“God, I love how you’re all up in my personal business but don’t want to be involved in it.”
“I like talking about your personal business. It’s usually entertaining and always good for a laugh.”
“Well, I don’t,” I snapped.
Daemon sighed as he twisted in his seat and tried to get comfortable. “This car sucks.”
“It was your idea. I, on the other hand, think the car is a perfect size. But that might be because I’m not the size of a mountain.”
He snickered. “You’re the size of a little, itty bitty doll.”
“If you say a vacant doll, I will hurt you.” I wound the necklace chain around my fingers. “Got that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stared out the windshield, caught between wanting to just be angry with him—because that was easy—and wanting to explain myself. So much bubbled up in me that nothing would come out.
He sighed. “You’re worn down. Dee’s worried. She won’t stop bugging me to check on you and see what’s wrong, since you won’t hang out with her anymore.”
“Oh, so we’re back to you doing things to make your sister happy? Are you getting bonus points for asking?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“No.” He reached out, catching my chin in a gentle grasp, forcing me to look at him. And when I did, I couldn’t breathe. His eyes churned. “I’m worried. I’m worried for a thousand different reasons and I hate this—I hate feeling like I can’t do anything about it. That history is on repeat and even though I can see it as clear as day, I can’t stop it.”
His words opened up a hole in my chest and suddenly I thought of Dad. When I was little and would get upset, usually over something stupid like a toy I wanted, I could never really put my frustration into words. Instead, I’d throw a fit or pout. And Dad…he always said the same thing.
Use your words, Kitty-cat. Use your words.
Words were the most powerful tool. Simple and so often underestimated. They could heal. They could destroy. And I needed to use my words now. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, welcoming the jolt that touching him gave me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Daemon looked confused. “About what?”
“About everything—about not hanging out with Dee and being a terrible friend to Lesa and Carissa.” I took a deep breath and gently pulled his hand away. I looked out the windshield, blinking back tears. “And I’m sorry about not being able to stop training. I get why you don’t want me to. I really do. I understand that you don’t want me in danger and that you don’t trust Blake.”
Daemon sat back against the seat and I forced myself to continue. “Most of all, I do know you fear that I’m going to end up like Bethany and Dawson—whatever really did happen to them—and you want to protect me from that. I understand. And it…it kills me knowing that it hurts you, but you’ve got to understand why I need to be able to control and use my abilities.”
“Kat—”
“Let me finish, okay?” I glanced at him and when he nodded, I took another breath. “This isn’t just about you and what you want. Or what you’re afraid of. This is about me—my future and my life. Granted, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life when it came to college, but now I face a future where if I step out of the range of the beta quartz, I’m going to be hunted. Like you. My mom will be in danger if an Arum sees and follows me home. And then there’s this whole DOD mess.”
I squeezed my hand around the obsidian. “I have to be able to defend myself and the people I care about. Because I can’t expect you to always be there to protect me. It’s not right or fair to either of us. That’s why I’m training with Blake. Not to piss you off. Not to get with him. I’m doing it so that I can stand beside you, as your equal, and not be someone you need to protect. And I’m doing this for myself, so that I don’t have to rely on anyone to save me.”
Daemon’s lashes lowered, shielding his eyes. Seconds passed in silence and then he said, “I know. I know why you want to do this. And I respect that. I do.” There was a “but” coming. I could feel it in my bones. “But it’s hard to stand back and let this happen.”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen, Daemon.”
He nodded and then turned to the passenger window. One hand came up, rubbing along his jaw. “It’s hard. That’s all I can say about this. I’ll respect what you want to do, but it’s hard.”
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on a soft sigh and nodded. I knew he wasn’t going to say anything more about this. Respecting my decision was better than an apology. At least now, we were on the same page, and that was important.
I peeked at him. “Anyway, what are we going to do if we see Vaughn?”
“Haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
“Wow. This was a good plan.” I paused. “I really doubt Bethany is in one of these houses. That would just be too dangerous.”
“I agree, but why did they have her out in public like that?” He’d asked the million-dollar question. “Where anyone could see her?”
I shook my head. “I got the distinct impression that Vaughn wasn’t too happy. Maybe she escaped.”
He looked at me. “That would make sense. But Vaughn, well, he’s always been a punk.”
“You know him?”
“Not extremely well, but he started working with Lane a few months before Dawson disappeared.” The last word seemed to get stuck on his tongue, as if he were still getting acquainted with the possibility that Dawson wasn’t dead. “Lane had been our handler for God knows how long, and then Vaughn showed up with him. He was there when they told us about Dawson and Bethany.”
Daemon’s throat worked. “Lane seemed genuinely upset. Like Dawson wasn’t just a thing that had died, but a person. Maybe he grew attached to Dawson over the years. See”—he cleared his throat—“Dawson had that kind of effect on people. Even when he was being a smartass, you couldn’t help but like him. Anyway, Vaughn couldn’t have cared less.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I reached over the small space between us and squeezed his arm. He looked at me, his eyes bright. Beyond him, several large snowflakes fell with a quiet hush.
Daemon placed his hand on mine for the briefest moment. Something infinite flared between us—stronger than physical, which was weird because it really fueled all that physical stuff in me. Then he pulled back, watching the snow. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”
Why I hadn’t crawled over the center console and into his lap yet? Because damn if I was wondering that very thing, but the car was way too small for those kinds of shenanigans. I cleared my throat. “What?”
Daemon leaned back against the seat, watching the snow just like I was. “If the DOD knows what we can do, then none of us are really safe. Not that we’ve ever been safe, but this changes everything.” He turned his head toward me. “I don’t think I said thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling me about Bethany.” He paused, a tight smile pulling at his lips.
“You needed to know. I would—wait.” Two headlights turned onto the street. It was at least the fifth one, but it was from an SUV. “We’ve got one.”
Daemon’s eyes narrowed. “It’s an Expedition.”
We watched the black Expedition slow down and pull into the driveway of a single-story home two houses in. Even though the windows in our car were tinted, I wanted to slide down in the seat and hide my face. The driver’s door opened and Vaughn stepped out, frowning at the sky as if it dared to annoy him by snowing. Another car door closed and a figure moved into the light.
“Dammit,” Daemon said. “Nancy’s with him.”
“Well, you weren’t really planning on talking to him, were you?”
“Yeah, I kind of was.”
Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “That’s insane. What were you going to do? Bust up in his house and demand answers?” When he nodded, I gaped. “Then what next?”
> “Another thing I hadn’t fully worked out yet.”
“Geez,” I muttered. “You suck at this whole spy thing.”
Daemon chuckled. “Well, we can’t do anything tonight. If one of them went missing it probably wouldn’t be such a huge deal, but two of them would raise too many questions.”
My stomach churned as I watched the agents disappear into the house. A light turned on inside, and a slender figure moved in front of the window, drawing the curtains closed. “Huh. Private bunch, aren’t they?”
“Maybe they’re getting some bow-chicka-pow-wow.”
I looked at him. “Ew.”
He flashed his teeth. “She’s definitely not my type.” His gaze dropped to my lips, and parts of me quivered in response to the heat in his gaze. “But now I totally have that on my mind.”
I was breathless. “You’re a dog.”
“If you pet me, I’ll—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” I said, fighting a grin. Smiling only encouraged him, and he needed no extra reason to be a terror. “And knock the innocent look off your face. I so know—”
The obsidian flared quickly, heating up my sweater and chest like someone placed a hot coal against my skin. I yelped and jerked in my seat, banging my head on the roof.
“What?”
“An Arum,” I gasped. “An Arum is nearby! You don’t have any obsidian on you?”
Alert and tense, he scanned the dark road. “No. I left it in my car.”
I stared at him, shocked. “Seriously? You left the one thing that kills your enemy in your car?”
“It’s not like I need it to kill them. Stay here.” He started to open the door, but I grabbed his arm. “What?”
“You can’t get out of the car. We’re right in front of their house! They’ll see you.” I ignored the rising fear that always came with the Arum. “Are we still close enough to the Rocks?”
“Yes,” he growled. “They protect us for about fifty miles in every direction.”
“Then just sit still.”
He looked like he didn’t understand the concept, but he took his hand off the door and sat back. A few seconds later, a shadow moved up the street, darker than the night itself. It glided to the curb, drifting over the lawns coated with a thin layer of snow, stopping in front of Vaughn’s house.
“What the hell?” Daemon placed his hands on the dashboard.
The Arum took form, right there, out in the open. He was dressed like the ones we’d faced in the past: dark pants, black jacket, but no sunglasses. His pale blond hair moved slightly as he stepped up to the front door and pressed his finger on the doorbell.
Vaughn answered the door and grimaced. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t make out what he said. Then he stepped to the side, letting the Arum enter his house.
“Holy monkey balls,” I said, eyes wide. “That did not just happen.”
Daemon sat back, his voice tight with fury when he spoke. “That did. And I think we’ve discovered how the DOD knows what we’re capable of.”
Mind reeling, I stared at him. “The DOD and the Arum are working together? Sweet alien baby… Why?”
His brows puckered, and he shook his head. “Vaughn said a name—Residon. Read his lips.”
This new development was so not good. “What do we do now?”
“What I want to do is blow up their house, but that would draw too much attention.”
I pursed my lips. “No doubt.”
“We need to go see Matthew. Now.”
…
Matthew lived farther out in the boondocks than we did, and if the snow kept coming down, I had no idea how I was going to get Mom’s car home. His house was a large cabin built into the side of a mountain. I carefully made my way up his steep, graveled driveway that my mom’s Prius wouldn’t dare conquer.
“If you fall and break something, I’m going to be irritated.” Daemon grabbed my arm as I started to slip.
“Sorry, not all of us can be as awesome—” I squealed as he slid an arm around my back and lifted me into his arms. Daemon zipped us up the driveway, wind and snow blowing at my face. He put me down, and I stumbled to the side, dizzy. “Could you give me a warning next time?”
He grinned as he knocked on the door. “And miss that look on your face? Never.”
Sometimes I seriously wanted to just punch him in the face, but it made me warm in all the right places to see this side of him again, too. “You’re insufferable.”
“You like my kind of suffering.”
Before I could answer, Mr. Garrison opened the door. His eyes narrowed when he saw me standing next to Daemon, shivering. “This is…unexpected.”
“We need to talk,” Daemon said.
Eyeing me, Mr. Garrison led us into a very sparsely decorated living room. The walls were bare log and a fire in the fireplace crackled, throwing off heat and the scent of pine. There wasn’t a single Christmas decoration. Needing to thaw out, I sat close to the fire.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Garrison asked, picking up a small glass full of red liquid. “I’m assuming it’s something I don’t want to know, considering she’s with you.”
I checked myself before I said something back. The man was an alien, but he was also in control of my bio grade.
Daemon sat beside me. On the way up here, we agreed not to tell Mr. Garrison I’d been healed, much to my relief. “I guess we should start from the beginning, and you’re probably going to want to sit.”
He moved his hand, swirling the ruby liquid in his glass. “Oh, this is starting out good.”
“Katy saw Bethany yesterday with Vaughn.”
Mr. Garrison’s brows shot up. He didn’t move for a long breath, and then he took a drink. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say. Katy, are you sure that’s who you saw?”
I nodded. “It was her, Mr. Garrison.”
“Matthew, call me Matthew.” He took a step back, shaking his head. I felt like I just completed some major task to move to a first-name basis with him. Matthew cleared his throat. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“It gets worse,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
“I know where one of the DOD officers lives, and we went there tonight.”
“What?” Matthew lowered his glass. “Are you insane?”
Daemon shrugged. “While we were watching his house, Nancy Husher showed up and guess who else did?”
“Santa?” Matthew said dryly.
I laughed out loud. Wow, he did have a sense of humor.
Daemon ignored that. “An Arum showed up and they let him in. Even greeted him by name—Residon.”
Matthew downed the entire drink and set the glass on the mantel above the fireplace. “This isn’t good, Daemon. I know you want to rush up there and find out how Bethany is still alive, but you can’t. This is too dangerous.”
“Do you understand what this means?” Daemon stepped forward, holding his hands out, palms up. “The DOD has Bethany. Vaughn was one of the Officers who came and told us that they were both dead. So they lied about her. And that means they could’ve lied about Dawson.”
“Why would they have Dawson? They told us he was dead. Obviously Bethany isn’t, but that doesn’t mean he’s alive. So get that out of your head, Daemon.”
Anger flashed in Daemon’s deep green eyes. “If it was one of your siblings, would you ’get it out of your head’?”
“All my siblings are dead.” Matthew stalked across the room, stopping in front of us. “You guys are all I have left, and I will not stand by and humor false hope that will get you killed or worse!”
Daemon sat down beside me, taking a deep breath. “You’re family to us, too. And Dawson also considered you family, Matthew.”
Pain flashed in Matthew’s ultra-bright eyes, and he looked away. “I know. I know.” He moved over to his recliner and sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Honestly, it would be best if he weren’t alive, and you know that. I can’t even imagine…”<
br />
“But if he is, we need to do something about it.” Daemon paused. “And if he’s truly dead, then…”
Then what kind of closure would that be? They’d already believed he was dead, and finding out that it wasn’t the Arum would rip open old wounds and dump salt on them.
“You don’t understand, Daemon. The DOD would have no interest in Bethany unless…unless Dawson healed her.”
Blake had been saying this all along. The confirmation relieved me.
“What are you saying, Matthew?” Daemon asked, keeping up with the cluelessness.
Matthew rubbed his brow, wincing. “The elders…they don’t talk about why we’re not allowed to heal humans, and they have good reason. It’s forbidden, not only because of the risk of exposure on our end, but because of what it does to a human. They know. So do I.”
“What?” Daemon glanced at me. “Do you know what happens?”
He nodded. “It alters the human, splicing his or her DNA with ours. There has to be a true want for it to work, though. The human takes on our abilities, but it doesn’t always stick. Sometimes it fades. Sometimes the human dies from it or the change backfires. But if successful, it forms a connection between the two.”
As Matthew went on, Daemon grew more agitated, and rightfully so. “The connection between a human and a Luxen after a massive healing is unbreakable at a cellular level. It marries the two together. One cannot survive if the other perishes.”
My mouth dropped open. Blake had so not told me that, but that meant…
Daemon was on his feet, chest rising with every rough, painful breath. “Then if Bethany is alive…”
“Then Dawson would have to be alive,” Matthew finished, sounding weary. “If he had in fact healed her.”
He had to have. There was no other reason why the DOD would be interested in Bethany.
Daemon just stared at the fire, twisting and curling on itself. Once again, I wanted to do something to comfort him, but what could I really do to make any of this better?
I shook my head. “But you just said he couldn’t be alive.”
“That was my weakest attempt to persuade this one from getting himself killed.”
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