The Next Luna

1

Zoey

The weather was perfect. The sun was high in the sky, not a cloud to be seen. It was the perfect weather out. I loved this time of year. And with today being the last day of school, it was even better. I made it through my Junior year and just had to make it one more year. This summer was going to be the best. Mom and I had saved up every penny we could over the last year so we could take an actual vacation. And well, we deserved it, especially my mom. She worked so hard. It has always just been the two of us, well, for the most part. She's had a few boyfriends throughout my life, but none of them ever stuck around long. She always played it off well. I knew it hurt when they left, but she said she liked it better when it was just us two. We were best friends more so than mom and daughter. I guess that tends to happen. She was just around my age when she had me. Her parents hadn't taken the news too well that their little girl was going to have a baby. They gave her a choice to have an abortion or get out of their house. She says there was never a choice, though. She grabbed as much as she could and left. Never seeing them again, I never have met them, and I have no intention of meeting them from that story alone. Her best friend growing up, and her family had taken my mom in and helped her out a lot in the beginning. Grandma Sandra had moved away when I was younger, and over the years, we lost contact with her and Aunt Kiera. Now only hearing from them around the holidays when they send Christmas cards, but that's not all on them. We are just as much to blame for not trying harder to stay in touch. As for my father, my mom put his name on my birth certificate but said she never told him about me. He lived a few towns over, and his last words to her were it wasn't safe for them to be together. I never asked what that meant. I secretly had looked him up once but hadn't found much on him. He had social media accounts, but you couldn't see much unless you were friends with him. So I let it go. 

Walking up the front walk to the small house we were renting currently. I noticed mom's car was in the driveway. She had beat me home today. That must mean her boss let her cut out early. Excitement coursed through me. If she was home early, that means our vacation could start a day early. Smiling, I ran up the front steps and into the house. Freezing just inside the door. It took a minute to process what I had just walked in on. The few things we owned had been knocked over. My mother was pinned to the floor by two large men. One had her arms pinned above her head while the other ripped at her clothes. A scream escaped my lips but before I could move another guy I hadn't seen appeared next to me. He pulled me in, shutting the door. "Well, look what we have here, boys. It looks like we get a little dessert with our meal." My mom and I screamed at the same time as we both fought to get out of the arms that held us. The guy that grabbed me held me in place, making me watch as the other two took turns with my mom. By the time the second one was taking his turn, she had passed out, but that didn't stop them. I continued to try and fight. I had to get out of here. I needed to get help. Tears of frustration and fear fell from my eyes as the guy passed me off to one of the others and took his turn. When they were done, I watched as he snapped her neck. 

The guy holding me shushed me as I cried harder, "Come now, sweetheart, don't be like that. We are going to take good care of you." A shiver ran down my spine as he pressed his nose to my neck and inhaled deeply. A growl rolled through his chest. "Mmmmm, brother, you were right. She smells sweet like honey." A fourth guy I hadn't seen yet walked out from the hall, coming from the bedrooms. My eyes widened. I knew him. He went to my school. What was his name? He was in most of my classes, but I never spoke to him before. I had seen him. He even sat behind me in almost all of my classes. His dark brown eyes landed on me, and a huge smile spread across his face. "And look what I found?" He held up a piece of paper. I couldn't tell what it was. "Looks as though the infamous Jack Holland has a secret little pup." The other three guys turned to him with excitement on their faces. "No way." The guy that held me said before smelling me again. I struggled in his hold again. My skin crawled from his touch. I had to get out of here. Oh God, where would I even go? My only family was my mom, and they killed her. "Oh yeah. It looks like we just found our way of getting our revenge." I shook my head. Whatever they thought they would get from him, they wouldn't. I cried harder. I had no one to save me. No one to help me. This was supposed to be the best summer ever, just my mom and me. Girl's road trip. But now she was dead, and these psychos thought they could use me to get back at a man that didn't even know I existed. 

The guy held me in place while two of the guys used knives they found in the kitchen to fill bowls they took from the dishwasher and filled them with my mother’s blood. They took the bowls with the kid from school and walked back down the hall to the rooms. The guy holding me forced me to follow them and into my mother’s room. Above her bed, they wrote a message to my father. The whole time I cried because they thought this would mean revenge for whatever he had done to them. But how could it? He didn’t even know I existed. How would he even get the message? Who would even find it? Nobody would be looking for either one of us for weeks. Everyone we knew, knew we were going out of town tonight or tomorrow morning. Why was this even happening? All I could do was stare at the message on the wall to a man I had never met and cry. My vision was so blurred as they forced me back out of the house, passing by my mother’s unmoving body. One of the other guys wrapped something around my head, making it so I couldn’t see before walking out the back door.