Page 35 of The Wild Moon
Mr. Unknown was giving me a long, appraising look.
“Do youtrulyknow what’s eating you?” he said at last, his tone gentler than before. “Or do you just think you do and you’re using it to avoid something else?”
My parents.
I frowned. I swore he was reading my mind, looking past the outer layer and deeper into me, into my thoughts and fears. I still had no idea what had happened to them, not even a clue. All the money I won went into looking for them. It’s why I insisted on fighting so often.
But so far, I hadn’t found a damn thing. Not a single shred of evidence or clue as to where they had gone. It was like they’d just disappeared. Completely. Turned into dust. It made nosenseand that too gnawed away at me because of how things had ended between us.
“You should do something about whatever it is,” Mr. Unknown said.
“I can’t,” I said in a quiet tone. “I don’t know …” I trailed off.
It wasn’t Johnathan, after all. It was them. I missed them. I missed my family. I had no way of knowing. No way of finding out what had happened to them. I’d looked for clues.
In my mind, a picture of my father’s journal appeared. The one from his study that he’d intended to give to me as a shift gift. I’d swiped it when I’d broken out of Aldridge Manor and returned to my old home for clothing and supplies. Something had driven me to grab it, but until then, it had stayed tucked away in the bottom of my bug-out bag.
Unread.
“See,” Mr. Unknown whispered with a ghostly smile. “I knew there was more. Nowdosomethingabout it,” he urged.
Before I could speak, he nodded sharply and then left, leaving me alone in the room, aroused, confused, and more than a little scared.
Can you read my mind?
I cast the thought out there, wondering if I would get a response from him. Either he could read minds, in addition to being addictively hot, or I was just easier to read than I liked to believe.
When I got no response, I knew what the answer was.
“Damn,” I hissed.
What was worse was that he was right. Although I’d been paying other people to look for evidence about my family, I’d been avoiding doing anything about it myself. It was going to be painful, but Mr. Unknown was right. I had to dosomething.
Now was the perfect time for it, as well. I’d just sent Johnathan packing for a week, hopefully more. Which meant I could get out of town, andthatwas good because I was coming up on four weeks since I’d left Seguin.
Lars’ countdown was running out.
I didn’t know what was going to happen, but one thing Iwascertain of was that I didn’t want to be anywhere near a population center when the next Wild Moon arrived.
That meant it was time for me to leave Kellar.
Chapter Twenty
Thomas Wetter.
That was the name embossed on the spine of the book. It was the only lettering on the exterior at all, which was standard for his journals. I’d only ever seen their spines before, facing out from their place on the shelf he kept them on. I suppose itcouldbe something else, but I trusted my gut on this one.
Closing my eyes, I reached down and placed my palm on the brown leather cover, imagining my father writing in it, hunched over in a tent somewhere out in the wild. He loved that. Exploring the unknown. It was what drove him and made him happy. I sighed.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m trying,” I whispered to nobody in particular. “I don’t even know where to start. It’s just so hard.”
My voice broke on the last word, and I slumped back against the futon that doubled as both my couch and bed. I rented a room in an apartment building in a less than reputable part of Kellar. All my money had gone to the search for my parents. A futon had seemed like the most sensible of purchases, somewhere I could sit or lie down as needed. No point in buying two pieces of furniture with my meager income.
I preferred to eat.
The half-eaten bucket of ramen sat on the cheap plastic stool that served as my coffee table, dinner table, and nightstand all in one. I eyed it, but I wasn’t hungry. Not anymore. The thought of opening the journal and reading my father’s notes filled my stomach with a lump all its own.
My father.
