✓ DYING MOURNINGS, original

twenty-five : the moon

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𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 : 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍

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The drive back to my house was silent in Pandora's car.

I let Ace drop me off before he drove off to dump Pandora's car somewhere so no one cold find it. We needed an hour to figure out what had happened, exactly, before we ran off and tried to find her ourselves. We knew we couldn't talk to the cops because of the Morticianers influence in the police department, so we were screwed.

Pandora Basks was many things, but she would never leave her friends without telling them first. And after Ace had interrogated Blondie and Winker after the service had ended, and even John too for a second time, we concluded that she just got up and...vanished. Blondie explained to Ace, as he later relaid the information to me behind the church, that Pandora had gotten a text and got up to use the restroom and message them back without seeming disrespectful for being on her phone during a funeral service.

And that was the last time they had seen her that evening.

When the two of us arrived at my house, he helped me inside and we went over what we know and didn't know and everything just went back to the same damn group and the same damn person who couldn't stay out of our lives.

Once Ace had left with the car, I pulled out my phone's from the bag and unlocked my mother's in a heartbeat. I went to recent calls and clicked his name and brought the device to my ear, my heartbeat so fast and loud that I could feel it in my throat.

When he answered, I didn't give him enough time to say hello before I snapped out, fierce and angry, "Where the hell is she?!"

Crow laughed, deep in his chest. "And who might we be talking about?"

"Oh, fuck you, you know who."

He was silent, like he hadn't anticipated me to be so bold, so angry. But I could no longer contain myself in being this calm, stoic, and respectful girl. I was filled with rage and ruin and blood that I was determined to spill.

"If you lay one finger on her, I will come to you and rip you the fuck apart, okay?" I snarled, my fingers clenching around my phone as I slammed a closed fist against the kitchen counter. "If you hurt her, you better start praying to whatever god you believe in because I will not rest until she's home and safe."

"Blaire..." he started and I wanted to have hope he didn't have her, that he was better than this monster we both knew he was. He couldn't be this horrible man, he just couldn't be. He couldn't be the one behind all of this, all of this killing and evil and darkness threatening to consume me and this town. He couldn't have killed my father, he couldn't have had any influence in my mother's death, Gretchen's, in everything. "...I'm sorry my men decided to ruin that pretty little face of yours, it's truly such a shame to hear and see." Had he seen me at the church earlier today? Had he been watching in the trees and I just hadn't noticed?

It sounded like that wasn't what he had originally planned to say, that he was fighting with himself as much as I was. I wanted to trust this man, I don't know why or how, but a part of my very being told me he was good. That he would protect me but I knew better than this, oh god, I had to know better than this.