The Moon Rises (Gigi Monroe) Read online

  The Moon Rises

  A Gigi Monroe Novel

  Angela Horn

  Copyright 2012 by Angela Horn

  Kindle Edition

  Dedication

  To all the UF girls who frustrate me

  To Fiona Apple for Extraordinary Machine

  and Nina Simone for every song she ever sang

  To MJ, MM, JH, MH, LH, and the Big Guy upstairs

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty One

  Chapter Fifty Two

  Chapter Fifty Three

  Chapter One

  The Circle was full of magic and monsters. Gigi Monroe awoke with this fact forefront in her thoughts. She also woke with the intention of avoiding all those monsters, yet she needed to work at The Moon Rises – a club for monsters. Maybe cooking for the monsters would allow her to hide in the kitchen. This was the plan anyway.

  The interview that morning went all wrong though. Silas, the club owner, didn’t want her to be a cook, but he offered her a deal. She could work in the kitchen on the slow shifts, if she agreed to work as a waitress on his busy nights.

  No hiding from the monsters, no keeping her head down. Maybe Gigi should have said no, but the rule in her mind commanded she work at The Moon Rises. With no contingency plan for Silas’s offer, Gigi had to guess the correct answer. Gigi wanted to cook like Mamma Celeste cooked. Most of Gigi’s memories were lies, but the one about Mamma was most definitely real. With this in mind, Gigi agreed to Silas’s deal.

  With two hours before her first shift, Gigi sat in her pretty apartment on the top floor of a pretty building called Sunset Courts. Standing at the third story window, she stared down at the courtyard below and noticed her neighbor reading a book while a dog chased butterflies nearby. The witch must have felt Gigi’s eyes on her because she looked up and waved. Gigi waved in return, knowing the witch’s name was Bethany and the dog was Fred.

  This information was real, unlike the memory of Gigi moving into the apartment a few days earlier. This morning she had remembered moving boxes into the apartment and placing pictures on the walls. Those memories were gone though. Once her mind rejected the memories as lies, it erased them.

  The memory of her painting the walls a pretty lavender was erased earlier in the day too. Gigi now just stared at the relaxing color and wondered if the walls were always this color. Moving around her apartment, Gigi noticed a checkbook, wallet, and keys on the kitchen counter. Yesterday she remembered opening her bank account, remembered parking her car, and remembered using the credit cards to buy her new furnishings. Before her interview, Gigi was unable to remember if she had a car, so she walked to the club. Also her checkbook showed an account with money, but she didn’t know how to retrieve the money or where the bank was located.

  Walking home from her interview, Gigi found a pizza restaurant with an arcade inside. While waiting for her order, she watched a boy play a game called Pac-Man. The yellow thing ate little glowing balls and Gigi thought of her mind as a Pac-Man too. Gobbling up all the false memories, her mind struggled to learn the truth, but instead left her with only the real memories of the last two days. Too many important details were missing because of her mind’s overzealous attempt to scrub away the lies.

  The rules remained though. Live in the Circle. Work at The Moon Rises. Don’t get angry. Hide. Those were the four big rules, the ones she remembered all the time, but others were hidden. Triggers were hiding in her mind, just waiting to be activated.

  Gigi stopped in front of a mirror and felt relief to be correct about how she looked. Her appearance was a new memory and it was real. She was still blonde, brown eyed, light skinned. Whether she was considered tall or pretty or fat, Gigi couldn’t be sure. She didn’t have enough information to compare with what she found in the mirror.

  With an hour left before she needed to be at the club, Gigi wanted to think about Mamma Celeste. She didn’t remember much, maybe just the one memory, but the memory was vivid. Gigi suspected she was very young in the memory which explained why, though vivid, it lacked context. Like a snapshot, the memory remained detached from the rest of her life, but it soothed nonetheless. Most importantly, unlike the memories of her blonde mother, the one about Mamma Celeste could be remembered again and again without her mind deleting it.

  Gigi played a CD already in the stereo and smiled as Nina Simone began to sing. Mamma Celeste loved Nina Simone. This was a fact, as much as Gigi’s blonde hair or the dog’s name being Fred. Listening to the music, she remembered shopping for the CDs. Then her mind latched onto the lie and gobbled until it was gone.

  Returning to the couch, Gigi closed her eyes and let the music mold her thoughts. Mamma Celeste stood over Gigi. With a head full of afro hair against flawless mocha skin and rich black eyes which smiled when she sang, Celeste was beautiful and bright. Oh, how Mamma Celeste loved to sing in the kitchen, her lean body shifting from foot to foot to the rhythm of the music.

  In the memory, Gigi sat on the floor and watched as Mamma Celeste cut onions and many colors of peppers and fragrant tomatoes from her garden. Once the food plopped into the big pot, Mamma Celeste smiled down at Gigi. Wagging a finger, she said, “Don’t scratch, sunshine. Scratching only makes it worse.”

  Gigi opened her eyes, not remembering anything more than she remembered this morning or yesterday. With less than hour left before she had to serve food and drinks to monsters, Gigi moved to the bedroom and again eyed her reflection.

  Considering her new job, Gigi suspected Silas wanted her to smile and shake her butt for the male monsters. She stood in front of the mirror and smiled. The first smile was too happy - almost crazy happy. She tried to smile softer, but the second one made her look cranky. Turning around, she shook her butt at the mirror, not understanding why anyone would want to see such a thing. Oh well, good thing she didn’t need the tips.

  Gigi decided to leave on the jeans and pink shirt she was wearing. The club provided uniforms and Gigi didn’t want to dirty too many clothes. When she remembered doing laundry at her family’s home, her mind descended upon the lie and devoured
it. Gobble, gobble, and gone. Now she couldn’t remember how to wash her clothes, but maybe she would ask Bethany for help.

  The Moon Rises was located fifteen blocks from Gigi’s apartment. This was something she learned from the driving directions left on her counter next to the keys belonging to a car she couldn’t remember. Gigi originally thought she printed out the directions from the computer in the second bedroom, but her mind deleted the fake memory. Gobble, gobble, and gone again.

  Fifteen blocks wasn’t far and the weather was nice. She thought maybe it was July, only because the calendar on the wall was open to July. The day of her interview was circled and Interview with Silas at Nine AM was written in a handwriting which might be hers. The memory of writing the information was destroyed when she glanced at the calendar before the interview though.

  Leaving her apartment, Gigi didn’t lock the door until she heard Bethany down the hall, locking hers from the inside. Yes, locking the door was the right thing to do, Gigi realized. After a few minutes trying to figure out how to lock her door, she pushed the keys into her pocket and started downstairs.

  Two blocks from the apartment was a small park and Gigi stopped to look around on her way to the club. Several people were in the park, reading and walking their pets. Gigi wasn’t sure if they were really people though. Monsters were in the Circle, but she didn’t know how to spot them. She also knew the place was full of magic, but she sensed nothing. Maybe she couldn’t spot the magic any better than the monsters?

  A man walking his dog stared at her while his big dog yanked at the leash, trying to get to Gigi. Watching the dog, Gigi remembered how her family owned a yellow lab too. The dog’s name was Butch and he was a good dog who…gobble, gobble, gone. Suddenly Gigi was just staring at the dog, wondering why she was staring at the dog.

  Walking again, Gigi realized many of the people she passed were staring at her. She wondered if she was dressed inappropriately or doing something wrong. By the time she arrived at the club, Gigi wondered why she wasn’t more nervous.

  She didn’t know how to waitress, didn’t want to be around monsters, and was pretty sure Silas wasn’t human. Maybe her brain deleted too much information because she couldn’t scare herself over the prospect of an evening surrounded by dangerous creatures.

  Approaching her, Silas looked relieved to see Gigi. A large foreboding male with wide shoulders, thick muscles, a head full of brown hair, and eyes dark like the night, he was scary until he smiled.

  “Gigi, are you ready to get started?”

  Nodding, Gigi said nothing, just watched the girls moving around behind Silas. Some of them were watching Gigi, some were pretending not to. One of them waited where Silas had been standing. She was a dark haired, blue eyed beauty with a little Cindy Crawford mole over the left corner of her mouth. Gigi had a friend in high school with a mole like that over her eyebrow and her name was…gobble, gobble, gone.

  “Gigi, this is Justine. I’m going to have her give you the basics, but Sara will be working with you on the pack level.”

  “Is Gigi a nickname?” Justine asked.

  “No,” Gigi said, assuming this to be true. Her driver’s license and birth certificate said Gigi Monroe, so it must be her name. Her mother named her Gigi because…gobble, gobble, gone.

  “Poor thing,” Justine said with a grin.

  “Be nice,” Silas warned the brunette as he walked back to his office.

  “I’m always nice,” Justine said loudly, but her eyes never left Gigi. “You’re starting off with the pack guys and they’re the easiest to deal with. They usually come here with their Alphas who keep them in line. They also don’t have any weird hang-ups. The Vamps insist we stand with our hands in view at all times. The witches are super annoying. They think it’s funny to screw around with little magic tricks which usually end with us falling down and them applauding. The ghouls are the worst. They want to smell us and not how the pack guys smell us, but like really up close smelling. They sniff the waitresses like dogs sniff butts. It’s gotten so bad Silas keeps track of our periods, so none of us are assigned to the ghoul level when we’re on the rag. Don’t worry about the Vamps. They ain’t interested in vajaja blood.” Justine paused and gave Gigi a big smile. “Hey, look at me making this job sound like more fun than it is!”

  Realizing Justine was trying to make friends with her, Gigi faked a smile. She should know how to smile and laugh, but she couldn’t remember ever laughing before. The smiles she gave Silas earlier were fake too.

  Fake it until you make it. This was a saying Gigi heard on the television the night before and it sounded like sage advice.

  Justine gestured for Gigi to follow her and they moved to a locker room. Soon she was dressed like Justine in a pair of tight black shorts which hid none of her thighs or much of her hips either. The black vest was more comfortable, but it rode up to show off her belly button. A pair of knee high black boots finished off the look. Sensing she was supposed to be this undressed, only because all the other girls looked just as half naked, Gigi shut her locker and followed Justine out to the different floors which were empty.

  “There is a kitchen on each floor because obviously Vamps eat differently than Weres or ghouls. When you’re on one level, you go to that level’s kitchen and bar. You never wander around. Picking up the scent of one group then moving into another group’s territory pisses them off. We had a girl named Jaylee who once hung with the Vamps for a while then the ghouls before she headed to Were territory.

  “Man, you’d have thought she crapped on the floor. The Were guys were pissed and Silas got pissed and Jaylee cried so hard she puked. It was pretty funny actually, but seriously don’t do that. Jaylee got stuck with the ghouls for a month and no one can deal with those freaks for that long. Jaylee quit which was fine because she was pretty illiterate and her orders were impossible to decipher.”

  Nodding whenever Justine looked at her, Gigi found herself back in the locker room where two girls were whispering until they saw Justine.

  “This is the new girl,” Justine announced. “She might be a mute.”

  The redheaded girl grinned. “Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk to you?”

  The girl in the corner slipped closer, her movements strange as if she were moving too fast and too slow at the same time.

  “Yes, Justine, some people just don’t want to hang with humans.”

  “She’s human too. Take a whiff.”

  The redhead sighed. “Another human. Seriously Silas is so biased.”

  “I’m Dahlia,” said the one who moved strangely. Her hair was a darker shade of brown than Justine’s and her eyes were black. Her skin was a flawless white, too white maybe, but not sickly. “The ginger here is Ella and she’s a big dog.”

  The redhead growled dramatically then patted Gigi’s arm. They were making friends with her like Justine had done earlier. Gigi smiled, hoping it wasn’t the scary one from the mirror. They didn’t flinch or run away, so she assumed the smile was acceptable.

  “She really doesn’t talk, does she?” Dahlia said.

  “Nope. Her name is Gigi, so maybe she was bullied as a kid.”

  With the three of them staring at her, Gigi realized words were necessary.

  “I’m nervous,” she said.

  They nodded, understanding her silence now. Accepting how words were helpful, Gigi told herself to talk more.

  “She’s starting out on the pack floor with Sara.”

  “Lucky ducky,” Ella said, pulling her thick red hair into a ponytail high on her head. “My guys are great tippers. Also when they grab your ass, they’re so sweet about it.”

  Justine and Dahlia laughed so Gigi laughed too.

  “I’m on witch duty,” Justine said. “Hopefully Nolan will come in and flirt with me. Otherwise I’ll die of boredom. That is unless one of the witches decides to play one of those hilarious tricks involving me bouncing on my ass.”

  Dahlia rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
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  “What floor will you work on?” Gigi asked her.

  “Vamps only work on the Vamp and ghoul floors. Few girls will take the ghoul floor, but Ella loves them.”

  “Ha!” Ella snorted. “I get the ghouls because I’m special. Few Weres are accepted by the ghouls, but I’ve charmed them with my ability to look them in the eyes without barfing.”

  When the girls laughed, Gigi laughed too. Yet her mind was processing how Ella and Dahlia were monsters. They seemed harmless enough, even if Dahlia moved strangely and they both smelled different than Justine who was apparently human.

  Dahlia walked out of the locker room in her strange way and Justine winked at Gigi before following the Vamp. Ella took Gigi by the arm and pulled her to the pack floor which was decorated in dark brown and red hues.

  Gigi noticed past the tables and booths was an area full of pool tables while overhead the music was loud with lots of guitars. The pack floor was masculine and smelled like steak. Gigi liked steak. In fact once at culinary school, she and two other girls…gobble, gobble, gone.

  Standing near the bar, hidden from the few customers now on the floor, Gigi waited for someone to tell her what to do. Ella was busy fiddling with her ponytail while the one they called Sara wasn’t around yet.

  Gigi noticed a male enter and she realized he was a Were – a monster who turned into a dog. That was how Justine explained it anyway. This male was incredibly beautiful in a masculine way. His dark hair and eyes reminded Gigi of Silas. Yet while her boss was rough, this male was soft - well softer. His features were easily perfect on his honey tinted skin. His eyes - the color of the chocolate Gigi ate with lunch and lined with thick black lashes - found her as she peeked at him from around the corner of the bar. A hint of a smile touched his lips then was gone.

  “That’s Anton,” Ella said, still fiddling with her ponytail. “He’s an Alpha. There are three Alphas in the Circle. Anton’s my second favorite. My pack leader is Declan, so clearly he has to be my favorite even if he’s a jackass. They’re all jackasses, but at least they’re good looking.”

  Gigi liked looking at Anton, but she knew staring was bad. Justine earlier told her to stop before someone complained. Justine was gone though, so Gigi stared at Anton a bit more before noticing Ella was leaving.