The Darkest Star

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  The wanting, though? It was consuming and pounding, undeniable and new. My fingers stretched out over his chest. I could feel the heat from his body through the thin shirt. I’d never experienced anything like this before.

  And it was a little terrifying.

  I pushed against the chest. “Luc, I…” I didn’t want to say. I didn’t know what I was feeling.

  He shifted onto his side. “It’s okay. It’s—Wait a second.” Luc sat up swiftly, his gaze flickering over me like he was looking for something. Then his eyes widened.

  “What?” I sat up, relieved that the movement didn’t make me dizzy. I looked down at my arm again, making sure it hadn’t healed all wonky, in case that was why he was looking at me strangely.

  Touching it lightly, I winced at the dull spike of pain. My arm had been broken and … and now it wasn’t. That was the proof in the pudding right there. Mind. Blown. Overwhelmed, I lowered my arm to my lap. “I feel like I need to thank you again.”

  “Don’t.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’m the last person you should be thanking.”

  “Why?”

  He turned his head to me, his expression unfathomable. “Something is wrong here.”

  My mind raced back to what we’d almost done. We had been heartbeats away from kissing. Was that what he was talking about? There was a knock on the door.

  Luc turned. “Come in.”

  The door opened to reveal Emery and then Heidi, peeking around Emery’s shoulder. “We just wanted to check on her,” Heidi said.

  Emery had the same look on her face as Luc did. Like she was looking for something around me that wasn’t there.

  I was starting to get a little worried.

  “You don’t see it either, do you?” Luc asked her.

  Emery shook her head as Heidi stepped farther into the room. “See what?” Heidi asked.

  “I don’t know.” I looked at Luc. “What are you guys looking for? And why are you staring at me like I have a second head?”

  “I know why,” Emery interjected.

  Heidi looked at her. “Care to fill me in, babe?” she asked.

  Emery glanced at Luc.

  “Why are you looking at him instead of telling me?”

  Luc rose from the bed. “I have to go.”

  “What?” My voice cracked. “Can’t whatever you need to do wait?”

  “No.” Luc laughed, and it was nothing like the laugh I’d heard before. It was cold and sent chills over my skin. “This cannot wait.”

  22

  “Where do you think Luc went?” I asked. “Did he go looking for the guy?”

  Heidi and I were sitting on Luc’s couch. Ten minutes had passed since Luc had bolted out of the room like the building was on fire. Emery had followed him, but she said she was coming back.

  “I don’t think so,” Heidi answered. “When you were out of it in the car, it sounded like Connor was trying to track that guy down.”

  Connor.

  I’d forgotten that he’d been there. That was another person I needed to thank. I glanced down at my arm, still unable to get over the fact there were only bruises. Healing broken bones in moments? Unbelievable, but it’d happened. Awe-inspiring and overwhelming. It was amazing.

  Part of me could understand why that would capture the attention of doctors and researchers. What would normally take a surgery and a cast to fix, Luc had done in minutes.

  “As soon as Emery gets back, we’ll get you to your car.” Heidi pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them.

  I lowered my arm to my lap.

  “Is it hurting?”

  I shook my head. “Just a little, but nothing like before. It feels like I just banged it into a wall instead of it being broken.”

  Emery returned then, walking into the room. She sat beside Heidi. “Sorry about that. I just wanted to let Grayson know what was going on.”

  “It’s all right.” Heidi smiled at her.

  She was seriously a Luxen. How had a pair of contacts tricked me? I gave my head another shake. “So, I have questions.”

  Emery smiled weakly. “I figured as much.”

  My mind was going blank as I tried to process everything that had happened. “Why were you and Luc looking at me strangely?”

  “This is where things get complicated.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Kent. He was wearing a shirt I imagined Luc would wear. On it was a picture of a T. rex trying to hug another T. rex, but with their short arms, that wasn’t happening.

  “Really?” I murmured, wondering if Luc would be thrilled that everyone was in his apartment. “Things are just now getting complicated?”

  Kent strolled into the room, carrying a can of Coke. “So, you know about the Daedalus and everything, right?”

  I nodded and then glanced at Heidi. Apparently that wasn’t news to her, either.

  “Your government knows damn well the Luxen can heal humans, and they also know not every Luxen is equally skilled at doing it. Some are better at it than others, and those really interest them. Those were the ones your government stole.” He sat on the arm of the couch, closest to me. He handed me the Coke. I took it. “I didn’t misspeak about the whole ‘your’ government thing. I claim no ownership of that hot mess express, but that’s not the biggest risk when it comes to healing humans.”

  I frowned, deciding not to follow him down that rabbit hole for the moment. “So what’s the bigger risk? Mutating them?”

  “Someone has been filling you in on things.” Kent grinned. “But obviously not everything.”

  Catching my eye, Heidi unfolded her legs. “I don’t know all the details, but what they’re about to tell you? I believe it.”

  At this point, I believed in the chupacabra.

  “So, you know that the Luxen have been here for decades and decades, if not longer. They didn’t come to take over or hurt people,” Emery explained as I clutched the can of soda. “They came because their planet was destroyed in a war with … with another race of aliens, and they were looking for a new place to live. My ancestors basically came here to recolonize.”

  Alien planets, plural? Wars between alien species? Recolonization? This had just veered straight into science-fiction territory, but I was here for this. I popped open my can and then took a long, healthy gulp, welcoming the carbonated burn.

  I needed to focus on one thing at a time here. “Planets?”

  “We come from a planet that’s, like, a trillion light-years from here.” Emery leaned forward. “We weren’t the only planet with intelligent life-forms on it.”

  That had been the big question after the invasion. Were the Luxen the only aliens out there? We’d been assured that was the case. “You’re not the only aliens?”

  She shook her head. “We come from Lux. That was our planet, but it was destroyed by a species known as the Arum.”

  I opened my mouth, but what the hell was I going to say? So I snapped it shut again.

  “My people had been locked in a battle with them for many, many decades. Centuries, really.” Her knees bent, straining the ripped jeans. “We were taught that we were the innocent ones, but there’s rarely a war where there’s a truly innocent side, and long story short, we basically destroyed each other’s planets.”

  “The Luxen came here first.” Kent tapped his bare foot off mine. “The Arum followed.”

  “Wait.” I lifted my free hand. “Back up a second. Who or what are the Arum?”

  “They are like us in some ways. They don’t come in threes, but in fours. They can assimilate human DNA, so they blend in just like we do, but where we kind of glow when we’re in our true form, they can be solid … or turn to shadows.”

  “Shadows?” I repeated dumbly.

  “Shadows,” Kent reinforced.

  I stared at his profile. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I have a better sense of humor than that,” he returned. “They look like shadows to us, because that’s the only way o
ur brains can process what we’re seeing: relating their form to something familiar. They aren’t really shadows.”

  “Oh,” I murmured.

  “They can feed off Luxen, steal their abilities.”

  “How do the Arum feed? Are they like vampires?”

  Kent laughed. “Not really. They also don’t bite. They … well, they can do it through touch or inhaling.”

  “Inhaling?”

  “Exactly that. So, okay. You know that humans have electricity inside them—electrical signals running throughout the body? The Arum can feed on that even though it does nothing for them. When they do, it disrupts the signals the human’s body is sending. Massive heart failure, basically.”

  “Wow,” I whispered. “That’s … that’s scary.”

  “Can be,” he answered. “Arum are very powerful, but they do have some weaknesses. For example, beta quartz hides Luxen from them by dispersing the energy they naturally put off, and it disrupts Arum’s visual fields. Obsidian is deadly to Arum.”

  “Aren’t those gemstones or something?”

  Kent nodded. “Obsidian is volcanic glass. It’s deadly to an Arum, fracturing their entire cellular makeup.”

  Well, none of that sounded even remotely real, but I vaguely remembered hearing something about beta quartz before, right after the invasion, when people were learning about the Luxen. “All righty then.” I took another sip. “And the Arum are … still here?”

  Heidi nodded. “We’ve probably even seen them, Evie, and just not realized they were different from us or the Luxen.”

  I wasn’t sure if I believed any of this, but I was experiencing next-level curiosity. “And they’re dangerous? Do they wear Disablers?”

  “The Arum roll low-key and the Disablers wouldn’t work on them. Right now there’s a weird peace between the Luxen and the Arum, but the Arum are … Well, the need to feed off Luxen is really hard to ignore.” Kent ran his hand over his Mohawk. “Without feeding, they aren’t as powerful as the Luxen. Hell, they’re basically the same as us. Or a Luxen with a Disabler. Plus not every Arum is on the peace-loving train. There’s a lot of baggage between the Luxen and the Arum. Not everyone can let it go.”

  “Okay.” I scooted forward, holding on to the empty can of soda. “So, the Luxen and Arum are here and they’ve been here … doing stuff. Got it.” I paused, twisting toward Heidi. “What does that have to do with the risk of healing a human?”

  “Well…” she said, drawing the word out. She twisted her red hair into a thick rope. “I think I’ll leave that to them to explain.”

  Emery took a deep breath. “The Arum can sense Luxen. The only thing that stops them from doing so is being surrounded by beta quartz. I’m talking large deposits, usually natural ones found in mountains all over the world. We used to live in communities that were near natural deposits of quartz, but that changed after … well, after the invasion. Most of our old communities were destroyed.”

  I wish I had more Coke. “Okay.”

  The look on Emery’s face said she knew I was a couple of steps away from sensory overload. “When we heal a human, we leave a trace behind on them. To an Arum, it’s almost like the human is lit up. They’re surrounded in a glow. The Arum find humans with a trace as tasty as Luxen.”

  “What?” My back straightened. “So, I’m glowing and an Arum shadow creature is going to eat me?”

  Kent coughed out a laugh. “Boy, I just took that the wrong way.”

  Emery rolled her eyes. “Normally, they would find you—or they could. They’d see your trace, and if they were hungry for some Luxen goodness, they’d either use you to get to the Luxen or use you as a snack. It wouldn’t just put the Luxen in danger, but also his or her friends and family. See, an odd side effect of the Disablers is that it blinds the Arum to the Luxen, so … they’ve been really hungry. They can’t search out most Luxen now.”

  “Normally?” I’d caught that word.

  “Normally,” she said, her gaze roaming over me. “If a Luxen heals a human, then we usually stay very close to them, just to be sure they aren’t in a danger, but you … you don’t have a trace, Evie.”

  Relief made me dizzy. “Oh God, I thought you were going to say I was as bright as the sun or something. This is good news, right? I’m safe. My mom is safe. Well, safe from the Arum thing. I’m not going to be some weird shadow alien’s snack. All I have to worry about is bone-breaking Origins.”

  “Well…” Kent took my empty can. “I’m just a lowly human, but apparently if she doesn’t see your trace, then that might not be a good thing.”

  I focused on Emery. “Why?”

  Emery lifted her hands. “Because every human who’s ever been healed always has a trace on them.”

  “Well, I’m human, so—Wait, but Luc—”

  “Luc is an Origin,” Kent confirmed. “But it works the same way. Origins leave a trace behind.”

  My gaze swung to him. “Then what does that mean?”

  Kent lifted a shoulder as he stood. “I have no idea. Anyway, I have to go.” He patted my head, easily moving out of reach when I swatted at his hand. “People to see. Stuff.”

  I glared at him, super-annoyed. “Well, that was a lot of help when it comes to clearing things up for me.”

  He winked at me. “Obviously, you understand how important it is to keep this quiet. If not…”

  “Yeah, you’ll go after everyone I know and love?” I shot back.

  Kent winked. “That’s my girl.” He walked out of the room, throwing up a peace sign.

  I turned to Emery. “God, why does everyone have to be so annoying?”

  Emery gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know all of this sounds made-up.”

  It did.

  “But it’s the truth,” she continued. “Look, I’m going to go check on a few things. I’m sorry about what happened to you today. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.” She started to get up.

  Emery didn’t get very far, though.

  Catching her hand, Heidi pulled her back down for a kiss. Not exactly a quick one either. The tips of my ears were burning by the time they broke up, and Emery sashayed out of the room.

  “You really, really like her, don’t you?” I asked.

  Heidi laughed softly. “I do. You know, I knew what she was the first night I met her. It never mattered to me. At all.”

  There was a lot I wanted to talk about, but the really important one won out. “Why didn’t you tell me what Emery was?”

  Heidi dragged her palms over her knees as her gaze fell to the carpet. “I didn’t think you’d … approve.”

  “Really?”

  She glanced at me. “Really. You haven’t…”

  I haven’t what? I’d never been anti-Luxen. Then again, I’d never been really vocal either way in the past. I’d mostly been … quiet. Staying quiet was just as bad as being against them, and I had to get real with myself and take ownership for why she would’ve thought that. Because deep down, I had said things in passing that would’ve made her think that.

  But when I looked at Luc or Emery, it was hard to see them other than how they presented themselves. It was hard to remember why I was scared of them, even when I’d seen Luc go all badass on the Luxen.

  But here I was, obviously not afraid of Luc or Emery.

  “I don’t care that she’s a Luxen.” And that was the truth. I held her gaze, grinding my teeth as the pain in my arm heightened. “It’s risky, though.”

  “I know,” Heidi replied, voice low. “But it’s worth the risk. She’s worth it.”

  “You’re worth it. I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I really like Emery, and I don’t think it’s wrong. I really don’t.” Saying those words made me realize it was the truth. “I just worry if someone were to find out—”

  “Like I said, it’s a risk we’re both willing to take. We’re careful. Usually when we’re out, she’s wearing contacts. Very few people know what Emery is.”

  “Okay.”
I was still worried though.

  Heidi smiled a little. “What about you and Luc?”

  I frowned. “What about him?”

  She lifted a brow. “You were out for a few moments, but he was upset about how hurt you were, and from what I gather from Emery, Luc is never not chill. He pretty much operates on calm and calmer.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. Mainly because I had no idea what I thought when it came to Luc. I was all over the place.

  Heidi leaned into me, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “Things are really kind of bizarre now, aren’t they?”

  I laughed dryly. “My mind is blown.” I made a poofing sound. “And then I’m not glowing?”

  “It’s probably a good thing.”

  “Yeah.” I dragged my hands over my knees. Staring at her profile, I began to wonder why exactly she sounded more nervous about that than she did about me having a trace. I was human. So, why wasn’t I glowing?

  * * *

  About an hour later Emery and a very reluctant Grayson drove me back to my car. They followed me home. Emery stayed, and a few minutes later Heidi showed up. By then there was just an occasional twinge of pain in my arm.

  Mom wasn’t home, and I figured that for once her ever-increasing late nights were a blessing. The girls stayed until the sun set. They didn’t say it, but I knew they were there because of what had happened.

  Once they left, I went to my bedroom and sat staring at my laptop screen. I’d actually googled Arum. What I learned was that arum was actually an arrow-shaped plant that sometimes had berries.

  Definitely nothing about aliens.

  And that wasn’t at all helpful.

  I went several pages deep on the search, and stuff really just got weird at that point. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find. An in-depth explanation of the different types of aliens? If there really were aliens called Arum and the government didn’t want us to know about them, then there wouldn’t be anything for me to find, so I had no idea what I was doing.

  I closed my laptop, pushed it to the edge of the bed, and then I just sat there, staring at the corkboard of photos above my desk. They were pictures of my friends and me. Halloween. Christmas. Random shots. Some from this past summer, but summer felt like a lifetime ago.