Oblivion

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Her mouth dropped open. “You would’ve been caught inside. I got out of the car because you didn’t respond to my text! If I’d stayed in there, we’d both be in those cages.”

  Heat hit my cheekbones. What the hell was I saying? None of this was her fault, and she was right, but that didn’t change what I’d done back at that warehouse and I couldn’t just walk away from this. We’d discovered the first real link to Bethany and Dawson, and the lives I took… “Okay. Both of us are aggravated right now. We should just let it drop for tonight. Get some rest. Whatever.”

  Kat stared at me a moment and then crossed her arms. “Fine.”

  Grabbing my cap from the coffee table, I slipped it on. I started for the door, but my feet turned into cement. I couldn’t walk forward. The anger festering in me caused my shoulders to shudder. When I spoke, my voice was nothing more than a whisper. “I’ve never killed a human before.”

  I felt Kat place her hand on my arm. “It’s okay.”

  Okay? Ending a life was never okay. Killing Arum was one thing, something I’d grown used to over the years. Wasn’t easy doing it or dealing with it, but a human? No. My jaw clenched. Deep down, I knew those two men were horrible people and if they had captured Kat, they would hurt her in ways that disgusted and enraged me. The fact that they had done it before, in my opinion, had been enough reason to snuff them out.

  But it wasn’t okay.

  It wouldn’t be okay. Not for a very long time.

  Chapter 24

  Kat would be proud. Over the next couple of days, I didn’t bum-rush the warehouse. I could be a huge, impulsive asshole, but I wasn’t stupid. Once the anger and the adrenaline faded, I knew I had to stay away for a bit. Freaking killed me to, but with the two officers on guard now missing, more eyes than normal would be on the place.

  And the officers had definitely been reported as missing, according to the headline on the Charleston Gazette.

  Two Department of Defense Officers Missing After Last Seen Near Petersburg.

  Officer Robert McConnell and Officer James Richardson were their names—the names of two men I’d mowed down without hesitation. That was something I still hadn’t allowed myself to really focus on. Guilt accomplished nothing.

  So instead of razing the warehouse to the ground and getting myself caged in the process, I focused my attention on William Michaels, a potential link. The only way it would make sense was if Will was what Blake had called an implant. Major coincidence though, if he was.

  Stranger shit had happened.

  A quick search of the good doctor revealed that he’d once been diagnosed with leukemia, and while that sucked, all it confirmed was what we found in Bethany’s house. Maybe he was writing himself prescriptions to deal with the pain or the treatment. Couldn’t blame the guy for that. The walker and cane also made sense, along with the Ensure. I wondered if she or her mom knew, considering how her father had died. Nothing shady could be found on the internet, so I ended up tailing him. Other than going to the hospital or out with Kat’s mom, he kept a low profile and a residence in a new subdivision with large, overpriced homes.

  He’d been at Kat’s house earlier, and when he’d left, I followed him on foot back to his house. Then I patrolled until it was close to midnight. Not going to the warehouse was making me stir-crazy. Tomorrow, I was going to check it out. See what the activity was around it. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  Snow was starting to come down heavier, and since I hadn’t sensed any nearby Arum, I headed back. I got home a little after midnight, I saw that Kat’s car was gone. What the hell? It had been there when I’d left. Where would she…?

  It suddenly hit me.

  Would Kat have gone to stake out Vaughn’s house alone? Where else would she be? Dee was inside with Adam. Blake the Douche Bag was still off visiting family, hopefully never to return. There was nowhere else she could’ve gone. Fear punched a fist-sized hole in my gut.

  Instead of staying on foot, I fished the car keys out of my pocket and walked my ass over to the SUV. I climbed in, cursing up a storm. Halfway to Vaughn’s house, I saw Kat driving along as the snow started to fall in sheets. Yanking on the wheel, the SUV’s tires squealed as I spun it around, rushing up behind her.

  I followed her back to the house and the moment she parked the car, I was out of mine and opening up the driver’s door on hers. “Where in the hell were you coming back from?”

  She climbed out of the car. “Where were you going?”

  Glaring down at her, I resisted the urge to shake her. “I have a feeling it was the same place you were coming back from, but I’m telling myself that you can’t be that stupid.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she stomped past me and walked up the porch steps. “Well, since that’s where you were going, I guess that means you’re stupid, too.”

  “You seriously went there, didn’t you?” Even though I’d suspected it, I couldn’t really believe it. “Please tell me that’s not where you were. That you were just out for a midnight drive.”

  She shot me a bland look over her shoulder as we walked inside. Heat immediately melted the dusting of snow that had gathered in her dark hair. “I went to Vaughn’s,” she said.

  I stared at her for several moments. “You’re insane.”

  Tugging off her wet sweatshirt, she shot me a dark look as a rush of tiny bumps spread across her bare arms. “So are you,” she said, straightening her tank top.

  “I can take care of myself, Kitten.”

  “And I can, too.” She tugged her hair back. “I’m not helpless, Daemon.”

  All the terrible things that could’ve happened to her rolled through my mind in vibrant, horrifying clarity. I shuddered and then snapped forward, clasping her chilled cheeks in my hands. “I know you aren’t helpless, but there are things I would do that you won’t. Things I know you could never live with, but I can. What would you have done if someone saw you? What would I have done if you were captured or…”

  I couldn’t finish those words, and I saw the flash of understanding in her steely gray eyes. I could kill—I had killed. I never, ever wanted her to be in the situation where she would have to make that choice.

  Without breaking eye contact, she placed her cool hands on my cheeks. My skin hummed in response. My eyes widened as she leaned in. My lungs stopped working. The gray softened before she closed her eyes, and then she brushed her lips over mine, shocking me straight to my core.

  “Kitten,” I said, voice rough with emotion.

  Her hands slid into my hair as she kissed me. It was soft. Hesitant. So damn tender, and it felt like forever since I waited for this moment—for her to make the move. And it was forever. A first. This was all Kat, and there was nothing sweeter. She pulled back, her fingers still sifting through my hair.

  “Kitten,” I repeated. “You don’t get to do that and then stop. That’s not how it works. Not when you’re mine.” I backed up until I hit the wall. Sliding down, I pulled her onto my lap, her knees on either side of my hips. “And you’re mine.”

  She dropped her hands to my shoulders as I brought her mouth to mine. The kiss was slow at first, and I dragged it out for all it was worth, savoring the taste of her. Kat was the one to take it to the next level, moving her tongue along the seam of my mouth. She was the one who deepened it.

  I groaned low in my throat and my arms tightened around her, drawing her in so there was no space between our chests. Her hands were on the move, slipping over my shoulders, up the back of my neck. I cradled the back of her head, drawing soft gasps out of her. Lust and something far deeper slammed into me. I threw what I felt into that kiss, and she shuddered against me.

  Kat slowly broke the kiss, breathing heavily as she rose onto her knees. “Wait. Wait. Important stuff.”

  I grabbed her hips, pulling her down against me. I knew my eyes were glowing. The whole room was tinted in white. “This is important.”

  Most important damn thing ever.

  “I know.”
Her back arched as I glided my fingers under the hem of her tank top, brushing the tips of my fingers along her smooth skin. “But this is really important. I found something in Vaughn’s house.”

  My hands stilled. “You went inside Vaughn’s house?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I went into his house.”

  “Are you a career criminal?” I asked, and she shook her head. “I’m curious how you got into his house, Kitten.”

  She bit down on her lip. “I unlocked the door.”

  “With what…?”

  “The same way you would.”

  My eye was starting to twitch. “You shouldn’t be doing things like that.”

  Kat started to wiggle around, and I stopped her, because seriously, she was in my lap and that movement was so not helping anything at the moment. “I found stuff. And I also met someone.” She started to get up, but I folded my arms around her. “Are you going to let me go?”

  I smiled tightly. “Nope.”

  She sighed and folded her hands in the space between us. “They’ve been watching us, Daemon. From the moment I moved here.”

  What in the actual hell?

  “But that’s not all. Bethany showed up.”

  “What?” I rose swiftly, settling her on her feet. My head was everywhere. The bitter tang of fear for her still lingered, not completely overshadowed by her kiss, and now this? Needing space, I backed up. “Did she talk to you about Dawson?”

  “Ah, see, she’s not…well, she didn’t respond well to his name.”

  “Explain.”

  “She kind of went alien ninja on my butt.” Grabbing a rubber band out of her pocket, she twisted her hair up in a messy knot. “She threw me against the wall.”

  My brows shot up in interest. Well then…

  She rolled her eyes. “Not in that way, you perv. She’s like a souped-up freakin’ mutant. She even did the whole glowworm thing, too.”

  Lifting my fingers, I rubbed my chin. “Did she tell you anything useful?”

  “She demanded to know why I was there, and then she said I shouldn’t be there. That I needed to leave here and take my chances outside the protection of the beta quartz. I asked her why she was in his house, and all she said was that she kept escaping him. I’m guessing Vaughn? She said they were coming, but she didn’t make a lot of sense, Daemon. I think she’s cracked. And she flipped out when I mentioned Dawson. She didn’t give me much of a chance to push the questioning. She removed me from the house.”

  “Dammit.” I turned sideways, hands clenching. “Besides getting a hold of one of the DOD officers, she was my last hope to find out where Dawson could be.”

  “I did find something else.” She dug into her pocket, pulling out the scrap of paper. “I found this.”

  I took what appeared to be a money transfer slip. The amount was freaking astronomical. An address was scribbled on it, along with the letters DB.

  “Do you think DB stands for Dawson Black?” she asked.

  “It could.” I clenched the paper tight. “Can I use your laptop? I want to see where this address goes.”

  “Sure.” She quickly grabbed the laptop and clicked out of some website and then handed it over to me.

  Sitting beside her, I quickly typed the address in Google maps and the directions popped right up, along with satellite images. It was an office building in Moorefield. I grabbed a nearby notebook. Turning past English notes, I found a blank page.

  She watched me write the directions down. “Are you going?”

  “I want to, right now, but I need to scope out the place first. Tomorrow I’ll check it out, then go back later.” I shoved the piece of paper into my pocket and then faced her. Our eyes met. “Thank you, Kat.”

  “I kind of owed you something, right?” She rubbed her arms, chasing away a visible shiver. “You’ve saved my butt a lot.”

  “And what a lovely butt it is, but you risked too much by doing this.” I reached behind her, tugging the quilt off. I draped it over her shoulders, holding the edges close as I searched her face. “Why did you do this?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I just was thinking about everything, and I wanted to see what was in there.”

  “It was crazy dangerous, Kitten. You can’t do anything like that again. Promise me.”

  “Okay.”

  I caught the edge of her chin, tilting her face up to mine. “Promise me.”

  Kat sighed. “I won’t. Okay. I promise. But you’ve got to promise me the same thing. I know you can’t drop this. I understand that, but you have to be careful, and you can’t sneak off without me, either.”

  “This shouldn’t involve you.”

  “But it does,” she insisted. “And I’m not a fragile human, Daemon. We’re in this together.”

  “Together?” A slow smile crept over my lips. “Okay.”

  Her answering smile was tentative. Hopeful. “So, that means I go when you check out the address.”

  I nodded. “Tell me how you know they’ve been watching us?”

  Kat drew in a deep breath. “There were photos. Lots of photos, Daemon. From the time I moved in here and up until a few days ago.”

  “Jesus.” I scrubbed my hand down my face.

  “The night I got sick and went into the lake? They had a photo of that. They’ve been watching this entire time. They…they have to know something happened to me and you were involved.”

  I reached over to her, folding my hand over her knee. I squeezed gently. “Lets not jump to that conclusion yet, Kitten. They’ve always been up in my business. The pictures aren’t that surprising. That’s what the DOD does. They monitor and chronicle us. If they’ve known that I’ve healed you or told you about us, you…we…”

  “Wouldn’t still be here?”

  I nodded again.

  Kat looked a little better. “What do you think Bethany meant by ‘They are coming’?” she asked.

  Leaning against the couch, I tossed my arm along the back. “I don’t know.”

  “I guess it might not mean anything. I mean, she was kind of whacked out.”

  Staring straight ahead, I let that process. If Bethany wasn’t right, what did that mean for Dawson? “I can’t help but wonder what my brother is like right now. Is he like that? Whacked out? I don’t think I could…deal with that.”

  It hurt to admit that, to speak it out loud.

  Kat inched forward, halting when I looked at her again. A second passed, and then she wiggled her way over so that she was pressed against the side of me. I inhaled sharply when she rested her head against my shoulder.

  “Even if he is…whacked out,” she said. “You can deal with it. You can deal with anything. I don’t doubt that at all.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  Lifting my arm, I curled it over her shoulders and then lowered my chin to the top of her head.

  “What are we going to do, Kitten?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she replied, and I heard the smile in her voice.

  “Wanna hear about them? Although I’m much better at the show part rather than the tell.”

  “Somehow, I believe you.”

  “If you didn’t, I could always give you a teaser.” I paused, enjoying the moment of lightness. “You bookish people love teasers, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “You’ve been doing your research on my blog.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, gathering her close. “Like I said, I’ve got to keep an eye on you, Kitten.”

  Chapter 25

  We checked out the address found on the bank transfer the next day, on New Year’s Eve. The whole plaza was packed with cars. I pulled the baseball cap low and then climbed out. It had stopped snowing and the parking lot had been plowed, but a thin layer of ice and snow remained.