The Blood Moon Twins
Chapter 13

REMY

\tWhen I woke up, my neck was stiff from the position I had fallen asleep in. I cracked my eyes open and saw that Harper was still asleep on the bed with me, but Caulder was nowhere to be seen. I slowly sat up and stretched my body. I had slept curled into a ball to make room for the extra people in my bed, and my body was now complaining. \tAs I stretched, Harper stirred awake. She groaned and grabbed a pillow, hugging it tightly. "What time is it?" she muttered, trying to bury her face.

\tl dug for my phone that had gotten lost in the bed sheets and checked the time. It was much too early to be awake, especially for the weekend. "It's 7am." I flopped back into the bed, ready to fall asleep again, when the sweet smell of cinnamon hit my nose. My stomach growled as an automatic response, but I still didn't move.

\t"Food," Harper muttered, shifting from her position. She poked me in the side. "Come on. Let's go get breakfast before all of the good stuff gets eaten."

\t"I'm tired," I complained, even though my stomach was with Harper.

\tShe grabbed my hand and started pulling me out of the bed, but I let my body be dead weight.

\t"Come on," she whined. "I don't want to go by myself."

\tl peeked my eyes at her. "If I agree to go with you, will you tell me what's going on with you and Caulder?"

\tShe let go of my hand, and I collapsed into the bed. She crawled out of the bed and started to play with her hair. "I don't know what you're talking about."

\tl suddenly felt energized with curiosity and sat up all of the way. "Oh please! I saw you two making flirty eyes and holding hands last night. I didn't make a big deal out of it, because I didn't want to scare either of you, but did you really think you were being sneaky? Come on. Spill. Are you two dating or what?"

\tl felt excited by the prospect of those two dating, even if a small part of me was jealous. I knew they would be good for each other, and I wanted to see both of them happy.

\t"We're not dating, not officially," Harper said. She chewed on her lip for a moment. It was a pretty bad habit of hers. "But I may have kissed him last night." \t"What?" I jumped out of the bed, and I could feel my eyes practically bugging out of my head. I knew they were flirting, but this was unexpected. "You kissed him?" \tHarper started blushing like crazy. "You don't have to make such a big deal out of it. It was just a momentary lapse in judgment."

\t"But you still kissed him, and you were holding hands with him. Do you want to be Caulder's girlfriend?" Harper had complained about the numerous amount of girls Caulder got with, but she never showed any indication of actually liking him before, so I wasn't expecting this sudden switch. But maybe I had just missed the signs.

\tHarper shifted on her feet. "Yes and no. Remy, you know what Caulder is like. If I date him, he's just going to break my heart. It's the reason that I tried not to entertain the thought before."

\tAs I looked at Harper, I could see her fear trembling just below the surface. She had liked Caulder for a while, but she had never said anything before. "How long have you liked him?" \tShe shrugged in response. "I used to like him a lot, but when I realized it was a bad idea, I forced myself to get over him. I didn't want to be treated the way he treats all of the girls he's with." \t"Why didn't you tell me you liked him?" I thought Harper and I told each other everything, so it was hard hearing she kept such a big secret from me.

\tShe raised her eyebrows. "Remy, come on. Don't look so hurt. Caulder is your brother and your best friend. You put each other first, even over me. I couldn't put you in that situation. Besides, it wouldn't have changed Caulder or anything else."

\tCaulder was my favorite person, but Harper was right there with him. I didn't want her to feel less important just because Caulder was my twin brother. She was my family, too. "Harper, I want you to know that I am on your side one hundred percent when it comes to you and Caulder. If he does anything to hurt you, I will beat him up myself." I grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the bed. "And I know Caulder doesn't have a great track record with girls, but you're not like other girls. Caulder is serious about you, and you deserve this. Don't hold back with him. Give whatever this thing between you is two a real shot. I promise you won't regret it."

\tShe pulled her lips tight and then said, "Okay. Come on. Let's go get some breakfast."

\tl followed her out of my room, and I had a skip in my step. Between the movie night and some sleep, the stress from yesterday had diminished. I still had some questions, and there was a lingering concern in the back of my head, but I didn't want to mope about it today.

\tAs we made our way to the dining room, we passed Ginger's room, and I caught a glance at her. I suddenly stopped and said to Harper, "Go on ahead. I'll be there in a moment."

\tShe shrugged and continued on. I moved to Ginger's room and lingered in the doorway. She was busy working on something, and I was worried about interrupting her. I had some questions about magic, and Ginger and my mom were the only two I knew who could answer questions about magic that I knew, and I wasn't in the mood to talk to my mom.

\t"Girl, are you going to stand there all morning, or are you going to come in?" Ginger asked without even looking up.

\tl jumped and started moving into the room. Ginger had this sixth sense about people, and it startled me on occasion.

\tGinger was sitting in her little arm chair in the corner of the room, and it looked like she was knitting a scraggly little scarf for a rat. I decided not to ask her about it and took a seat in the little plastic chair next to her.

\t"Come on, girl. Speak up." Ginger twisted a little metal rod with some yarn and then cursed under her breath as the yarn slipped again and again.

\t"I was just wondering if sorcerers had the ability to see the future." The image of the red moon still lingered in my head, and out of all of the things that had happened yesterday, that was what made the least sense to me. It didn't seem to tie into the attack, and no one else saw it happen. It didn't relate to anything from what I could see, but it had to mean something.

\tMy question seemed to get Ginger's full attention. She set down her project and looked at me fully. "Some sorcerers can predict the future to a certain extent, but that is only a matter of being able to observe your surroundings and draw conclusions on the most likely possibility."

\tl knew this was a skill of Ginger's. She had cut me off in the past, knowing what I was going to say or do too many times before, and it was a little eerie. It was like she could read my mind or see the future, but she swore it wasn't the case.

\t"But do you ever see an actual image of the future, like a vision?" The moon turning red had felt so real, so I didn't think it was a hallucination, but since no one else saw, I also knew it hadn't happened in real time.

\t"I don't personally." Ginger emphasized the "I" when she spoke, which left an implication lingering in the air.

\t"But can other people?" I wanted to actually hear it from her. I had always struggled with my magical abilities, and no matter how much I tried to learn the basics, the only thing I was able to do was create a small light in the palm of my hand. If this meant I had some sort of magical ability, it would mean maybe I had more magic than I thought possible.

\t"I haven't heard much about it personally, but magic has limits unknown to any one sorcerer. It's a beautiful and chaotic thing, and while there are certain rules, I don't think visions are out of the question." She looked at me carefully, and it felt like she was looking deep into my soul. "What did you see, child?"

\tShe knew I was talking about myself without me having to say so. I didn't spend as much time with Ginger as Caulder did, since there wasn't exactly much ability for me to hone when it came to magic, unlike Caulder. However, I still viewed Ginger as a grandmother. She was someone I could go to with my problems when I felt like I couldn't talk to my parents.

\t"Before everything happened at my party last night, my wolf warned me that something was wrong, and when I looked into the sky, I saw a dark shadow cast over the moon. Then the entire moon turned red. It was gone in a flash, and Caulder said he didn't see anything. I don't think it was just my imagination, though."

\t"That sounds like a blood moon to me," Ginger said. \t"What's that?"

\tShe stood up slowly and grabbed her cane. Her mind was as spritely as ever, but her body had withered over the years. She didn't move as fast as she once had, and she grew tired more easily. She never told us how old she actually was, but the wrinkles on her face told me she had seen many decades, and I knew she was the oldest person I knew.

\tShe moved to a stack of books and started scanning through it. She pulled a specific one out and plopped it onto the little table in her room. "The blood moon is another nickname for a total lunar eclipse on the night of a full moon. They can be powerful for sorcerers and werewolves, from my understanding. They aren't very common, but when they happen, the moon will turn red for a brief period of time."

\tThe book she had set down looked old and weathered. It didn't have a title on it, either. She tapped the cover. "This should have more information about the effects of blood moons. I'm sure Daniel will have more information for you, too, if you ask. He knows a lot about subjects like that."

\tDaniel was our pack's information center. He wasn't the most sociable person, and he lived outside of the pack house, so I didn't see him very often. I had been to his house a few times with my mom, and it had looked like an unorganized library. He talked fast, barely taking a breath as he spouted fact after fact, which made it harder to hold conversations with him.

\tl grabbed the book and held it to my chest. I hoped I didn't have to go to Daniel for more information; although, it probably would have been faster than trying to read through a book myself. It was just difficult for me to talk to him, and I wanted to avoid the awkward interaction.

\t"Thanks for the information. I should probably get to breakfast. Harper is waiting for me."

\tBefore I could leave, Ginger grabbed my wrist. "Girl, you need to keep an eye out at all times. The energies of this world have been shifting, and I can feel something looming over us."

\tl swallowed hard and my heart began to race. If what had happened yesterday was just the beginning, I needed to figure out what the blood moon had to do with any of this as soon as possible. I also needed to replace out why I was being targeted.