When the Sun meets the Moon

30.

The room is quiet, everyone is waiting for the autopsy to end. Jared, Talia, Lincoln and me are gathered in a small room next to the morgue. Only Nate and the doctor were allowed inside. I tried to peek inside but they locked the doors.

While Leah and Steven brought back the sentinel's corpse we went to inform Nate of the situation, Cory was nowhere to be seen. He didn't take the news really well. I only had a few seconds to look at the body before they ushered it out of view. From what I could see the man was tortured and starved for a long period of time, his skin was dirty, his body bony and didn't have the time to heal entirely. His features were distorted in an ugly grimace.

He met a nasty death.

We are all listening in on the report.

"Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head. But he was tortured long before that."

"How long ?" Nate inquires in an icy voice.

"I don't know exactly but I'd say at least two weeks, he lost a lot of muscle and seeing those marks on his ankles and wrists he was probably chained."

"What about the words ?"

"Postmortem." The doctor says in a matter-of-factly way.

We all breath a little at that.

"I also found a piece of paper stuck inside his mouth. They" She hesitates. "They broke his mouth shut afterwards."

"I'm going to kill them all." Nate threatens.

"What do you think it says ?" Talia asks beside me and I shrug.

"Might be instructions." I offer in a whisper.

"Alright, thank you Sasha. Please send me your final report as soon as you're done." Nate says and we stop talking as we hear him near the door.

"Yes sir." She answers while he opens the door.

I can see her note down a few words on her clipboard and focus back on the body.

"What does it say ?" I ask immediately.

I am not heartless okay ? We all want to know.

'Still could use some tact.'

Nate hands the paper over to Lincoln and I bend over to read it too.

You have until the next full moon to leave.

If you decide to fight you won't survive.

The time of a new era has come.

The words are sloppy and the mark of the Sun is at the bottom of the sheet.

Next moon.

'That's almost a month from now, we still have time.'

There is a lot to do but that' better than nothing.

"They aren't saying a lot." Lincoln frowns.

"On the contrary, they said more than they intended." I shake my head. "For starters they want to intimidate us. They are asking us to leave and threatening to kill us all."

"I'd say they are succeeding." Jared mumbles. "That's the third time they attack us. They even infiltrated us."

"That's true but every time they sent weak rogues and I can guess most of them are just as weak. Moreover they are giving us a month which means they aren't ready yet."

"That's true." Talia nods.

"They didn't attack us without warning us. There was no surprise attack. Which means they don't think they can actually win, or at least they can't come out of this unscathed." I continue to explain.