My Last Seven Days On Earth Started With A Broken Promise Chapter 08

My Last Seven Days On Earth Started With A Broken Promise Chapter 08

They searched for a full day and night.

At the end of a conveyor belt in the waste incinerator, they found the crushed silver chain.

The Starlight Stone was gone.

Without its owner’s energy to sustain it, anything from the Moon Court turns to dust in the

human world.

Reid dropped to his knees in front of the filthy conveyor belt, the broken chain dangling from

his fist.

“Gone. It’s really gone.”

The sound that came out of him barely qualified as human.

Graham crumpled into the garbage, hands over his face, shoulders heaving.

Nolan stared at his own hands, sliced open from digging through broken glass. Then he laughed. A high, awful sound.

They dragged themselves back to the house like men walking out of their own funeral.

Tessa was on the sofa, pointing cleaners around the room.

She took one look at them and wrinkled her nose.

“God, where have you been? You reek.”

“It was just a cheap bracelet, Reid. I’ll buy you ten better ones tomorrow.”

She reached for his arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

Reid wrenched free. The look in his eyes could have drawn blood.

“If you hadn’t taken that bracelet, she might still be here. You pushed her past the point of no return.”

Tessa flinched like she’d been slapped. Her eyes went glassy.

“Are you serious right now? You’re the ones who shoved everything on me! She runs away and suddenly it’s my fault?”

Her eyes shot to Graham, then Nolan, begging for backup.

Neither of them moved.

Graham lifted his bloodshot eyes to her face.

“You knew Mari was telling the truth. Didn’t you?”

Tessa’s expression locked up. Her gaze slid sideways.

“What are you talking about? Lunar spirits aren’t real.”

Nolan pulled something from his pocket. A ruined wish lantern, soaked and crumpled.

He’d found it in the bushes on the hill behind the neighborhood while searching for the stone.

Rain had destroyed the paper, but my name, written in marker, was still legible.

The base that held the flame had been snipped right through. Scissors.

“That night, Graham and I each wrote Mari’s name on two lanterns.”

Nolan stepped toward Tessa. His voice was ice.

“When I lit mine, the support snapped the second it left my hands. I thought it was bad luck.”

“Then I checked the security footage. And I saw you. The second we turned our backs, you went straight for every lantern with Mari’s name.”

“You cut the bases off some. You hid the rest.”

Every drop of color left Tessa’s face, She stumbled backward and dropped onto the sofa.

“I didn’t… That’s not… You’re lying!”

“I saved a copy. Want to watch?”

Graham tossed his phone onto her lap. The screen was already playing.

On screen. Tessa waited until the three of them had walkzod away for duinkro

Then she pulled out scissors and worked through the lanterns, one by one, cutting through every base that had my name on it.

When she was done, she picked up her own lanterns and twirled around, laughing, like nothing

had happened.

Reid watched the footage to the end. His hands were shaking.

“That’s why…”

“She was waiting for those lanterns. If just one had gone up, she would’ve stayed.”

“We killed her only chance of staying. Us. With our own hands.”

Reid’s hands were around Tessa’s throat before anyone could move.

“You did this. You drove her away. Bring her back!”

Tessa’s eyes bulged. Her nails raked at his wrists.

“R-Reid… can’t… breathe…”

Graham and Nolan watched. Neither moved.

Only when her body went limp did Reid drop her to the floor like she was nothing.

“If I see your face in this city again…”

“Get out.”

Tessa scrambled to her feet and ran.

The house swallowed the silence they left behind. Three men. An empty room

And then they started searching for a way to reach the Moon Court, tearing through every book, every myth, every corner of the internet.