Dead by Morning (Rituals of the Night #1)

Chapter One

LUNA TOOK A heavy drag of her cigarette, coughing when the acrid smoke tore at her lungs. She wasn't a smoker—in fact, she had never smoked before in her life—but it seemed there was a first time for everything.

Fights with her parents, or more specifically her father, however, were not new to her.

It would be odd for just one day to pass without a fight. Sitting in the quiet solitude of the shadows at the edge of the park brought her peace...if only for a little while. Birds in the nearby trees whistled and tweeted, and for the slightest of moments she imagined them to be singing only to her. The peace wouldn't last; there was no possible way it could. Eventually, she'd have to go home again, and when she did, her father would most likely go for her throat.

It couldn't be helped. Luna spluttered again on her mouthful of smoke, and abandoning the idea of becoming a regular smoker, she tossed the cigarette to the ground to crush it beneath her boot. When she looked up, she spotted a group of teenagers entering the park and held a sleeved hand over her mouth in the hope of both blocking her face as well as stifling the sound of her coughing. The last thing she wanted was to draw the attention of the head of the pack.

But despite her hoping, he noticed.

He always noticed.

His excitement showed as he jogged away from his group, the last words spoken by the brunette beside him falling on deaf ears.

"Hey there," he said, smiling as he plopped down against the tree trunk beside her. "Was someone smoking?"

Luna clenched her hands in frustration. "Not that it's any of your business, but yeah, I was."

Chance smirked, exaggerating the scar on his left cheek as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Looks like we have something in common after all. Want one?"

Luna scoffed and stood to her feet. "I'll pass, thanks," she said dryly as she began to cross the park.

Chance tucked the pack away into his pocket and rushed to her side. "So what crawled up your ass today?"

"Problems you wouldn't understand."

"Is that right?"

Luna nodded curtly. That was the most on her private life that she was willing to share with him. If she had her way, she wouldn't say anything at all. She would give anything to have him leave her alone but history said he wouldn't. "Are you gonna follow me again?"

The cocky smile made another appearance. "I prefer to think of it as walking you home. It's too dangerous for a girl like you to walk around town alone."

"Chivalry? Really?" Luna rolled her eyes. He was anything but a gentleman. His string of girlfriends at school was proof of that.

"It doesn't hurt."

"Please leave me alone."

Chance yawned. "Nah, I don't think so."

Luna gritted her teeth. Einstein's definition of insanity ran through her mind—there was no reason today would be any different from previous ones. Chance didn't seem to mind the fact her skin was crawling with aggravation or the silence that came with it. He strode beside her, stance tall and lithe as he pretended to be her guardian. Luna hated the feeling of intimacy the forced walks created between the two of them. They weren't even friends, but Chance's attitude could easily convince someone otherwise.

Luna peered at him from the corner of her eye. "Can I ask you something?"

Chance's golden eyebrows shot upward. "Yeah, sure."

"Why do you make me walk with you?"

"Why do you always walk the same route if you hate this so much?" he countered.

"I should be able to walk wherever I want," she said as they closed in on her block.

"And you can," he said. "I'm merely watching out for you."

Luna didn't respond. Twenty more steps, and she would be free anyway. His dark clothes exaggerated her shadow all the way to her front door. She went inside without so much as a parting word.

"See you at school!" he called a moment before the door slammed shut behind her.

Away from the lion but into the den, I go.

"Where've you been, Luna?" her father, David, demanded almost as soon as the door closed.

"Out, Dad," Luna replied over her shoulder, making a beeline to the safety of her room when he suddenly appeared from the kitchen, cutting off her path.

"Mind telling me where?"

"To the park," Luna said, shoulders sagging. "I needed some fresh air."

David shook his head. "That's something I don't understand about you. You say you want to study, to go to college and be this big important person yet you're constantly out running the streets."

"Dad, I can't have this argument again," Luna said, moving—not so subtly—around her father.

"Your cousin, Sadie, is doing so well. Auntie Marie says she's thriving over in Egypt."

"That's great for her, Dad, really," Luna said and rushed to her room, slamming the door behind her before she'd have to listen to another word.

She went to her closet, rummaging through her belongings in search for her prayer mat. Eventually, she found it resting on the floor and stared at it. Although her father made her use it several times a day, it seemed as if years had passed since she found herself wanting to pray. Rolling the mat out on the floor, she lost herself in thought.

The last sentence spoken by her father had been so spiked with ups and downs that it left Luna feeling exhausted. She had no Aunt named "Marie" just as she had no parents named "David" and "Rose." From what Luna could recall, her parents had once gone by the names Jabare and Nefertari—Luna was sure she had once shared an Egyptian name as well though it was something her parents refused to talk about for one reason or another.

In an Islamic household, pride is everything so after having to name his wife breadwinner after falling ill with tuberculosis, David had been so disgraced, he was pushed from his social circles. After moving to America, her father had decided a name change would help them to better assimilate into a country that barely understood their ways and he had been right...in a way. He didn't want his family to stand out to his American neighbors but he was still very much the Islamic father deep inside though he wasn't as dedicated as he believed himself to be.

Luna had grown up, not feeling the dedication to her faith that her father did. She had lived so much of her life in America, that she felt no connection to Egypt and her roots. Sometimes, that knowledge made her feel even worse. She was an outsider here and would be there too, she was sure. No matter how much she wished for it, there was no one who truly understood her struggle outside of her family—no one she could confide in and it stung to think that. She had friends, of course, but none who could truly feel her pain.

Luna kept her back to the door and slid slowly down the wall, burying her face in her hands. It was impossible to imagine herself ever blending in fully. How could she make her friends understand her own family was her prison? How she envied her classmates—their freedom that they took for granted. With graduation less than a month away, the heat had been turned way up on the pressure cooker that was her life.

Luna was split, caught between the intentions of both her parents.

Rose encouraged Luna to have book smarts, to be educated, and to seize the opportunities that life had to offer. Her father, however, had other intentions. When Luna graduated high school, he wished to marry her off to the first worthwhile offer he received, much the same way Sadie's marriage had been planned since she turned fifteen.

Luna shivered at the thought of the word...marriage...and to a stranger no less.

If her father was allowed to have his way, he would've pulled her from school years ago to prepare her for a life of child-bearing and servitude. Now, high school was almost over, and Luna prayed every day that her future would be hers to decide.