Shadow Moon Series

LARA

Unimaginable pain shot through her whole body. Her legs quivered, about to give in. She could barely lift her arms. Blood was smeared across her face.

Lara looked up at the boy standing in front of her. He might have been only eleven, but he was almost as big as a grown man. He towered over her, his eyes staring blankly down.

“Again, Lara, but use your strengths. You are fast, so do not let it go to waste,” the instructor belted out from the sideline.

That seemed impossible right now. The boy was two years older than her and almost twice her size.

Looking around, she hoped someone would step in and stop this madness. With all the eyes on her, she still could not find the pair that belonged to her Ma and Pa.

Of course they would not be there. They were dead.

But there was no harm in dreaming. A dream where they would show up, sweep her in their arms and never again let her go again. Their embrace would protect her from the nightmare she was living.

“Lara—” the instructor started again, but without waiting for the rest of the sentence, Lara ran. She ran as fast as she could with anger building up, a hand fisted in a tight ball in front of her, aiming for the boy.

She would have hit him, but being smarter than her, he stepped aside and pushed her off balance.

The ground was hard beneath her head, almost splitting it in two. Blood trickled down her hair, wetting it as it slowly pooled around her head.

Black spots crept in at the edge of her vision. Two faces bent over her. The boy and instructor stood above her, mouths moving, but the only sound coming out was—

BEEP BEEP BEEP

The room was also dark, making her believe she was still in the dream. Only the alarm keeping her attached to the real world.

She turned off the alarm and looked around the room, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The dream still lurked in the back of her mind, one of many that had haunted her throughout her life.

A little reminder of what she had experienced. A lesson she would never forget and constantly used to fuel her anger.

Suddenly, heat seared in her. It started from her toes and slowly crept toward her head, making her gasp in pain. It reminded her why she was awake in the middle of the night. The injection.

With all of her willpower, she commanded her arms to move and to take the box from the side table. Just that one move made it burn hotter, and the longer she waited, the worse it would get.

Her fingers wrapped around the syringe and lifted it out, slowly placing it against her hip. One wrong move meant it could break, and the cure could be lost forever, resulting in her untimely death.

There was no time to waste on the wipes. She popped the syringe lid off with a flick of her thumb and pushed the needle into her skin, pressing down.

The heat coursing through her blood masked the piercing pain of the needle, and she felt only an uncomfortable flicker brushing over her.

As she lay frozen in bed, waiting for the medicine to kick in, Lara let her mind wander.

Not back to her horror of a childhood, but to the man that made something awaken in her. Never before had she felt or experienced something like that.

The school had drilled it into them that anything sexual was terrible and could lead to death. Even back then, if they were caught holding hands, they were given twenty lashes to the back.

Luckily for her, she had heeded those threats... until now.

The more she tried, the more his image persisted in her head, and she was not keen to think of him.

A final glance over to the alarm clock indicated it was too late to fall back asleep, and so she did the next best thing. Lara figured she might as well get a head start on the long day ahead.

Getting up slowly, she bends down and picked up her bag, placing it on the bed. Her favorite gun lay on top when she unzipped it, and a small smile crossed her tired face.

She owned many guns, but because Bill had given this to her as a twenty-first birthday gift, she treated it like gold. The cold metal stung as she pulled it out of the bag, placing it on the bed next to it.

She quickly undressed, the cold air brushing her still heated skin, took out fresh clothes, and headed over to the bathroom and a shower.

The water was warm and soothing as it rushed down her body. She allowed it to consume her, letting it wash away her thoughts, especially the ones of the green-eyed demon who would lead her to temptation and destruction.

She smirked when she thought about calling him a demon, since they were merely fiction. Her feelings toward him were also fiction. Or so she hoped.

When the water turned cold, she finally stepped out. She tried to ignore the mirror while getting dressed in a pair of skinny black jeans and a black T-shirt.

The color not only suited her, but it also made it more difficult to get spotted when in a stakeout. Rule 101 of assassination.

Her hand tingled as the steamed-up mirror flashed in her side vision. The temptation to wipe it off and look at her reflection was strong.

But she already knew there would be nothing new today. A face with big brown eyes, a round nose, and weirdly-shaped lips would still look back at her.

She did not consider herself a beauty, but the looks she had did sometimes come in handy when wriggling out of compromising situations. Men are and always will be susceptible to a pretty girl.

She left the bathroom after running a comb through the hair and walked over to her bag. Even though the room was dark, she knew where the bed was.

Traveling all her life and staying in shitty motels meant she was used to it. All over the globe, places like this had the same layout.

She placed her pajamas in the already-open bag. As she zipped it closed, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight. Something felt off.

While pretending to find the bag interesting, she slowly lowered her hand to where she had left the gun. Relief washed over her as she felt the cold metal brush her fingers.

Snatching at the grip, she spun around the room, holding the weapon extended. She scanned the room, her eyes adjusting to the dark.

A shadow crossed her vision, a dark figure next to the bed. She promptly moved toward its direction and aimed the gun right at it.

“Who are you?” she demanded. Her eyes finally adjusted to the dark and, helped by the moonlight filtering past the curtains, she made out the anonymous figure.

He sat quietly in the corner, frozen like a marble god. The green-eyed demon, Roland.

“You already know who I am,” he murmured. His voice was low, but she could feel the power radiating from his words. Sitting in the chair, he looked like he owned the place.

How dare he invade her personal space? She’d had enough of his superiority, and the time had finally come to finish the job she wasn’t able to before.

“Yes. You are dead,” she asserted, and squeezed the trigger like her life depended on it.