Page 37 of Bad Moon Rising

I’m not good for her.

We’ve already lost Orion to this evil. I’m not strong enough to lose her too. I can’t bear the thought of digging a grave for her or staring down at her bloody body, watching her features mangle as she grows a snout and sharp teeth, as her mind becomes warped by the need to kill, maim, tear, and destroy.

Orion stirs, his head thrashing wildly as his nose and lips contort into wolfish features. His eyes grow wide with pain and fear. He tries to speak, but the sounds that come out are anything but human.

My little brother…

I’m so, so fucking sorry.

In the front seat, Jackson sobs. The Mustang groans in protest as it bumps down the dirt road.

“Hang in there, buddy.” I stroke Orion’s hair as claws punch through the ends of his fingers. I pin his arms above his head, but it won’t be long now until he’s too strong for me to hold.

Jackson slams on the brakes. “We’re here.”

“Help me.”

I don’t want Jackson to have to do this, not now that Orion’s face is barely recognizable under the fur, not when his soft eyes glow with bloodlust. But Orion’s thrashing so wildly that I can barely hold on to him, let alone get him out of the car.

Between the two of us, we manage to drag him into the silo and slam the door shut behind him before he completes his shift. The howl of pain and rage on the other side of the door chills my blood, and it's followed by snarling and scrabbling claws as Orion tries to climb the smooth sides of the silo and scratch his way through the door.

Jackson leans against the door, his body shaking with sobs.

As awful as it is for me to hear Orion like this, it’s a hundred times worse for Jackson. Orion’s his twin, for fuck’s sake. Practically his other half. The two may be as different from each other as night and day, but I know they have a bond I can’t begin to comprehend. When I was younger, I used to be jealous of how close they were, but now, I’m grateful they have each other, especially when I’m not around.

“What do we do now?” he whispers, using his shirt sleeves to wipe away the remainder of his tears. I’m happy that he’s pulling himself together, but I hate the fact he has to in the first place. He should be allowed to fall apart after all we endured, for fuck’s sake. It isn’t healthy to bottle everything up inside.

I’m the expert on “holding emotions in until they inevitably explode in my face.” I’ve seen firsthand how catastrophic that inevitable eruption can be.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I pass him one of the chocolate syrup bottles I stashed in the car earlier. He opens his mouth and squirts half of it onto his tongue.

“Lily almost got killed tonight, and now Orion…”

“It’s fucked.” My body sags against the metal siding until I’m on the wet ground beside him. I throw my arm around him and pull him close, something I haven’t done since he was a kid. Jackson stiffens for a moment before relaxing a little into my shoulder. “Everything is fucked.”

“We have to…” Jackson sniffs. “We have to do what Mom and Dad said… He wouldn’t want to live like this, hurting people every full moon, not being able to control himself.”

“No,” I growl. “We’re not giving up on him. Maybe other hunters kill their own, but I refuse to accept that our brother is lost to us. When it’s not the full moon, he’s still Orion, right?”

“Yes. But—”

“But nothing. For most of the month, we have our brother with us, just the way it should be. And then, when he’s ready to wolf out, we stick him somewhere safe, throw in some raw meat, and wait it out.” I pat the side of the silo. “It’ll work. We’ll stop him from hurting anyone and make sure no one figures out what he truly is. We’ll look after him, just like we always have, right?”

Jackson peers up at me, and although his face is so afflicted with despair, his eyes sparkle with hope. “We could do that?”

“We will do it. But I’m not gonna lie, it’ll be hard. I can’t do it myself. Which means that you can’t go to college. You need to come with me. We’ll hunt together, the three of us, just the way it was meant to be.” A hard lump rises in my throat. After everything I’ve done to protect them from the hunter’s life, it’s going to be what keeps them safe now. Oh, the irony of that. “We keep a low profile and don’t draw attention to ourselves. We don’t get close to anyone. And maybe…maybe there’s a cure out there for him. No one’s ever had a live werewolf to study before. Maybe there’s hope—”

My breath catches on the words. I don’t believe them. Not really. I’m saying all the shit for Jackson’s sake. I’m proposing a wild, reckless plan that goes against everything our parents taught us, but the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

“Okay,” Jackson breathes, hugging his knees to his chest. “We’ll do it.”

“Okay.” Relief fills me. A part of me was afraid Jackson would refuse, that he was too hung up on the rules that have been drilled into our heads since we were children. But I should’ve known my brother better than that. He has always, and will always, put our family first.

“What happens now?” he asks.

“We can’t stay here. We can’t put Lily in danger, and the police are going to be all over the missing kid and the werewolf guts we left behind.”

“But the wolf saliva will—”

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