03 Long Night Moon - Seasons of the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

here.”
    She walked away, jacket trailing behind her.
    A burst of curiosity struck Rylie. She wanted to see Bekah Riese’s den. No, not den—people didn’t live in dens; they lived in houses . But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, it became an uncontrollable impulse.
    Rylie ran across the street. She hit a patch of hidden ice and slipped, catching herself on the lamp post.
    The other girl vanished around the corner of a bakery. By the time she found her footing and made it to the sidewalk, Bekah was gone. A huge, shaggy dog with honey-brown fur trotted away, fluffy tail leaving swishing patterns in the snow.
    It glanced at her from the end of the street. Even at that distance, Rylie could see its gold eyes.
    It bounded over a fence, down a hill, and disappeared.
    Rylie gaped at the gray sky. The sun was up and the moon was nowhere to be seen.
    How could a werewolf transform during the day?

Five
Casting Silver
    When Seth still hadn’t shown up twenty minutes after Bekah’s weird disappearance, Rylie decided to find him.
    Like everything else in town, the apartment Abel rented was a short walk from the therapist’s office. The complex had been converted from a strip motel, so there were only six rooms, and the sign said there were vacancies (though the neon had died years ago). The red truck was parked in front of the apartment at the end, and it was already coated in a thin layer of snow.
    Rylie raised her fist to knock on the door before she noticed it was cracked open. Warm air gusted through the gap at the bottom. A foul odor touched her nose, metallic and familiar.
    “Seth?” she called, pushing the door open.
    The owners left the tacky carpet when they converted it, so the room still looked like a motel despite the sixty-inch TV Abel bought with his first paycheck. The bathroom door was half-open, too, and the smell grew worse as she approached it.
    Something hissed beyond the door. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to throw up.
    There was a camp stove in the bathtub. Leaping blue flames licked the bottom of a steel pot, where the horrible smell was coming from. Another pot sat next to the tub filled with bars of gray metal, like the kind of ingots she expected to find at a bank.
    A bunch of tools were laid out on the counter—thick gloves, eye goggles, a face mask, and tongs. There was also something that looked like the molds she once used to make candy, but she doubted it was for chocolate.
    She heard the apartment door open and shut.
    “Get out of there!”
    Seth slammed into the bathroom. Shocked, she took a step back. Her leg hit the pot and she lost balance.
    He grabbed her arm before she could fall into the tub, fingers digging into her skin. “Let go of me,” Rylie said as he jerked her back. “That hurts!”
    Seth hauled her out of the bathroom and shut the door, wheeling around to grab her shoulders and look closely at her face. “What are you doing? Are you insane ?”
    “You didn’t show up when my appointment finished. I got worried.”
    “Look at me, Rylie. Eyes wide open,” he said.
    The order was so confusing that all she could do was obey. He thumbed back her eyelids and peered into her eyes. He looked worried. Really worried. “What was all that stuff?” she asked.
    “You can’t buy silver bullets at the store,” Seth said.
    He pushed her to the kitchen sink and scrubbed her hands under hot water.
    “You mean you were making bullets?”
    “Yeah, and what if you inhaled silver particles? You shouldn’t have gone in there.” He released her, and Rylie’s knees were so weak that she had to sit on the edge of his futon before she fell over. “I think you’re fine. We got lucky.”
    Rylie had been shot with a silver bullet before. It was the most painful thing she ever experienced. Werewolves couldn’t heal around silver, and if it stayed in the bloodstream, it was poisonous. She didn’t want to think of what would happen if she breathed it into her