Oblivion

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  It froze, suspended in midair.

  And I hadn’t done it.

  Chapter 8

  The branch hung as if tethered by an invisible string until the guy stepped aside. Crashing to the pavement, the branch cracked the cement.

  “Wow…” I heard the guy say. “That would’ve killed me.” He stepped toward Kat, reaching out to her. “Katy…it’s okay.” The guy looked up, spotting me. He stopped moving.

  Shock and anger warred inside me as I wrapped my hand around her upper arm. “Kat.”

  Her shoulders sagged as she turned to me, lowering her head. Long dark strands fell forward, shielding her face. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  Pressure clamped on my chest.

  “Is she okay?” the guy asked, sounding worried. “The branch—”

  “Yes. She’s fine. The falling branch scared her,” I gritted out. “That’s all.”

  The guy stared at us. “But—”

  “See you later.” I didn’t have time for this. Turning Kat, I walked her back toward her car. “Are you okay?”

  Kat stared straight ahead and nodded. She didn’t speak as I gently pried the car keys from her fingers. I heard the guy call out her name, but it didn’t seem like she heard him. I opened the car door.

  “Get in,” I said quietly.

  Surprisingly, Kat obeyed me without a fight. She slipped into the car, and I closed the door behind her. Sparing the guy a brief glance, I started around the front of the car. He was still standing there, staring at us. My jaw clenched as I got in her car. Thoughts raced at a rapid clip. I didn’t stop that branch. That guy sure as hell wasn’t Luxen. That left one person.

  Kat.

  It was impossible. Stopping the branch was something only a Luxen could do. An Arum might’ve pulled something like that off if it had recently fed, but Kat…Kat was human.

  Was.

  Dammit.

  The inside of her car smelled like damn peaches. She turned wide gray eyes on me and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse. “How…how are you here?”

  I pulled out of the parking spot. “I was driving around. I’ll have Dee and Adam get my car.”

  Kat looked at the passenger window, at that boy. A shudder rocked her. “Daemon…”

  My jaw worked as I waited for traffic to clear so I could pull out. Obviously, she wasn’t too shocked by what had gone down, and that meant one thing. Kat was keeping a whole lot from me. There was so much wrong with this situation that I barely knew where to start.

  “You’ll pretend like nothing happened,” I said. “If he brings it up, you’ll tell him that he moved out of the way. If he even suggests that you…that you stopped that branch, you laugh it off.”

  “I need to act like you did in the beginning?” she asked.

  I nodded curtly and pulled out onto the road. “What just happened back there never happened. Do you understand me?”

  Kat nodded.

  Silence ticked away the minutes as I drove. Neither of us spoke on the way back to her house. My knuckles ached from how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel. I had to ease off so I didn’t damage it. I used the time to gather my thoughts and figure out what the hell happened and how we were going to deal with this.

  I didn’t speak until I parked the car in her driveway and slipped the keys out of the ignition. Sitting back, I looked at her. “We need to talk. And you need to be honest with me. You don’t seem surprised you just did that.”

  Kat nodded.

  Anger rolled off me. I opened my mouth, about to demand why she hadn’t come to me with something so damn important, but I shut it and shook my head. We climbed out of the car and headed into her empty house, warmed by the central heat kicked on high.

  Kat sat in the recliner and wrapped her arms around herself. “I was planning on telling you.”

  “You were?” I stood in front of her, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. “When, exactly? Before or after you did something that puts you at risk?”

  She flinched. “I didn’t plan on this happening! All I wanted was to have a normal afternoon with a boy—”

  “With a boy?” I spat, anger flaring.

  “Yes, with a normal boy!” She drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I did plan on coming to you tonight, but Blake asked me to grab something to eat with him, and I just wanted one freaking afternoon with someone like me.”

  Blake? That was his name? Forget that. I frowned. “You have friends who are normal, Kat.”

  “It’s not the same thing!”

  Understanding hit me. She didn’t want normal friends. She wanted a normal guy. Yeah, that stung like a bitch. “Tell me what’s been happening.”

  Her eyes met mine, and then her gaze dipped to her hands. “I think I did get alien cooties, because I’ve been moving things…without touching them. Today, I opened the door to Mr. Garrison’s classroom without touching it. He seemed to think it was a drafty hallway.”

  Tension brewed inside me. “How often has this been happening?”

  “On and off for around a week. The first time it was my locker door, but I thought it was a fluke, so I didn’t say anything. Then I thought about wanting a glass of tea, and the glass flew out of the cabinet and the tea started pouring itself in the fridge. The shower turned itself on, doors opened, and a couple of times, clothes flew from my closet.” She sighed. “My room was a mess.”

  A snicker escaped. “Nice.”

  Her hands balled into fists. “How can you think this is funny? Look at what happened today! I didn’t mean to stop the branch! I mean, I didn’t want it to hit him, but I didn’t consciously stop the damn thing. The whole healing-me thing—it changed me, Daemon. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I couldn’t move things before. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I get a splitting headache and feel exhausted afterward. What if I’m dying or something?”

  Dying?

  I moved toward her, sitting down on the arm of the chair. Kat shrank back, plastering herself against the chair. “Why do you have to move so fast?” she demanded. “It’s…wrong.”

  “Sorry, Kitten. For us, moving fast is natural. It’s actually more effort to slow down and appear ‘normal,’ as you put it.” I paused and then spoke the truth. “I guess I just forget I have to pretend around you.”

  She winced and looked away. Her mouth moved, but there were no words spoken out loud. I sighed as I resisted the urge to touch her. “You’re not dying.”

  “How do you know?” Kat lifted her gaze to mine.

  “Because I’d never let that happen,” I promised.

  Her breath caught. “What if I’m turning into an alien?”

  Turning into an alien? I wanted to laugh, but managed to stop myself. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

  “Moving stuff with my mind shouldn’t be possible.”

  Good point. “Why didn’t you tell me when this first happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “I should’ve. I don’t want to put you guys at risk. I swear I’m not doing it on purpose.”

  Her silence on what was happening was a product of her trying to protect us—Dee. Me. And she feared that I’d think she was doing this on purpose? Damn. That got me in the feels. Straight sucker punch. My vision changed, washing the room in a whitish light. “I know you aren’t doing anything on purpose. I wouldn’t have thought that.”

  Her chest rose sharply as I held her gaze. A moment passed and I said, “I don’t know if it was a product of my healing you those times or when you connected with us during Baruck’s attack. Either way, it’s obvious that you’re using some of my abilities. I’ve never heard of this happening before.”

  “Never?” she whispered.

  “We don’t heal humans.” I pursed my lips, thinking back to the time when Dawson had come home, blood on his torn clothing. It hadn’t been his. Bethany. Had something happened to Bethany and he’d healed her? This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered about this, but what if he
had? Did it matter in the end? I shook my head. “I’ve always thought it had something to do with exposing our abilities, but now I’m wondering if it’s more than that. If the real reason is because we…change humans.”

  She swallowed. “So I am turning into an alien?”

  My lips twitched. “Kitten…”

  “How do we stop this?”

  I had no idea, and it wasn’t like I could ask someone, but an idea occurred to me. Our hearts were beating at the same rate. That was established. She was somehow using some of my abilities. Just how connected were we? I stood. “I want to try something, okay?”

  Her brows rose. “Okay.”

  Closing my eyes, I let myself shed my human form. A few seconds later, I was in full Luxen mode, casting the room in a white-red light. I reached out to her mentally. Say something to me.

  She glanced around the room. “Uh, hi?”

  I chuckled. Not aloud. Say something to me, but not out loud. Like what happened in the clearing. You spoke to me then.

  Her eyes widened at that. It was something neither of us talked about it. Then again, we rarely had moments of talking. We were either arguing…or kissing. A few moments passed, and then I heard her voice in my thoughts, soft and sweet.

  Your light is really pretty, but it’s blinding me.

  I gasped. There was no stopping that. We can still hear each other. I shifted back into my human form, uneasy. “So my light was blinding you, huh?”

  “Yeah, it was.” She fiddled with the chain around her neck. “Am I glowing now?”

  It usually happened when we went into our true form, leaving a very faint trace behind, almost unnoticeable, but there was nothing around her. Oh man. “No.”

  “Why could I still hear you?” she asked. “You act like I shouldn’t.”

  “You shouldn’t, but we’re still connected.”

  “Well, how do we get unconnected?”

  “That’s a good question.” Lifting my arms, I stretched as I glanced around the room. My brows rose. “You have books everywhere, Kitten.”

  “That’s really not important right now.”

  I stretched out a hand, wanting to distract her for a few moments. I could feel how fast her heart was racing. A book flew off the arm of the couch and into my hand. Turning it over, I quickly read the back. “His touch kills? Really, what is this stuff you’re reading?”

  She shot from the chair, snatching the book away and holding it close to her chest. “Shut up. I love this book.”

  “Uh-huh,” I murmured.

  “Okay, back to the important stuff. And stop touching my books.” She placed it back where I’d found it. “What are we going to do?”

  I watched her. “I’ll figure out what is happening with you. Just give me some time.”

  She nodded, worrying her lower lip. “You do realize this whole thing is why you…”

  I arched a brow, waiting for her to say what I already knew she was going to say.

  “It’s why you suddenly like me,” she finished.

  “I’m pretty sure I liked you before this, Kitten.”

  “Well, you had one hell of a way of showing it.”

  “True,” I admitted. “And I’ve already said I’m sorry for the way I treated you.” I squared my shoulders. “I always liked you. From the moment you first flipped me off.”

  “But you didn’t start to want to spend time with me until after the first attack, when you healed me. Maybe we were already starting to, like…morph together or whatever.”

  I frowned. “What is it with you? It’s like you need to convince yourself I can’t possibly like you. Does doing that make it easier to tell yourself you don’t have feelings for me?”

  “You treated me like a redheaded stepchild for months. I’m sorry if I have a hard time believing that whatever you feel is real.” She sat on the couch. “And it has nothing to do with what I feel.”

  My shoulders tensed as I thought back to that guy. “Do you like that guy you were with?”

  “Blake? I don’t know. He’s nice.”

  “He was sitting with you today at lunch.”

  She arched a brow. “Because there was an open seat and it’s a free world where people can pick where they want to sit.”

  “There were other seats open. He could’ve sat anywhere else in the cafeteria.”

  Kat didn’t respond immediately. “He’s in my bio class. Maybe he just felt comfortable with me, because we’re both sort of new.”

  Oh, I did not like the sound of this. She was willing to accept that some strange dude was simply comfortable around her while she thought there were a million nefarious reasons as to why I was interested in her. What the hell? “He kept staring at you. And obviously he wanted to spend time with you outside of school.”

  “Maybe he likes me,” she said, shrugging. “Lesa invited him to the party on Friday.”

  A muscle spasmed along my jaw. “I don’t think you should be hanging around him until we know what’s up with you moving stuff.” Part of that was actually a valid statement, but I could admit to myself I was totally using that as a perfect excuse to cut the douche bag out of the picture. “You doing that thing with the branch was only one instance. We can’t have a repeat of that.”

  “What? I’m not supposed to date or hang out with anyone now?”

  I smiled. “Anyone human, yes.”

  “Whatever.” Kat stood, and a chunk of hair fell across her cheek. “This is a stupid conversation. I’m not dating anyone anyway, but if I were, I wouldn’t stop just because you said so.”

  “You wouldn’t?” I caught that damn piece of hair and tucked it back behind her ear. “We’ll just have to see about that.”

  She stepped sideways, keeping distance between us. “There’s nothing to see.”

  Challenge filled my entire being. “If you say so, Kitten.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she faced me. “This isn’t a game.”

  “I know, but if it were, I’d win.” I moved around the room and then stopped. I watched her grab hold of her hair and start twisting it nervously. She was stressed. Understandable. I had done something to her, maybe irrevocably, like I had feared when she had gotten sick. For some reason, as I watched her, I thought about what I heard at lunch. My hands closed into fists. The last thing she needed to worry about was the shit Simon was spewing about her.

  “By the way,” I said. “I’ve heard what Simon has been saying.”

  Pink swept over her face. “Yeah, he’s being a douche. I think it’s his friends. He actually apologized to me, and then when his friends showed up, he told them I was trying to get with him.”

  My eyes narrowed. “That’s not okay.”

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, lowering her gaze.

  “Maybe not to you, but it is to me.” I paused, my shoulders squaring. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Kat plopped down on the couch, her back to me. “You always do that, don’t you?”

  “Do what?”

  One shoulder rose. “Take care of things.”

  I drifted toward the couch quietly.

  She peeked at me through her lashes. “You took care of things after…after Dawson. You took care of things with me—before and after I found out the truth. And now? You’re going to do it again.”

  “I…I don’t look at it that way.”

  “Of course you don’t.” There wasn’t an ounce of rancor in her tone. Her brow wrinkled as she opened her hands and flipped them palms up. She stared at them. “It’s just got to be a lot of responsibility.”

  My mouth was open and wordless.