The Darkest Star

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “Good.” There was a pause. “I can think of a lot more interesting things to do in a tiny, dark space that would pass the time.”

  My muscles locked up. “You try something and you will regret it.”

  Now I heard him chuckle quietly. “Calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down,” I snapped, so furious I wanted nothing more than to scream. “I’m not who those men are looking for. I have no reason to stay quiet.”

  “Oh, you do.” His thumb glided over my palm.

  “Stop that.”

  “Stop what?” His low voice dripped innocence as his thumb dragged over the center of my hand again.

  “That.” With my heart thumping, I tried again to free my hands. “And come to think of it, how do you—”

  The shrill ring of a phone silenced me.

  Where was that—Oh no.

  It was my phone, ringing from my wristlet.

  “Well, that’s truly inconvenient timing.” Luc sighed, dropping my hands.

  I felt around until I was able to open the wristlet and pull my phone out. I quickly silenced it, but it was too late.

  A shout from the hallway sent a bolt of fear through me as I felt …

  Luc’s cool hand suddenly curve around the nape of my neck. What the—

  His nose suddenly touched mine and when he spoke, I could feel his words on my lips. “When I open this door, you’re going to run to your left. There’s a bathroom. Inside said bathroom is a window you can climb out of. Do it fast.”

  A fist or a boot slammed into the hidden door.

  “Are you kidding me?” I demanded, in disbelief. “We could’ve just run outside through the bathroom?”

  He slid his hand off my neck. “But then we wouldn’t have had these precious moments alone.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You are—”

  Luc kissed me.

  One moment I was a heartbeat away from cursing him out with an impressive display of f-bombs, and then his mouth was just there, on mine. His head tilted just the slightest. I drew in a startled breath and my fingers spasmed. The phone slipped out of my hand, thudding softly on the floor. Just the tip of his tongue touched mine, sending little shivers of pleasure and bitter panic through me, and then he shifted his head, slightly pulling back.

  “A Luxen didn’t kiss you, Evie.” His lips brushed mine. “But neither did a human.”

  “What?” I said breathlessly, my heart lodged somewhere in my throat.

  Luc’s hand slipped off my neck, and I fell back against the wall. He pivoted. “Get ready.”

  My thoughts were completely scattered. Oh God, I wasn’t ready for this. “But—”

  Luc slid the hidden door open. The light from outside was blinding, and it took a terse second for my eyes to adjust. The first thing I saw was one of those EMP guns pointed directly at Luc. He stepped forward, throwing his hand out.

  He caught the officer in the chest, grabbing a fistful of white material. Lifting the man up off his feet, Luc tossed the officer across the hall. The man slammed into the wall, cracking the plaster. He fell forward onto the floor, out cold.

  “Holy crap.” I stared down at the prone man. That kind of strength …

  Static crackled from a radio hooked to the man’s chest, and a voice echoed from it. Backup was coming.

  “Go,” Luc ordered, his pupils constricting and churning with inner white light, a sure sign that a Luxen was about to slip into their true form. “I’ll see you later.”

  4

  Heidi flopped onto her back, sprawling across the center of her bed. “That was wild. We so need to go again.”

  Sitting on the floor of her bedroom, I stared up at her. “No. No, we do not need to go again. Ever. Again.”

  She laughed, and I shook my head as I dragged my hands down my freshly scrubbed face. Climbing through that bathroom window in a dress and dropping down into an alley had not left me in pristine condition. The first thing I’d done when we got back to Heidi’s place was shower, rinsing off the grime from the bottom of my feet. I’d also smelled like I’d robbed a liquor store and then rolled around in all the alcohol I’d stolen.

  It had been Heidi calling me while Luc and I were hiding in our own Room of Requirement. She’d gotten outside somehow and was panicked, but she had been smart and gone straight to her car, where I found her waiting for me.

  “We were almost busted. Could you imagine what my mom would’ve done? She would’ve flipped,” I said from behind my hands. “Not only that, I was so worried you’d been trampled to death or something.”

  “Girl, I freaked out too. I had no idea where you were until Emery said you were with Luc.”

  Ugh.

  If I never heard his name again, I’d die happy. Not only was he an unbelievable jerk, he had kissed me—actually kissed me.

  A Luxen didn’t kiss you, Evie. But neither did a human.

  What was that supposed to mean? There were only Luxen and humans. Unless he considered himself in a league of his own, which wouldn’t be surprising. After just a short time with him, I knew there were very few beings in this universe who had an ego as massive as his.

  “I cannot believe you were hiding with him in a hall closet or whatever,” she went on. On the drive back to her place, I’d filled her in on most of what had happened. “I can’t believe you didn’t take advantage of that.”

  I made a face against my hands. I hadn’t told Heidi that Luc had kissed me. I probably wouldn’t even tell Zoe, because both she and Heidi would have questions, tons of questions. Ones I couldn’t answer, because when he’d kissed me, I … I didn’t even know what I felt. Panic? Yes. Pleasure? Oh God, yes, I’d felt that, too, and that made no sense. I was not attracted to any guy, no matter their species, if they were a jerk who thought they could just randomly kiss someone.

  Besides, it hadn’t even felt like a real kiss, and I had been really kissed before. Brandon and I had kissed. A lot. What had gone down in that hidden room was barely a kiss—

  Why was I even thinking about this? There were so many more important things to focus on, like, for example, the fact that we both could be sitting in jail at the moment.

  “Luc is hot, Evie.” Apparently, Heidi hadn’t gotten the memo to move the conversation along.

  “He’s a legit alien,” I muttered.

  “So? From what I hear, they have all the working parts necessary. Not that I know from personal experience, but that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Glad to hear that they have the working parts.” That was a phrase I’d never thought I’d ever say in my entire life. I didn’t want to think about Luc and his working parts. “And side note, the last time I checked, you don’t know anything about working parts.”

  She giggled. “Just because I’m still part of the purity parade doesn’t mean I haven’t done a lot of research or used the internet for nefarious purposes.”

  I smiled as I dropped my hands. “He was a jerk, Heidi. If he talked to you like he did me, you would’ve punched him in the face.”

  “Was he really that bad?” She threw up her hands, extending her middle fingers. “Like on the scale of one”—she wiggled the middle finger on her left hand—“to ten middle fingers, how bad was he really?”

  “Fifty.” I paused. “Fifty times a million middle fingers.”

  She laughed as she rolled onto her belly. “Then I probably would’ve punched him in the nuts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s a shame.” She sighed. “When someone has the physical thing working out for them, it really sucks when the inner part is as ugly as a skinless rat.”

  Skinless rat? Ew. “It was so weird. He was just so rude. He kept demanding to know why I was there, like I had the audacity to walk into that stupid club.” On a roll now, I wanted to start punching things. “Who is he? I mean, obviously, he’s an alien named Luc, but…”

  Heidi sat up, dangling her pajama-clad legs over the edge of the bed. Her hair was twisted up i
n a messy bun that had flopped to one side. “But what?”

  Pressing my lips together, I shook my head. There was something else I hadn’t told her. “He … he knew my name, Heidi.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  I nodded. “How is that possible? He said he knew who I was and he knew that I’d never been there before.” Uneasy, I folded my arms over my waist. “That’s really freaky, right?”

  “Yeah, it is.” She slipped off the bed and came to her knees in front of me. “I don’t know if I said something to Emery when I was there before. It’s possible I mentioned your name to her. I mean, I know I’ve talked about you.”

  “That … that would make sense.” Relief seeped into me. That made so much sense, but … but why would Emery be talking to Luc about me?

  “It has to be that. There really is no other way he would’ve known you. He doesn’t go to our school. None of them do.”

  Exhaling roughly, I nodded again. I didn’t want to think about Luc anymore. “Promise me you won’t go back there.”

  Her gaze drifted over my shoulder. “Well…”

  “Heidi!” Leaning forward, I smacked her arm. “The place gets raided for unregistered aliens. Those ART officers had the kind of guns that also kill humans. That place is not safe.”

  Heidi let out a heavy, loud breath. “That’s never happened before.”

  “Luc said it happens, like, once a week,” I told her. “And even if he was just being dumb, once is still enough. So many bad things could’ve happened tonight.”

  Biting down on her lip, she sat back on her butt. “I know. You’re right.” She peeked up at me through her lashes. “But guess what?”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not when it came to her going back to that club.

  A small smile appeared. “I got Emery’s phone number.”

  “Really?” Seeing the excitement on her pretty face was a nice distraction from what had happened. “Well, if you have her number, there really is no reason for you ever to step foot in that club again.”

  “Right.” Her smile spread. “She was so excited to meet you tonight. I was super-bummed that you didn’t get the chance.”

  “Me too, but if you got her number, then maybe that will lead to hanging out, and I can third wheel it?”

  “There’s no better third wheel than you.”

  My nose wrinkled. “Thanks? I guess.”

  Heidi snuck downstairs after that and stole the box of cupcakes. We gorged ourselves on the chocolate-goodness-topped-with-peanut-butter-frosting heaven while she gave me all the details on Emery. Heidi fell asleep pretty quickly, but what felt like hours passed before I could relax enough to even stop staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars dangling from the ceiling above Heidi’s bed.

  Tonight was wild and it was scary and it could’ve ended so badly. That knowledge was hard to shake, to let go. Heidi could’ve been hurt. I could’ve been hurt. The dangers we all faced after the invasion hadn’t really gone away. They’d just changed.

  As soon as my thoughts started to drift, they found their way to Luc. Heidi had to be right. She must’ve mentioned me before and somehow I came up in random conversation with Emery, and Luc had capitalized on that.

  But I still couldn’t figure out why he’d lie about being a Luxen.

  It didn’t matter, though, because I was never going back to Foretoken and no matter what he’d said to me, I was never going to see him again.

  Thank the Lord and baby Jesus—

  Oh my God.

  Sitting straight up in bed, my eyes went wide as I cursed. My phone. Where was my phone? I threw the covers off and scampered from the bed. I found my clutch near my book bag. I grabbed it, peeled it open, and felt around, confirming what I already knew.

  I’d left my phone in that damn club.

  * * *

  I clenched the steering wheel as I stared at the red doors of Foretoken. Part of me had expected to find it roped off with police tape since it had been raided just last night.

  But it wasn’t.

  “You don’t have to go in with me,” I said. It was about thirty minutes after I’d left Heidi’s house, and cars streamed up and down the street outside of the club. In the daylight, it didn’t look so intimidating. Kind of. “You can just stay here and if I don’t come out in, like, ten minutes—”

  “Call the police?” James Davis laughed as I looked at him. “I’m not going to call the police and tell them my underage friend just walked into a club looking for her missing phone and hasn’t come back out yet. I’m going in with you.”

  Relief left me feeling dizzy. I really hadn’t wanted to go back in there by myself, and honestly, I should’ve known that James wouldn’t let me go in there alone.

  As corny as it sounded, James was the epitome of the boy next door, and he got away with so much because of it. Brown hair, warm brown eyes, and as big and cuddly as a teddy bear, all he had to do was flash those dimples, and parents around the world just opened the door for him. Even my mom. She didn’t have any problem with James hanging out in my bedroom with the door closed.

  But because he was big and often unintentionally intimidating, I recruited him this morning by showing up at his house and promising him breakfast afterward. James was always swayed by food.

  My knuckles were starting to ache. “I need to get my phone back. Mom will kill me if I lost it. Do you know how much that thing costs?”

  “Your mom will kill you for being here.”

  “True, but she’s never going to find out, especially if I get my phone back,” I reasoned. “If you lost your phone here, what would you do?”

  “I wouldn’t be here to lose my phone, but whatever.” He turned to the window. The Baltimore Orioles baseball cap he almost always wore shielded the upper half of his face. “I know why you asked me to do this and not Zoe.”

  “Because you gave me a fake ID that enabled me to be a complete idiot and come here in the first place?”

  He snorted. “Uh, no.”

  “Because you think Zoe would’ve smacked me upside the head if I asked her?” When he nodded, I smiled. “Then you’re right. I knew you’d go with me and you wouldn’t smack me.”

  At least I had a plan. Not the greatest, but someone had to be there during the day. Well, unless everyone got arrested, but hopefully someone was there, and I was prepared to beg and plead to be allowed to check out the room I’d dropped my phone in.

  “You think anyone is going to answer?” he asked.

  I exhaled loudly, let go of the steering wheel, and turned off the car. I hadn’t told him about the raid last night, which probably made me a bad person. “I don’t even know if anyone is in there.” Truth was, after the raid, Luc and everyone could’ve cleared out. “You sure you want to come in?”

  He slowly turned his head toward me. “I know what kind of place this is, so if I stay behind in this car, I’m pretty sure I’m violating some kind of friend code.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, and reached over, tweaking the bill of his cap.

  He opened the passenger door. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I lifted my brows. There was, like, a metric crap ton of things that could happen, but I didn’t point that out. I grabbed my purse off the backseat and then climbed out of the car to join James. Once there was a break in traffic, we hurried across the street, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a speeding taxi that seemed to come out of nowhere.

  I hopped up on the curb and stepped around a man dropping coins into a parking meter. Without warning, my heart started thumping heavily against my ribs as I walked under the awning.

  A tremor coursed down my arm as I stopped a good foot in front of the doors, the red paint reminding me of fresh blood. Being here felt … It felt final somehow, like once I walked through these doors again, there was no going back. I didn’t even fully understand that sensation or where it truly came from. It was overdramatic, because all I was doing was coming bac
k to get my stupid phone, but the feeling of dread was filling my pores and seeping through my skin.

  Instinct roared to the surface, forcing me to take a step back, and my shoulder bumped into James’s chest. Something primal inside me demanded I turn around and get the hell out of there.

  Tiny hairs all over my body rose. Air hitched in my throat and pressed down on my chest. The tips of my fingers started to tingle.

  Fear.

  I was feeling fear.

  The dark and cold kind that rose from a deep well. I could taste it in the back of my mouth. Bitter. The last time I’d felt this kind of bone-chilling fear that bordered on panic was … It had to have been during the invasion. Those moments were vague and a blur, but it would’ve been that kind of fear.

  Mr. Mercier, high school counselor extraordinaire, would say what I was feeling right now was just a symptom of living through the invasion. Post-traumatic stress. That was what I kept telling myself as a shiver curled its way down my spine.

  The feeling didn’t go away.

  Get away, whispered a voice that sounded like mine. It came from the recesses of my mind, an inherent, elemental part of me that I wasn’t even sure I recognized.

  I had no idea why I felt this way or why, with every second, the sensation of going too far increased. My heart rate skyrocketed into cardiac arrest territory. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t get my tongue to work.

  James reached around me for the handle, but the door swung open before he could even touch the tarnished metal, and I knew right then.

  It was too late.

  5

  The bouncer named Clyde blocked the entryway, one muscular arm bracing the door open, the other lifted to the top of the door, showing off a bicep that was about the size of a tree trunk. A gray shirt stretched across his broad chest and shoulders. Was that unicorn on his shirt spewing … rainbows out of its mouth?

  Yep.

  That was definitely a unicorn shooting rainbows out of its mouth.

  The razor-edge panic and biting fear receded as quickly as it had swept over me. Gone so fast, it was like it had been a figment of my imagination.