Oblivion

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Matthew nodded. “It should work.”

  I rubbed at my chest. “And how are we going to get her to exert energy?”

  Andrew grinned from across the room. “We could take her out to a field and chase her around in our cars. That sounds fun.”

  Kat dropped her feet onto the floor. “Oh, fuc—”

  My laugh cut her off, earning me a dark look from one very pissed-off little kitten. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Funny, but not a good idea. Humans are fragile.”

  “How about I shove my fragile foot up your ass,” she retorted, and that made me grin…up until when she pushed me clear off the arm of the chair. “I’m getting a drink. Let me know when you guys come up with anything that won’t potentially kill me in the process.”

  I watched her hurry out of the room, smiling faintly. Man, she was not a happy camper right now. Couldn’t blame her. Refocusing on the room, my gaze collided with Ash’s. Aaand there was another person who did not appear to be feeling warm and fuzzy.

  “This could work,” Dee said, smoothing her hands over her legs. “We just get her to exert energy, and that’s not that hard. Running will do it. Jumping jacks. Jogging in place. Sit-ups—”

  “Sex,” Andrew supplied.

  Everyone looked at him. The last thing I needed to think about was the words “sex” and “Kat” in the same sentence.

  “What?” He chuckled. “I’m not suggesting anyone have sex with her—”

  “Dear God,” Matthew muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “But you all were listing things that burn energy, and sex will do that.”

  Dee was staring at the carpet. Adam looked oddly embarrassed, and Ash pushed to her feet and started to walk. “That’s disgusting for a list of reasons that have nothing to do with her being a human.” She stopped beside me and stared with an icy glare. “You can do better than that.”

  “She could do better than us,” I replied without even thinking, and damn, it was the truth.

  Shock splashed across Ash’s face, and then she started past me, heading toward the kitchen. I caught her arm and met her stare. “Don’t do anything that’s going to make me unhappy.”

  “Everything makes you unhappy,” she spat back.

  “I mean it, Ash.” I ignored her comment. “If I have to come in there and break you two up, I’m not going to like it.”

  Her lips curled. “What do you think I am? Geez.” She pulled her free. “I’m not going to hurt her. I just want something to drink.”

  Part of me felt like I should follow Ash, but Matthew was already eyeballing me like I was seconds away from making babies with a human, which wasn’t even something I was sure could happen. There weren’t any screams or shouts of rage coming from the kitchen, but I kept one ear out for just that as the conversation continued around me.

  This had actually gone better than I thought it would, almost too easy. Unease sprouted like a noxious weed and it continued to grow, making me restless. I stood and walked over to the window. Pulling the curtain back, I peered outside even though I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.

  Matthew announced that he would speak to the DOD and the colony. The destruction that had been caused to the road last night would’ve already been discovered, and the DOD would be monitoring the display of energy already. Luxen against Luxen throw-down. That’s what we were going with. While the DOD didn’t know exactly what we could do, the full extent of our powers, they did know we had greater strength than humans. It was probably likely they’d buy that two of us could have wreaked that havoc. Maybe. If we were very, very lucky they would.

  Kat returned to the room, a bottle of water in her hand. Our gazes met and then held for a brief moment. She looked away quickly, sitting on the edge of the recliner. She was pale as she sucked her lower lip in between her teeth, and when Ash reappeared with nothing in her hands, I could only guess what she had said to Kat in the kitchen.

  “Can we talk for a moment?” Matthew asked in a low voice.

  I nodded and then glanced over at Dee. She smiled, obviously getting the message I didn’t need to say. She would keep an eye on Kat for me. Matthew and I stepped outside. “What’s up?” I asked even though I already knew where this conversation was heading.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested.

  I followed him off the porch and in the opposite direction of Kat’s house. I decided to not beat around the bush. “I know you’re worried about Katy, but she’s not going to say anything,” I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans as we reached the first outcropping of trees. “I know that’s hard to believe, but she’s had plenty of chances to say something. And what I said about her saving my life last night? I wasn’t exaggerating, Matthew. I was able to take out one of the Arum, but two of them tag-teamed me. The one she killed had been feeding on me.”

  Matthew sucked in an unsteady breath. “You came too close, then.”

  “I did,” I admitted quietly, ducking my head under a low-hanging branch. “It won’t happen again.”

  He didn’t respond immediately, so I continued on. “You should’ve seen her, Matt. I told her to run and to hide, but she came back. Like a freaking ninja,” I said, barking out a short laugh. I could still see her standing there. “Stabbed the Arum with the obsidian blade like she’d done it a million times. It was…yeah, it was amazing.”

  “Sounds like it.” He walked side by side with me. “Not many humans would’ve done that. She’s a brave girl.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled slightly. “Yeah, she is.”

  Matthew’s steps slowed to a stop. “It’s not her I’m worried about, Daemon.”

  Frowning, I stopped and looked at him. “It’s not?”

  His expression was open. “No. It’s you.”

  “Me?” I laughed again. “You need to add a little more detail to that statement.”

  “All of this is so very familiar to me. No, let me finish,” he said when I opened my mouth. “I know you’re not your brother and this isn’t the same situation, but you obviously care about Katy. She’s not like the other human girls you’ve had…relations with.”

  Huh. I had no idea Matthew kept that close of an eye on me.

  “Katy is different to you, and you’re different around her. You threatened us to protect her, and that’s all the evidence that I need to know this situation could escalate very quickly. None of us took a stronger hand with Dawson, and look where that ended. I cannot allow that to happen to you.”

  Looking away, I slowly shook my head as I watched a tiny brown bird hop along one of the narrow branches. Kat was different. I couldn’t deny that. “I can’t keep her away from Dee.”

  “Dee’s not the problem,” Matthew informed me.

  A muscle began to tick in my jaw, and then I laughed again for the third time. “I was thinking that it might be smart if Dee and I left. If we found another colony and moved there. Dee wouldn’t be happy with that, but…”

  “That’s not what I want to hear, and I hope you’re not so…invested in this girl that leaving here—leaving us—is the only viable option. That means things have already gotten out of control, and that is not you.”

  Was it the only option? If it was, then what did that say? I shook my head. “It’s not.”

  Matthew clamped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You are like a brother to me, Daemon. I trust you with my life, and I know you’re going to make this situation right. You’re going to help get that trace off as her as quick as possible, using whatever means necessary,” he said, his blue eyes sharpening. “You’re going to take care of this and none of us are going to have to worry about history repeating itself. We’re going to move on from this and take care of the Arum, and then everything…everything will be okay. Can you do that? For Dee? For all of us, but most importantly, for you and for her.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You don’t need to lie to me, Daemon, and I don’t even need you to confirm or deny
what is beginning to start between you and Katy, but you know—you know more than anyone if you continue down this path, it’s not just your fate you’re sealing. It’s Katy’s fate also.” Matthew withdrew his hand, his expression somber. “You don’t want to be the reason she disappears or is killed. I know you don’t. So take care of this. Soon.”

  Chapter 22

  Matthew’s words haunted me throughout Saturday and into Sunday morning. Man, he’d nailed it all on the head, hadn’t he? Things were already getting out of control between Kat and me, and nothing had really happened between us. At least not physically, if I wasn’t counting yesterday morning, but there was something between us.

  And neither of us liked it.

  I did a lot of thinking, even when I went out on patrols Saturday night. Matthew had been right. I needed to get this trace off Kat as soon as possible, and then once I took care of the last Arum, things…things would be normal.

  Things had to get back to normal.

  Leaving really wasn’t an option, at least not right now, and the likelihood of the DOD approving something like that was slim to none. So I needed to take care of this. I couldn’t allow myself to think of anything else.

  Dee was with Adam, and I figured now was no better time to start getting that trace off Kat. After all, she didn’t want to be at risk or a danger to anyone else. Before I left, I grabbed the piece of obsidian from my bedroom. Rain poured down as I darted across the lawn, moving fast enough that the sheets of chilly rain barely hit me. Her mom’s car was gone, as usual. I knocked on the door.

  A few seconds passed before the door inched open, revealing a very…sleepy-looking Kat. She squinted up at me, brows knitted together. Her hair was a mess of waves, falling haphazardly over her shoulders. She was in pajamas and I was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a—

  “What’s up?” She broke the silence.

  “Are you going to invite me in?”

  Her lips formed a thin line as she stepped aside. I walked in, scanning the rooms. “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Your mom’s not home, right?” Figured I’d better double check before we started getting down to business.

  Kat shut the door. “Her car’s not outside.”

  The claws were out today. “We need to work on fading your trace.”

  “It’s pouring outside.” She stalked past me, grabbing the remote to turn off the TV. I beat her to it, flipping it off before she could hit the button. “Show-off,” she muttered.

  “Been called worse.” I frowned as I faced her, finally getting a good look at what she was wearing. I laughed. “What are you wearing?”

  Her cheeks burned bright. “Shut up.”

  I laughed again. “What are they? Keebler elves?”

  “No! They’re Santa’s elves. I love these pajama bottoms. My dad got them for me.”

  My laugh faded off. “You wear them because they remind you of him?”

  Kat nodded.

  The green and pink bottoms were ridiculous looking, but I understood why she wore them. It made me think of something I remembered hearing the Elders say. “My people believe that when we pass on, our essence is what lights the stars in the universe. Seems stupid to believe in something like that, but when I look at the sky at night, I like to think that at least two of the stars out there are my parents. And one is Dawson.”

  “That’s not stupid at all.” She paused as the hostility faded from her expression. “Maybe one of them is my dad.”

  I looked at her and quickly looked away. “Well, anyway, the elves are sexy.”

  She snorted. “Did you guys come up with another way to fade the trace?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’re planning on making me work out, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’s one of the ways of doing it.”

  She plopped down on the couch. “Well, there isn’t much we can do today.”

  I arched a brow. “You have a problem going out in the rain?”

  “When it’s almost the end of October and cold, yes, I do.” She picked up a checkered afghan and placed it in her lap. “I’m not going out there and running today.”

  I sighed. “We can’t wait around, Kat. Baruck is still out there, and the longer we wait, the more dangerous it is.”

  “What about Simon? Did you ever tell the others about him?”

  I’d actually forgotten about him until Saturday evening. “Andrew is keeping an eye on him. Since he had a game yesterday, it faded most of his trace. It’s very faint now. Which proves that this idea is going to work.”

  She fiddled with a ragged edge on the quilt, peeking up at me. Reaching into the pocket, I pulled out the obsidian blade. “This is another reason why I stopped over.” I placed it on the coffee table. “I want you to keep this with you, just in case. Put it in your backpack, purse, or whatever you carry.”

  Kat stared at it a moment and then lifted her gaze. “Seriously?”

  I focused on the blade. Matthew would flip his shit if he knew I was giving it to her. “Yeah, even if we manage to get the trace to fade, keep this on you until we finish off Baruck.”

  “But don’t you need it more than I do? Dee?”

  “Don’t worry about us.”

  A moment passed. “Do you think Baruck is still here?”

  “He’s still around, yes.” No point in lying to her. “The beta quartz throws off our presence, but he knows we’re here. He knows I’m here.”

  “Do you think he’s going to come after you?”

  Her question caught me off guard. “I killed two of his brothers and gave you the means of killing the third. Arum are vengeful creatures, Kitten. He won’t stop until he has me. And he will use you to find me, especially since you came back. They’ve been on Earth long enough to recognize what that can mean. That you would be a weakness to me.”

  Her nose did that cute wrinkling thing whenever she was perturbed. “I’m not a weakness. I can handle myself.”

  Damn straight she could.

  Kat glanced up at me, and I realized I was staring at her like a freak. I glanced around the room. “Enough talking. We have stuff to do now. I don’t know what we can do in here that will make a damn bit of difference. Maybe jumping jacks?”

  Her response to that was to open her laptop. Nice. Good to see she didn’t even attempt to pretend to listen to me. Her nose did the wrinkle thing again and she gave a little sigh as she eyed something on her screen.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.” She went to close the lid, but I wasn’t having that. I kept it open. She glared up at me. “Stop using your freaking object thing on my laptop. You’re going to break it.”

  Amused, I walked around the coffee table and sat beside her. On the screen was a girl…with pigtails. “Is that you?”

  “What does it look like?” she grumbled.

  A slow smile crept over my face. I’d seen these things before on her blog, but I couldn’t let her know that. Nothing like adding cyberstalking to what seemed like real-life stalking. “You film yourself?”

  Kat took a deep breath, and it took every ounce of my self-control to not check out her chest when she did that. “You make it sound like I’m doing a live perv show or something.”

  I choked on my breath. “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “That was a stupid question. Can I please close it now?”

  “I want to watch it.”

  “No!” Horror filled her voice. You’d think there was an Arum in the room.

  I cast her a sidelong glance, and her eyes narrowed as she turned back to the screen. The little arrow moved over the page and clicked on the play button.

  “I hate you and your freaky alien powers,” she muttered.

  A few seconds later, the video started and there Kat was, showing off books, talking in an excited way I’d only heard her do a few times. While the video played, she sat beside me, her jaw locked down and her face the color of blood. It was obvious sh
e filmed the video either last night or this morning. It ended with her smiling broadly at the camera.

  Dammit.

  She was such a…freaking nerd—a hot freaking nerd.

  “You’re even glowing in the video,” I said, and my voice sounded rough to my own ears.

  Kat nodded.

  “You really have a thing for books.” I closed the lid on the laptop. “It’s cute.”