Page 184 of Under an Endless Moon

Then Charleigh and I stepped out onto the sidewalk. The sun stood proud at the center of the sky.

Warm rays rained from above, though there was the hint of cool at the edges of the air.

Fall approaching.

I leaned forward and hugged Charleigh with all my might. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me, Charleigh. The way you’ve changed so much inside of me and made me look at myself differently.”

Her scoff was soggy. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”

“That just means we both needed each other.”

She took one step back, her smile soft as she squeezed my hands between us before she turned and started up the sidewalk in the direction of the medical plaza. I watched her go, and she tipped her attention down as she typed something on her phone.

One second later, my phone buzzed in my hand. I grinned when I opened it to see the message.

Charleigh

Have fun, you sexy bitch. Make sure that man loves you up right.

Glee skated through me. I really was rubbing off on her.

I tapped out a response, my head downturned as my fingers flew across the screen.

Me

I intend to.

I started to straighten when I felt the shift in the air.

The cool breeze that had brushed my skin in comfort turned to a chill.

An ice slick that streaked down my spine and pooled as dread in the pit of my stomach. I started to whirl toward it, toward the foreboding that covered me like a dark shroud.

To pinpoint it.

To stop it.

Only there was no time.

No time to process anything except for the blur at the corner of my eye. A thunder of footsteps and a clamor of evil. The flash of a man raising an arm with a brick in his hand.

A brick that he smashed against the side of my head.

FORTY-NINE

OTTO

It wasa couple of minutes before one when Raven and Charleigh stepped out of the café.

My insides stirred, a whipping of need to get back to my girl.

I was so fucked.

So fucked considering I hadn’t seen her in all of fifty minutes, and I was already sick to my stomach at missing her.

She and Charleigh were huggin’ it out in front of the restaurant.

The two friends who’d become sisters clinging to each other in the middle of the sidewalk as they whispered something under their breaths.

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