, and a look that said he very much wanted to know what my point was.

“It’s all just an old wives’ tale. You know, stories you tell your kids to get them in the house before midnight.

My mother and father told me these stories, and so on and so forth.

It makes the city feel small, in that way.

But it’s all just a fun legend we share between ourselves.

It’s for the kids, you know? The teens.”

“But did you ever think those stories were real? ”

“Now you’re talking how you did when you were a kid.” He took a small sip of his coffee. “God, you were so obsessed with those stories.” He took a breath in. “But that’s just it. They’re just stories.”

My foot tapped harder. “Fine, that’s fair.

Tell me this. What do you think has been attacking people in the woods?

” A stutter, and I could see how the mask he wore peeled ever so slightly.

Bobby bit around for his next lines, but wavered.

“The truth,” I said. “It’s not a bear, Dad. Not mountain lions or coyotes.”

Bewilderment distorted his features, crawled down his hands as he gripped his cup. He looked at me inconclusively, perhaps deliberating what I knew. What I’d seen.

“It’s not …” he uttered, and he glanced at the table glumly. “I haven’t witnessed it, but this animal—there’s an abnormality about it, and I don’t know what it is, but I’m afraid, too.”