The Rise Of The Betrayed Luna (Amorah and Holmes) novel Chapter 196

The first thing Lena noticed was the cold.

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It came through the concrete floor, seeping into her bones the way cold only did when it had been there for a long time. Her whole body ached. Her shoulders felt like something had been pulling at them for hours, and it took her several seconds to understand why.

Her hands were tied behind her back.

She opened her eyes. Darkness. Not the soft darkness of a bedroom at night, where shapes eventually emerged and eyes adjusted. This was the thick, pressing darkness of a place that had never been meant to hold light. The air smelled of damp concrete and something metallic and old.

“Monica.” Her voice came out cracked and dry. “Monica, wake up.”

A sound from beside her. A small, confused whimper. Then Monica’s breathing changed, sharpened, and Lena heard the exact moment her sister understood where she was.

“Lena.” Monica’s voice was barely a sound. “Lena, I can’t move my hands.”

“I know. Mine either.” Lena pressed herself closer to Monica’s warmth, their shoulders touching in the dark. “Your feet?”

“Tied.” Monica’s breathing was getting faster. “Lena, where are we? What is this? I don’t understand. We were in the store and then someone grabbed me and I couldn’t—”

“Hey.” Lena pressed her shoulder harder against Monica’s. “I’m here. Right here. Just breathe.”

“I am breathing.” Monica’s voice cracked. “I’m breathing and my hands are tied behind my back and I can’t see anything and I don’t know where we are.”

Lena didn’t answer right away. She sat in the dark and let herself feel the full weight of it for just a moment before she decided she couldn’t afford to.

They were in a basement. She was almost certain of that from the way the air sat, heavy and underground. The floor was bare concrete. The only thing she could sense was a thin crack of dim light somewhere far across the room, probably under a door at the top of stairs she couldn’t see yet.

Her head throbbed where something had hit it. She remembered the fire alarm. The screaming crowd. James’s voice on his earpiece. And then a hand over her mouth and a smell that was sharp and sweet and wrong, and then nothing until now.

“Someone took us from the mall,” Lena said quietly. “During the fire alarm.”

“I know.” Monica’s voice shook. “I remember. A man grabbed my arm and then my head hurt and then I woke up pause. “How long have we been here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think they’re looking for us? Dad and Mom and Lucas and Ria?”

here.” A

The word Dad landed somewhere tender in Lena’s chest. Her father. Alexander Kane, who had never once made her feel like

a burden, who had sat beside her hospital bed and held her hand, who had looked at her some mornings at breakfast like she was the best thing he’d ever done.

He was looking. She knew he was looking. He would tear this city down to its foundations looking.

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12:30 pm p p PO

Chapter 196-

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hey’re looking Lena kept her voice steady. “Trust me. Every person Dad knows is probably searching right now.”

“What if they can’t find us?” Monica’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “What if we’re too far away?”

“Then we wait and we stay smart and we give them time to get here.” Lena shifted trying to work some feeling back into her wrists. The rope was tight but not cutting. Whoever had tied them knew what they were doing.

That thought was not a comforting one.

“I’m cold,” Monica said.

“Come here.” Lena turned sideways and Monica pressed herself against Lena’s back, both of them awkward with their hands bound, finding what warmth they could.

They sat like that for a while without speaking.

Lena thought about this morning. The kitchen full of the smell of coffee and toast. Lucas reading something on his phone and laughing. Ria doing her makeup at the kitchen counter and their mother telling her to please use the bathroom mirror like a normal person. Alexander pouring juice and asking if anyone had seen his reading glasses when they were on top of his head.

Normal. Completely, beautifully, unspectacularly normal.

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She hadn’t known it was the last normal morning they’d have for a while. She would have paid more attention if she’d known. Would have sat at that table longer. Would have hugged her father before she left instead of just waving from the door.

“Tell me about the painting,” Lena said into the dark.

Monica was quiet for a moment. “What?”

“The family portrait. The one you were planning.” Lena kept her voice soft and even. “Tell me what it was going to look like.”

Monica’s breathing slowed slightly. “I was going to paint all of us in the garden. At the back of the house where the big oak tree is. Mom and Dad sitting on the stone bench. Ria standing behind them. Lucas on one side. You and me on the other side.”

“What colors?”

“Warm ones. Yellows and soft oranges. The kind of colors that make a painting look like late afternoon when the light goes golden.” Monica’s voice steadied as she talked. “I was going to give everyone their right expressions. Not posed. Like I caught them mid–laugh or mid–conversation.”

“You should use pale gold for Mom’s dress,” Lena said. “She wears that color well.”

“I know. I was going to.” Monica was quiet for a moment. “Lena, I’m going to finish it. When we get home, I’m going to finish it and it’s going to be the best thing I’ve ever painted.”

“I know you will.”

“You have to believe we’re getting home.”

“I do believe it.” And she did. She had to. The alternative was a door she refused to open.

They fell quiet again. Somewhere above them, the building settled with a low groan. Something dripped steadily in the far corner of the room. The cold pressed in from all sides.

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12:30 pm PPP

Chapter 196-

Then the footsteps started.

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Both girls went completely still. Heavy boots on wooden floors somewhere above them. Moving slowly. Deliberately. Not the rushed sound of someone passing by. The sound of someone coming with purpose.

Monica pressed her face into Lena’s shoulder. Lena straightened her spine.

A lock turned. Then another. The door at the top of the stairs opened with a long, low creak, and harsh white light poured down and hit them like a fist after so long in the dark.

Lena squinted against it, forcing herself to keep her eyes open, forcing herself to look directly at the man coming down the

stairs.

He was tall. Heavy through the shoulders. His face was not a face she recognised. He took the stairs slowly, looking at them the whole way down, and when he reached the bottom he stood there and looked at them like they were something he’d ordered and was satisfied to find delivered correctly.

Lena lifted her chin. “Why did you take us?”

The man looked at her. His expression didn’t change. “You offended someone,” he said flatly. “Someone you should have been more careful with.”

“Who?” Lena pressed. “Who did we offend? We’re teenagers. We haven’t done anything to anyone.”

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