Dead by Morning (Rituals of the Night Book 1) Read Online Free

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    “Luna! Come here for a minute!” David called. “I need to talk to you about something important.”
    Luna sighed and set the book she had been reading down. Hours had passed since she had gotten home. She had gotten no closer to a solution to her real problem, and she wondered if her ‘fighting problem’ was still on her father’s mind. She stood up and the chair scraped against the floor loudly. She winced at the sound as she crossed the room to the door and peeked into the living room that lay across from her room.
    She didn’t see David from within the room. Luna left her bedroom to go into the kitchen. He was frowning at her almost instantly, and his deep set eyes looked just as unhappy. He was standing there with his arms crossed and next to him she immediately spotted Chance sitting at the kitchen table. Rage filled her from head to toe.
    Luna narrowed her eyes at him as she wondered why he was in her sanctuary. He looked back at her. He was wearing a long sleeved black shirt and the sleeves hid his hands as he peered at her from under his long bright blond hair with that expression that she hated the most. She could tell that that was his best innocent look. Then panic struck as she realized that it could work on someone gullible like David.
    Chance was trying to cause trouble for her…again.

                                                        Chapter Four
    “What are you doing here?” she growled at him forgetting David was there.
    “Luna, he says you’ve been giving him a hard time at school?” David said sounding a bit unsure.
    “Wh...What?” she asked in disbelief. “He’s the one giving me a hard time at school! I don’t do anything to him! Every day he harasses me. He has his friends pick on me too! I’m a total outcast because of him. If you don’t believe me you can even ask Violet! She’s seen him do it.”
    “That’s not what he says,” David said. “He said you always start things with him, and he tries to stand up for himself is all.”
    “What? No way. He starts things with me!” Luna growled. “That’s why he’s here right now. So that I get in trouble.”
                  “No, he’s here because he says that he asked to take you to dinner or a dance this weekend and that you tried to hit him,” David said.
    “That’s not what happened at all. He’s lying to you,” she said glaring at Chance with all of her hatred. She couldn’t believe he had really come to her house and lied to her dad’s face!
    “Then, tell me what really happened, Luna,” David said and she could tell he didn’t believe her.
    “He chased me with water balloons, and I fell and knocked my tooth out. See?” Luna said opening her mouth to reveal the hole that the missing tooth had left.
    “He said you did that because you tripped and fell when you tried to hit him,” David said.
    Luna frowned, how had Chance known she had lost a tooth?
    “And you believe him?” she asked David finally.
    He looked at Chance and then back at her as if he were deciding who he believed more by the look on their faces. Chance still wore his ‘innocent’ look, and she knew that her face was flushing various shades of red. If that was how he was deciding who was being truthful then it wouldn’t work to her advantage.
    “Well, yeah. Why would he come over to explain the situation to me if he was lying? That doesn’t make sense, Luna.”
    “Yes, it does make sense when you’re dealing with a sociopath who will do anything to get what he wants because he’s twisted in the head. You ask why he did it; maybe it’s to make me look bad?” Luna asked wondering why he couldn’t see that. “How is this difficult to see? I mean you know I’m not a troublemaker, Dad.”
    David ignored her. “Luna, you’re on thin