Free Alive at Sunset (Rituals of the Night Series Book 2) by Kayla Krantz Page B

been that morning.
    She frowned before she crammed it under her mattress. She knew that it would be impossible to see it. Amanda didn’t need to find it; she would never understand if she did. Luna glanced at the small clock on the wall. It was already three in the afternoon. She had spent most of today waiting for the rain to stop so that she could bury Lucky. If she was going to visit David and Rose, she’d have to leave within the hour.
    Even though she promised she’d visit them more, she didn’t know if that was such a good idea. Should she tell her parents what had happened to Lucky? Part of her felt that was the responsible thing to do except she didn’t exactly know how to tell them why Lucky was dead. She still wasn’t sure what had happened herself. If she didn’t tell them a word about what had happened, they’d still be able to tell that something was wrong.
    She knew it would be better to stay home and relax. Luna felt the tension leave her joints as she finally worked up the courage to plod out to the living room. She sat down on the loveseat next to Amanda. All of her movements had been rigid and stiff, almost as if she wasn’t fully human. When she sat down, her friend turned and gave her a sympathetic look. She must’ve noticed.
    “How’re you holding up?” she asked Luna affably.
    “I’m alright, I guess. Not really sure what I should be doing today, but at least I know I won’t be visiting my dad,” she said, simpering slightly.
    Luna felt awkward talking about her feelings, but she didn’t know how else she could feel. She was a loner; she wasn’t used to sharing her feelings with someone else. The last time she had held grief, she had had to carry it alone. It was made worse by the fact that Violet had tossed disbelief to her baggage until it was too late to undo the damage.
    “I understand,” Amanda said. “Just take the time you need to relax. You’ve had a hard morning. What happened today upsets me too, and Lucky wasn’t even my dog.”
    “It just seems like such a waste,” Luna said, sighing. “I mean Lucky was in the prime of her life, and now I don’t even know how to tell people that she died.”
    “She got hit by a car, right?” Amanda asked questioningly.
    “That’s what I think,” Luna said shrugging and secretly wishing she would’ve kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to get in that conversation again.
    “But?” Amanda asked guessing there was more to her statement.
    “Max doesn’t think so. He thinks it’s funny that the only wound that Lucky had was on her throat,” Luna said.
    “It is odd,” Amanda said. “What do you think could’ve caused it?”
    “I think that she got hit by a car; I mean it is possible,” Luna said not wanting her roommate to agree with Max.
    Amanda was silent. For a minute, she turned back to watch television. Luna caught the look on her face. She noticed that her face was creased, and it was obvious that she was thinking. Without even asking, Luna knew that she was thinking of their conversation yesterday. It was bothering her that Luna wasn’t more open. Did she suspect that Lucky’s death had something to do with the thing that was bothering Luna? Luna hoped that her roommate wasn’t that wise because she still wasn’t ready to tell her about her past quite yet.
    “Yes, it’s possible,” Amanda said, and she still sounded like she was thinking of something that she wasn’t saying.
    Luna merely nodded in response to her roommate. There was nothing else she could say. Lucky’s death hung over her like a guillotine, threatening to fall and consume what was left of her at any minute. She hated not being able to talk to anyone about how she truly felt. Amanda was willing to listen to her sure, but she didn’t understand what she would be getting herself into. Nobody else that she knew could truly understand the spectrum of pain and grief that she had experienced all those years ago.  She hated the fact that the