The Frozen Moon - By J.D. Swinn Page 0,25
at happiness all together, what none of them could find before. The idea that she didn’t deserve any of these things, which she normally clung so tightly to, slipped out of her mind with surprising ease. These thoughts filled her head as she drifted off to sleep. She tried to shrug off the intoxicating warmth that swelled within her, but her weary mind lacked the control.
This is why she hated love. Love made you weak.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: AN IDEA
He woke with the seed of an idea at the front of his mind, like a dream he wasn’t sure if he had lived. As the haze of sleep cleared from his mind, a vivid plan erupted from the seed, refusing to silence itself until the urge was satisfied. It could have been the tragedy of the night before, it could have been the refreshing bite in the morning air, or it could have been his childhood memories taking hold after too long of a suppression. However the feeling had come to be, it sent a jolt of new life coursing through his body. For the first time in a long while, he bounded out of bed, or rather, his resting place in a crumpled heap on the floor. Max crept around the sleeping bodies, the miracle of their long-deserved placid expressions not wasted on him. He remembered that the door had a habit of creaking, but a silence spell, even one projected on another object, was not above him. Once out the door, he broke off at a steady jog down the stairs and through the lobby. The morning air was refreshing, restoring even.
In all of his excitement, he hadn’t noticed until he felt the warm sun that his body deeply ached. Aching was perhaps too weak a word to describe the ripping and tearing feeling that one’s muscles may, at any given moment, decide to relocate themselves to the outside of one’s skin. Maybe Cal could do something about that later, he thought, but now his mind was elsewhere. He was unfamiliar with this part of the city, but considered himself quite personable, and fully able to find what he was looking for. It proved slightly more complicated.
The maps proved easier to locate than he had anticipated, but a car was where he ran into real trouble. Apparently, few people had a need to rent a car directly in the city, so loaners appeared more frequently in the suburbs and smaller cities and towns. After some searching, though, he found a lot and rented the cheapest car they had available. He didn’t have much of his parents’ money left, and didn’t imagine he would be receiving any more after news of his new endeavors reached them. He filled the tank with all the gas it could take and drove the short distance that lay between him and his friends at the Corner. It was good to have a moment to himself, since he hadn’t in days. The car muffled the sounds of the outside world, and mere distorted fragments of beeping horns and shuffling people pierced the metal shell. It was only when he was alone that he could paint fantastical images of mundane perfection in his mind.
For a breath, he could imagine he was driving anywhere, and that he would have a home to return to once he tired of such a place. For a breath, he could imagine he was just another person without the shadow of death hanging loosely about him. For a breath, he could imagine he wouldn’t always be alone. For a breath, he was breathless.
The sun peaked higher in the calm blue sky, and Max rushed his friends along. Everyone was moving slowly as the soreness he hadn’t at first noticed set in and weighted them down like wet clothing. They shoved clothes into bags, though none of them knew exactly what to expect. He relished the moment of mystery he held over them, though he knew it was childish. No one seemed quite as excited as he, but no one shared his dream-like vision as they soon would.
A resounding grumble had arisen when he woke the others, but he urged them on with repeated promises of a journey well worth their consciousness.
“Why on God’s green earth are you waking us at eight a.m. after a night like last night?” he remembered Mira’s voice demanding. Talar’s waking words had not been quite as tactful.
He knew daylight was steadily burning away, a lamp with precious little