Hunter's Moon

One: Riley

"Finally," I muttered as an old, faded red Jeep Wrangler rolled to a stop at the curb in front of my house. The engine roared and shrieked as the driver downshifted, the deafening sound shattering the otherwise sleepy silence of the neighborhood. I winced and glanced up and down the street, half-expecting to see sleepy, angry neighbors bursting out of their homes.

Nothing happened so I pushed myself up from where I sat on the porch steps, feet and brain still dragging from sleep as I made my way down the path to the sidewalk. My hiking pack was slung over one shoulder, a thermos of coffee tucked into the crook of my other arm. It was so early the horizon hadn't even begun changing color yet—the sky was still pitch black, with the brilliance of billions of stars winking down at me.

"Morning!" My best friend, Nadia Belmont, chirped from the driver's seat of the Jeep, more lovingly known as "the Beast." The vehicle was a lemon once, said to be beyond repair. But then Nadia fell in love with it, and her father rescued it from the junkyard. She'd spent the better part of a summer and sophomore year before it was running again. The Beast still had its issues, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. According to Nadia, anyway.

"Too early," I muttered as I climbed into the passenger seat, slamming the door so the latch would shut. After shoving my pack onto the floor at my feet, I pushed my glasses up my nose and took a sip of coffee. The hot liquid trickled down my throat as I leaned my head back, sighing heavily. "Too early, too cheery," I grumbled.

Nadia cackled. "Don't worry," she said as she pulled onto the street. "Soon enough, you'll be on my level."

I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes. "Kill me now."

She laughed once then fell silent as I sipped more coffee, giving my brain more time to wake up fully. At the moment, I hated her guts and wished a curse upon her and her future children, and her children's children for dragging my ass out of bed so early. Sleep was hard enough; waking up was just impossible sometimes.

But, just like every time she pulled me out of bed for an early-morning hike this summer, I knew I'd thank her for it later. These days, all I wanted to do was sleep and drink myself into oblivion, but she made sure I didn't. No matter how tempting it was to let myself succumb to the grief, she wouldn't let me. Nadia stuck by me all summer, always there to pull me back from the edge.

"Did you let your dad know?" I murmured after a while. She and I had practically spent half of summer up in the mountains, but while her dad knew we were up there often, he still needed to know when we did go. It wasn't unheard of for her to forget to tell her dad—or me to tell my aunt—and last month we were both banned from hiking for a week after forgetting to tell them about a weekend backpacking trip.

"Yep. Tell your aunt?" Nadia returned, glancing at me for a brief second before returning her attention to the road. We had left the outskirts of Wolf Valley, the highway before us twisting and weaving between the trees in smooth curves. The Beast roared along the road, leading us farther away from town.

"Yep," I mimicked, sipping more coffee. Honestly, the beverage was a gift from the universe itself. It provided life and energy, and for me, it helped calm my mind and cure my hangover. I could still taste the barest traces of last night's whiskey on my tongue, but the coffee was starting to replace it.

Even though I was staring ahead, I could still see Nadia glance at me every few seconds from the corner of my eye. After about ten minutes of this, the frustration built up and I sighed loudly, letting her know I'd caught on, but she didn't stop. Instead, she dared to ask the forbidden question; "Are you okay?"

I sighed again, bringing one knee up to my chest as I stared at the darkness out the window. Shadows of trees and their illuminated trunks flashed as we passed by, fading back into darkness again once they were in the rearview mirror.