Yesssss.
What did I have to lose? My author career is clearly over.Dante is nowhere to be found, and somehow involved with all of this life, seeing as he has friends who canbuyme, and I’m about to be walked onto a stage and sold to the highest bidder, with nowhere to run.
No one to save me.
You don’t need saving; you just need to give in. Let go of your past self, kill her as Greg did, and rise from her ashes. You are Luna Stirling.
A man walking on stage catches my attention, and everything shifts. The energy in the room feels tense as he taps on the microphone, calling everyone’s attention to start the auction.
“Come with me,” Greg says, his breath on my skin.
Greg will die tonight.
A gunshot rings out, and I jump, looking frantically around the room. My eyes dart from person to person, looking for an exit. “We have to go now,” Greg says, and he starts to pull me with him, wrapping his arms around me and running out of the tent.
I kick and scream, fighting him the whole time. “Let me go!”
He throws me to the ground, my shoulder breaking my fall. He climbs over top of me, covering my mouth to keep me from screaming. More gunshots ring out in the distance. “All those nights on the strip hanging with the pit-pocketers taught me a thing or two.” Greg holds up a black ring, “I swiped it off him when he wasn’t looking. Now you’ll be my pet, and you’ll never leave me again, because you’remine.”
I’m going to throw up. No, no, no no! I won’t be tied to him, not now, not ever. My heart belongs to one person, and if I’m never to see him again, I want him to find my body and know I put up a fight to get back to him.
I want Dante to know I tried.
I shift my weight under Greg, giving me the leverage to kick him in the balls. He groans, falling to the side of me, and I push out from under him and take off into the darkness. I flip my shoes off as I keep running, when a shock runsthrough me so great that I fall to my knees. “Ahhh!” My ears ring, and my vision blurs.
“Shouldn’t have run, stupid bitch.” A hard thud to my jaw, and my world goes black.
Dante
The lights flicker, and I duck, hearing the whizz of bullets zooming through the air. “Fuck, Alex!” I shout, pulling him up from the floor and under a nearby table for cover. “Are you hit?”
“No, you?”
“No.” I look back over to find Luna, but she’s gone. “Fuck, she’s gone, Alex!” I turn frantically back to him.
“Go! Fuck the plan, I’m fine! Find Luna!”
With his blessing, I don’t wait another second. I push up from the floor, crouching behind tables, making my way through piled bloody bodies as more shots ring out, and I take cover. A dead body lay at my feet, and their face looked familiar—a Constanza brother, the one who stood behind Johnny that day in the casino.
One less brother I have to find.
The gunfire ceases, and I take my chance to make a run for it. I run as fast as I can out of the tent and into the nearby treeline to take cover. I hear a faint scream as I crash into the bush.
Luna—but where did it come from?
Silence.
I have to move now, or I’ll lose her. She’s stuck on this Island unless she’s on a boat. The thought fills me with dread, but no, no, she’s here still. I feel her. I know my angel is still here, and I will find her.
I push up from the bush and head where my intuition tells me. I have none of my usual gear to help me, no phone to track her, no camera to follow; it’s primal, and it’s raw. And once I get my hands around Greg’s neck, I will make him suffer foreverythinghe’s done to her.I will make him feel everybit of hurt she has, and so much more. I might rent a warehouse out and hire a shady doctor to keep this fucker alive purely so I can have my way with him, as many times as his pathetic body will allow before giving out.
His fear will be delicious.
I don’t want his fear. I want his life.
Luna
Iopen my eyes, and the first thing I see is dark wood, it’s old and weathered, and looks like something you’d see in a scary movie. The second thing I notice is a ringing in my ears. I dig my finger around, trying to get that persistent ringing to stop, when I hear a voice.
