Moonless

Chapter 39

AN; So I just got an incredible amount of votes and reads and to thank you guys, I decided to post this a bit early (I usually just post Tuesdays and Thursdays)! Thank you for the 615 votes and 3422 reads. I am blown away by all of your guy's support! Hopefully, this means this story is finally gaining some traction!"

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Liam swung the car abruptly to the left and the green truck began to careen down a steep dirt road that looked like it hadn't been used in quite a while. I grabbed onto what I heard Richard refer to the oh-shit-handle once when his truck had nearly gone off the road while driving me back from the diner one night.

I exhaled a small breath of relief once the road leveled out and the land became flat around us. I noticed that Liam was looking in the rearview mirror like he was looking for something or someone.

"So can you tell me now where are you taking me? Where are we even right now?" I asked while the car continued to bounce along the dirt road. Liam turned his eyes away from the mirror and spared me a glance.

Pine Ridge was smack in the middle of Washington State. And the landscape here looked very different from the steep mountains coated in Pine Trees that I was accustomed to. In the distance, I could see plateaus rising above the wide flat expanse of land sparsely populated by gnarled looking trees.

Before Liam had chucked my phone out the window, the sign has said Twin Falls 45 miles.

"Idaho, near the Rock Creek Canyon Parkway. Our family has a house here, a house that we came to when one of the children in our family had a  Moon Coronation."

"Wait, but I thought that our father sacrificed me to the Dark One right after my Coronation. If I remember correctly, Red Cresent is in Nevada? You said that he took us there after the ceremony went wrong."

"Yeah, he made us all get in a car, while we left mom behind dead on the bathroom floor. And we drove straight back to Nevada, back to Red Crescent. That's mostly why I prefer traveling on foot. Trust me, you don't want to be in a car ever again after you were in one with an Alpha that has just lost his mate, and who is also resisting the pull of the moon for 5 hours straight. That and also trying to cope with the overwhelming sadness that your mom is now dead while trying to comfort your younger siblings," he let out a nervous laugh, and then the truck went quiet

I squirmed in my seat unsure if I was supposed to respond to that or not. I had lived through a lot of unpleasantness in my life, but that just downright sounded like hell on earth. I was in that car too, and he wanted me to remember that?

"Anyways not to change the subject, but that chick with the curly blonde hair from that diner that you worked out, does she work for the Pine Ridge pack?" he pulled the truck car into some nearby bushes and killed the engine. I looked around and wondered why were stopping here. I did not see the house he was talking about insight.

"Annie?" I asked while I wondered why he was bringing her up now for seemingly no reason. "No, I don't think so at least, she is just a human that works there as a waitress. Why?"

"She and this other guy have been following us for a while in a car back at Pine Ridge, you were passed out still. I thought I lost her near the border of Washington, but I think I just saw her car again before I turned onto the road. I can't be too sure though."

"Why would Annie be following us?" I asked aloud. "She did want to write a story about what life was like in Pine Ridge. She tried to sneak onto pack land right before I left. I got punished because of it."

"Is that what triggered him to come and kill you?" Liam asked and immediately started laughing.

I gave him a long stare. What was he laughing at the fact that I was almost killed? Was he crazy?

"Sorry," he said, finally noticing the look I was giving him. "I'm just remembering you hitting him with a picture frame. It wasn't funny at the time because I was almost positive that he was going to kill you, but the way you nailed him in the face..." he began laughing again

"I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn't think it was very funny."

He stopped laughing "What did he give you a picture of anyways?"

"Of our mom, it helped him figure out I and Grayson were mates because he was able to determine I came from her bloodline and Grayson's mate came from it as well.

"Oh shit."

Liam stepped out of the car. His feet crunched on the snow and ice glittering in the pink sunshine. He took off his quarter-zip jacket, which left his bare chest and red crescent tattoo exposed."

"What are you doing!?" I demanded and quickly averted my eyes when he went for his jeans next.

"Don't worry about it, I'm going to see if it is actually her and if she decided to follow her. It's up to you if want to change into the sweatshirt in the back, but I suggest you do it. I will be back in a second."

I heard the sound of bones cracking and popping. I looked up just in time to see a gray wolf sitting on the ground.

I gave him a questioning look. Liam, in wolf form, turned away from me and I saw that he had a white crescent marking on his back. He gave me one backward look before taking up the road we had just driven down.

The cold air began to fill in the cabin of the truck and I quickly leaned over the driver's side and closed the door. Once done, I crawled over the shift into the back seat. There I spotted a plastic bag with a gray sweatshirt with red lettering and red trimming that read Washington State on it. There were also serval other bags back here, all filled with a variety of food from hotdogs to chips.

I discard my blood stained sweater and replaced it with the new sweatshirt. My stomach rumbled and I cracked open a bag of potato chips and began to pop a couple into my mouth when the sound of a gunshot pierced the air.