Page 32 of Bad Moon Rising

13

JACKSON

“I don’t understand.” I peer up at the full moon, and then down to the door of the silo, where Becka is still screaming inside. “Why hasn’t she shifted yet?”

“Maybe she’s using magic to delay the shift?” Brooks suggests, but his features are drawn. He has no idea either.

“I thought you were Mr. I-know-everything-about-werewolves?” It comes out snarkier than intended, but he did leave us when we were only sixteen. And he forced me to hurt Daisy by taking some other woman to the dance. Though there’s nothing romantic about taking a girl down to the river to drive a stake through her chest. That’s some murderous shit right there.

Goddammit. Did my big brother just turn me into a killer?

“Mr. Werepedia,” Orion pipes up, playing along with my little game. Sometimes, I swear we’re just one being separated into two identical bodies.

Nearly identical. I’m the pretty one, obviously.

“The Maestro of Monsters,” I add. “The Wizard of Werewolves. The Supernatural Savant.”

“The Stephen Hawkings of Howlers.”

“This isn’t helping,” Brooks snaps. He forks his fingers through his hair. When I get anxious, I make stupid, ill-timed jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood. When Brooks gets agitated, he turns into Dark Vader’s and Voldomort’s deranged and evil love child. “Why don’t you do something useful, like, I don’t know, look up the lore database for something that might force her to shift?”

I stick my tongue out at him and head back to the car where I left my phone. I dig it out from under the seat. I’m about to click into the encrypted lore database that hunters use to compile information about different monsters and how to dispatch them, but then I see a notification pop up.

Lily Dean is tagged in a photo.

My heart stutters, and all thoughts of the hunt leave me. Daisy’s at the prom with him, smiling and taking photos and dancing and...

Has Chase got her to dance yet? Is he looking into her deep eyes while fairy lights sparkle above? Is his hand on the small of her back, accidentally brushing the crest of her ass as he spins her and dips her until she’s giddy with the magic of prom…

Has she told him her middle name?

Is he making his move?

Raw, primal rage burns in my veins. I feel like I’m the one who’s about to transform into a wolf, but only so I can rip Chase’s stupid head off.

I can’t help myself.

I click through to the photo.

It’s Daisy and Chase at the prom photo booth, which is set up to look like an enchanted library. Stacks of old tomes surround them, with a wooden ladder to the top shelves, like you’d find in the Beast’s library balances against a mound of books. Chase’s wearing a big, goofy grin and has his arm around Daisy’s waist in a way that makes me want to tear it off, and she’s turned toward him, her red lips smiling, her bright eyes sparkling. And the way her flame-orange dress hugs her body…

She looks so beautiful that my heart spins.

I should be there with her, not Chase. Orion and I should be the ones spinning her around the dance floor.

What does she see in him, anyway?

Before I know what I’m doing, I click on Chase’s name and scroll through his feed. He’s such a dork. It’s all streams from computer games or pop culture memes or model trains he’s painted and…

Wait a second.

My blood runs cold.

I enlarge the photo I found, filling the screen with Chase’s smiling face. He’s leaning against a graffiti-covered wall with another guy, and they’re fooling around. The guy lunges at Chase, hands up and fingers curled like claws. Chase has a card in his hand that he’s using like a tiny shield. At first glance, it looks like a credit card, but I zoom in further and can clearly see the Haddenwood public library logo in the corner.

The caption reads: “On vacation with my parents in boring Oakland Heights. I found this library card on the street today. It’s from the library in my hometown, how crazy is that? I’m going to return it when we get back, but tonight, it’s my magical ghost shield. Some of the local kids invited me to check out this abandoned youth hostel outside of town. Apparently, there have been all kinds of weird noises and strange sightings out there. We’re going to have a seance. May the power of the library card protect me!”

I study Chase’s skinny shoulders and shoulder-length blond hair—hair that from a distance, at night, might make him look like a girl…

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