My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 286

Nina

The Luna held her ghostly pale hand out to me with the promise of letting my friends and the town of Mountainview survive so long as I agreed to become her puppet. I reached out to take it despite the fact that everything in me was telling me not to do it; but I had to try to save my friends. I couldn’t bear the screaming and agony that surrounded me; I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I hadn’t at least tried.

But suddenly, I saw a flash of someone behind her. Dark hair, blue eyes, the silver glint of a knife in the moonlight. The Luna had forgotten someone when she cast her spell.

I heard the sound of the knife piercing flesh. The Luna shrieked and whipped around, clawing at her back where the knife protruded. She faced Selena, and in one swift movement, she thrust her hand out and made a motion that blasted Selena backward, against the stairs with a thud.

Everything that happened next happened all at once. The Luna ripped the knife out of her back with another shriek. Blood spurted everywhere and she fell to the ground. At the top of the stairs, Lori and Jessica fell, no longer suspended by the Luna’s magic. All around me, my friends started to move again. The rogues writhed in pain, in unison with the Luna as she died in agony at the base of the stairs.

I leaped to my feet.

“Selena!” I shouted. I ran to her; the Luna’s spell had bored a hole into her chest. It would only be a few moments before she bled out, and there was nothing that I could do. As I fell to my knees beside my twin sister and scooped her up into my arms, I could hear the sound of her chest squelching and a soft whimper escaping her lips.

“N-Nina…” she whimpered. Her trembling hand reached up and touched my face. I held it there with my hand, feeling the sensation of my own hot tears streaking down my face. “I-I…”

“Shh,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”

Selena shook her head. She swallowed hard, and as she did, blood bubbled out of her mouth. It stained her teeth and ran down her chin, and her eyes started to turn glassy. “I’m sorry,” she croaked. “For everything… I’m sorry.”

My vision became clouded with tears. “I’m sorry, Selena,” I replied as a choked sob caught in my throat. “I wish we could have had more time together.”

Selena let out a tight laugh that turned into a cough. “It’s my fault,” she whimpered. “I was such a bitch.”

I shook my head. At that moment, I didn’t care anymore about what Selena had done. She had changed. It was clear to me now that the Luna was dead, now that I saw the clarity on my sister’s face, that she had been under the Luna’s spell. And now, she was free. She had saved all of us by killing the Luna… I wished that I had time to tell her that.

But she was already dead.

As I held my sister, I started to rock back and forth. A sob escaped my lips, then another. My chest heaved as I watched her face relax, and her eyes stared lifelessly up at the full moon. Her hand, which I still held pressed up against my cheek, suddenly became incredibly heavy.

“Nina!” I heard someone shout. I didn’t know who it was; everything sounded so distant, so foggy. I heard footsteps running toward me. Someone grabbed my shoulder and turned me so that I was looking up at them; it was Enzo. His face was full of fear as he looked back and forth frantically between me and my dead twin.

Behind him, the battlefield was still and silent. The rogues were all lifeless, unmoving. The Luna’s white dress was turning red, and her white hair was matted with blood as she lay in the dirt at the bottom of the stairs. I could see the recruits getting up and moving, although I couldn’t tell through my tears how many had survived. Had all of them survived, or only a few?

I felt more hands on me and looked up to see Lori, Jessica, Matt, and Luke crouching over me, circling around me.