Oblivion

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Kat laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? But seriously, if he has a tolerance to it, then we should be able to? It’s something. We’d just need to figure out how to get some.” When I didn’t respond, she asked, “What?”

  I squinted as the sun broke free of the clouds. “I think I have the onyx part covered.”

  “What do you mean?” She stopped even though the warning bell rang.

  “After Will got you and a couple of days after Dawson came back, I returned to the warehouse and stripped most of the onyx from the outside.”

  Her jaw hit the ground. “What?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know why I did it. Kind of like my big FU to the establishment.” I laughed, kind of embarrassed. “Imagine their faces when they went back and saw it all gone.”

  Kat was speechless.

  I tweaked her nose.

  She smacked my hand away. “You’re insane. You’ve could’ve gotten caught!”

  “But I didn’t.”

  She smacked me on the arm, this time harder. “You’re crazy.”

  “But you love my craziness.” I leaned down, kissing the corner of her lip. “Come on, we’re late. The last thing we need is detention.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, like that would be the biggest of our problems.”

  I wasn’t surprised to learn that Blake had gotten to Dawson sometime during the day and told him about the whole exposing ourselves to onyx idea, and of course, Dawson was so down for that shit.

  Couldn’t really blame him for latching onto the idea, though, because it was giving him something to work toward. It was giving him back hope. I got that. Still didn’t make me happy that Blake had gone to him. I didn’t want that asshole anywhere near my brother. Or anyone in general.

  When I told Kat about it on the way home after school, she looked as thrilled as I was about it all. Blake had managed to make sure we did talk about the onyx that night.

  Kat sighed. “There go my reviewing and reading plans.”

  “Shouldn’t it be reading and then reviewing?” I corrected with a grin.

  “Whatever,” she muttered.

  I pulled out onto the road as my grin faded. “Why can’t you still do that?”

  “If Blake wants to talk tonight, then that’s going to soak up all my time.”

  Hearing the pout in her voice, I glanced over at her. “You don’t need to be there, Kitten. We can talk to him without you.”

  “Yeah, right.” She laughed. “There’s a good chance someone will kill Blake without me there.”

  “And would you really be torn up about that?”

  She scrunched up her face. “Well…”

  I laughed.

  “And the fact that upon his untimely death, there’s a letter delivered to Nancy Husher. So we kind of need him alive.”

  “True.” Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I reached over and caught a strand of her hair. “But we can keep it short. You’ll have a normal Monday evening full of normal suck and not extraterrestrial suckage.”

  Looking away, she bit down on her lower lip as she squeezed her fingers together. “That’s really selfish of me.”

  “What?” I tugged on her hair gently, not liking the sound of that at all. “It’s not selfish, Kitten. Your whole life can’t revolve around this crap. It won’t.”

  Straightening her fingers, she smiled. “You sound so determined.”

  “And you know what happens when I get determined.”

  “You get your way.” She laughed when I raised my brows. “But what about you? Your life can’t revolve around this crap.”

  I pulled my hand away, dropping it to my thigh. “I was born into this. I’m used to it, and besides, it’s all about time management. Say, like time management last night. We did our mission thing—”

  “And failed.”

  “There’s that, but the rest of last night?” Seeing her in my mind, as she’d been last night, under me, was really distracting when I was driving. “We had the bad—the not-normal. And then we had the good—the normal. Granted, the good was interrupted by the bad, but there was time management there.”

  She stretched her legs out. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It is that easy, Kat. You just need to know when to draw the line, when you’ve had enough.” Slowing down, I turned onto the road leading to our houses.

  “And if you’ve had enough for today, you have. Nothing to feel guilty about or to worry about.”

  There was no response as I pulled into the driveway. Turning off the engine, I looked over at her. “And no one will kill Bill.”

  She laughed softly as she unbuckled her seat belt. “Blake. His name is Blake.”

  Amused, I grinned at her. “He’s whatever I decide to call him.”

  “You’re terrible.” She stretched over and kissed me, but when she pulled away, I wasn’t done. I reached for her, but she evaded me and slipped out of the SUV. “And by the way, I haven’t had enough today. I just needed a kick in the pants. But I do need to be home by seven.”

  I was out of the car and beside her before she even shut the door. “You haven’t had enough?”

  Her cheeks flushed as she stared up at me. “No, not nearly enough.”

  “Good.” Hands on her hips, I tugged her to me. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Kat rose onto the tips of her toes and slid her hands up my chest. I met her halfway. Our lips touched. Our hearts pounded in tandem.

  The front door of my house swung open and Dawson yelled, “Hey! I think Dee caught the microwave on fire. Again. And I tried popping some popcorn with my hands and it kind of went wrong. Like really, really wrong.”

  I pressed my forehead against hers and growled. “Dammit.”

  Kat giggled. “Time management, right?”

  “Time management,” I muttered.

  Chapter 16

  Mostly everyone was down for the whole onyx thing, and even though none of them spoke up as to why they were so willing to allow some of us to repeatedly expose ourselves to a ridiculous amount of pain, I knew better. They knew it was the only way to keep Dawson from running off and getting himself caught.

  Or worse.

  As I looked around the living room, seeing my friends and Kat, I realized then that even though Matthew and the Thompson siblings shared no blood with me, they really were the true definition of family. My throat constricted. Only this kind of family would continue to be a part of this craziness, risking their freedom and lives.

  Look at me; I was actually getting a bit emotional.

  “This is so insane,” Dee said. “This is tantamount to self-mutilation.”

  Dawson’s head dropped back, and he sighed. “That’s a little extreme.”

  “I remember what you looked like when they brought you back down the mountain.” She twisted her hair around her hand, an old nervous habit. “And Katy lost her voice for a while from screaming. Who signs up for that?”

  “Crazy people.” I sighed. “Dee, I don’t want you doing this.”

  She didn’t look surprised at all. “No offense, Dawson, I love you and want you to see Beth and to hold her, because I wish…” Her voice cracked, but her spine straightened. “But I don’t want to do this.”

  Dawson placed a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to do this.”

  “I want to help.” Her voice was wobbly. “But I can’t…”

  “It’s fine.” Dawson smiled as he folded his hand along the back of her neck. “Not all of us need to do this.”

  “Then who’s in?” Blake scanned the room. “If we are going to do this, we need to start like yesterday, because I don’t know how long it’ll take to build a tolerance.”

  Dawson stood. “It can’t take that long.”

  Blake let out a laugh. “I’ve been with Daedalus for years, so there’s no telling at what point I built a tolerance…or if I really have one.”

  “We’ve got to test that out then.” Kat grinned.

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nbsp; He frowned. “Wow. Kind of excited about that?”

  She nodded, and I sort of wanted to make out with her right there.

  Dee twisted around, eyeing Blake. “Can I test it out, too?”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone will get a round.” I smiled at Blake. “Anyway, back to the basics. Who’s in?”

  Matthew raised his hand. “I want to be in on this. No offense, Andrew, but I prefer to take your place this time.”

  Andrew shook his head. “No problem. I can wait with Ash.”

  Ash, who was surprisingly quiet, nodded.

  “Oh.” Kat folded her arms. “Yeah, I’m in. Don’t start with me. I’m in. Nothing you can say will change that.”

  If she thought I wasn’t going to try to convince her otherwise, she was also out of her mind. Plans were made to start after school tomorrow if it didn’t snow, and then to make sure that Kat got to do what she wanted this evening, I ushered her outside and next door.

  And of course, I wanted to talk to her.

  She walked into the kitchen, placing her book bag on the counter. “Milk?”

  “Yes, please, and thank you.”

  Kat pursed her lips, but grabbed a glass of milk for me. “Huh.”

  I downed the entire glass. “Can we talk about this?”

  She hopped up on the counter and opened her bag, pulling out a textbook. “Nope.”

  My brows rose. “Kat.”

  “Hmm?” She flipped open to a chapter.

  Stalking over to her, I placed my hands on either side of her crossed legs. “I can’t watch you get hurt over and over again.”

  Ignoring me, she reached into her bag and dug out a highlighter. Okay. I saw how this was going to go, but I wasn’t giving up easily. “Seeing what happened last night and when Will had you handcuffed in that stuff? And I’m supposed to just stand there?” I watched her highlight a sentence. “Are you listening to me?”

  Her hand stilled. “I’m listening.”

  “Then look at me.”

  Thick lashes lifted, revealing steely gray eyes. “I’m looking at you.”

  I scowled.

  Sighing, she popped the cap back on the highlighter. “Okay. I don’t want to see you in pain.”

  What the hell? “Kat—”

  “No. Don’t interrupt. I don’t want to see you in pain, and just thinking about you going through what that feels like makes me want to hurl.”

  “I can handle it.”

  Our eyes locked. “I know you can, but that doesn’t change how horrible it’s going to be to see you go through that,” she said patiently. “But I’m not asking you not to do it.”

  Hell.

  I saw what she did there.

  Pushing off the counter, I pivoted as I dragged my hand through my hair. Kat placed her book aside and hopped off the counter. “I don’t want to argue with you, Daemon, but you can’t say it’s okay for me to watch you go through this and not you.” She came to where I stood and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I know this is coming from a good place, but just because it’s getting ugly, I can’t back out. And you know you’re not going to. It’s only fair.”

  Hell.

  “I hate your logic.” I placed my hands on hers, though. The idea of seeing her repeatedly in pain made me sick, just like it made her ill, but I…I had to let her make her own decisions. Shit. I hated it. But I couldn’t control her. “And I’m really going to hate this.”

  Kat squeezed me.

  “The only good thing is that I’m going to hold Buff down and make him kiss onyx over and over again,” I said after a moment.

  She choked out a laugh. “You’re sadistic.”

  “And you need to study, right?” I asked. “It’s school time management—not Daemon time management, which blows, because we’re alone and it requires more effort for them to interrupt us over here.”

  She pulled free. “Yeah, I need to study.”

  I stuck out my lower lip. “All right, I’m leaving.”

  Kat looped her arm around mine and led me to the front door. “I’ll text when I’m done, and you can come over and tuck me in.”

  I was going to do much more than tuck her in, because her momma was working. “’Kay.” I kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Kat wiggled her fingers bye as I headed back out into the chilly late-afternoon air. As I stepped off the porch, I saw that Matthew’s and Andrew’s cars were gone. Blake had left when I’d escorted Kat to her house. I walked past my car, stopping when I saw an odd glint along the driver’s door. What in the hell? Was that a scratch?

  I stalked over to the side and ran my fingers over the thin white line that stretched from the handle to the center of the door. When I realized it was just dust from the salt on the road, I smiled. I was going to need to wash my baby soon.

  Wheeling around, I started back to my house. I was halfway there when I felt my heart rate unexpectedly kick up, skyrocketing into what I imagined a heart attack felt like. Tensing, I pivoted on my heel and my gaze flickered up.

  The window of Kat’s bedroom lit up with a flash of intense white light tinged in red. There was another flash and another. Shit. Energy burst through me as I raced over to her house. Throwing open the front door, I flew upstairs, reaching her bedroom in a second.

  I came to a complete stop, my mouth dropping open as I stared at the catastrophe that was her bedroom. Papers were everywhere. Books lined the floor, some torn apart. Others burned. The mattress was on its side and her desk chair flipped over. Smoke wafted from her—oh no, her new laptop.

  Kat stood in the center of the mess, among a pile of clothes, her hair windblown. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth. Red splotches, like strawberries, marked her cheeks.

  “I can’t leave you alone for two seconds, Kitten.”

  She launched herself forward, and I caught her around the waist. Her entire body trembled. “I came up here to study, you know, because I figured I’d get more work done, and I had a glass of orange juice with me.” Her words came out in a jumbled rush. “And Carissa—Carissa was here.”

  “How did she get here? I didn’t see her.”

  Kat’s eyes were wide with shock as she shook her head. “She’d been here while I was downstairs. She was waiting for me, and I thought she was sick at first, you know, like she didn’t know where she was, because she hasn’t been in school. But she wasn’t sick. Oh my God, she was—”

  “Okay. Slow down for me, Kitten.” My gaze flickered over her, landing on the burned spot in the floor. My stomach sank. If Carissa had been here, she wasn’t here anymore. “What happened to Carissa?”

  Kat shuddered. “She attacked me. Like legit attacked me.”

  Very few things surprised me nowadays, but this did. Carissa was a quiet, shy girl, the exact opposite of their other friend Lesa. A book was the only thing I could picture Carissa attacking. Maybe a bug. But a small bug.

  “She didn’t even seem to know who I was. She was like the Terminator, Daemon—the Terminator. And she just kept coming at me.