The Brightest Night

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “Why would you smile about that?” I was dumbfounded.

  “Because you chose not to,” Grayson answered. “Let that sink in.”

  Shooting him a look over my shoulder, I was about to tell him I was considering changing my mind, when it did hit me.

  “I stopped it.” My head cranked back to Luc. “Holy crap, I felt the Source. It was ready to go, but I stopped it!”

  Luc’s smile grew. “Yeah, you did. You have control, Peaches. Now move the damn carton.”

  * * *

  Grayson hadn’t been lying earlier. Moving objects wasn’t exactly easy. While I’d been able to move the spool out from under him, the carton proved to be a different story.

  I wasn’t angry with the carton.

  Which showed the correlation between emotion and accuracy. If I was angry, everyone had better run for the hills. If I was ambivalent, everyone could take a nap.

  I was able to move the carton after several misfires. It wasn’t until Luc had said, “Picture having multiple, invisible arms—arms that can stretch hundreds of feet. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but take those dozens of arms and encase them in the Source. Not what it looks like with Grayson or me, but with your Source.”

  That did sound ridiculous, and it had led me to picturing all kinds of random invisible things that had nothing to do with the task at the hand, but when I finally focused and did what Luc had instructed, the carton winged right at my head.

  And that was right about the time I learned that if I was going to move an object, I needed to also plan where I wanted to move it.

  Some days, I felt dumber than others. This was one of those days.

  When Luc finally called it a day and Grayson disappeared in, like, a nanosecond, I was only slightly relieved to be heading back to the house. I was tired and hungry, but I also wanted to practice more.

  Emboldened by the success that we had and a wee bit confident, I actually felt truly hopeful, like for the first time I thought maybe I could take back some control in my life. I was juiced to do more. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t use the word juiced since that just sounded weird, but I wanted to see exactly what I could do.

  I thought again of how fast Grayson had disappeared.

  “I wonder if I can run fast now,” I said as we walked down a road empty except for abandoned cars that had more rust and sun damage than paint. I kept scanning, hoping to see Nate, but knowing it was probably too soon for him to come back.

  “That’s actually a good question. I don’t know. Hybrids are physically stronger and faster, but not like a Luxen or Arum or Origin. So, technically speaking, you should be able to run pretty fast. As fast as I can or they can? I can’t answer that.”

  I wasn’t sure what I would do if I could actually run measurably fast, since the only time I had was when my life was under immediate threat. Even then, I ran like a turtle with a broken leg. “Can we practice more when we get back to the house?”

  “I think you should take it easy the rest of the day.”

  I frowned.

  “Before you can ask why, and I know you’re getting ready to, it’s because I don’t want you to overdo it until we get a better handle on what comes naturally to you other than knocking Grayson on his ass.”

  My frown turned upside down. “Man, that was great. I will never forget that. Not as long as I live.”

  “What was better was the fact it proved you can control your Source, even when angry.”

  That it did, but …

  What else did it prove? Yes, I’d been angry with Grayson, but that had been nothing like the fury I’d felt in the nightmare, nor the panic. What I had done today didn’t mean I wouldn’t lose control again or that I wouldn’t go hive-mind Trojan on everyone.

  And just like that, my earlier confidence belly flopped out of a window. “But what does that really prove?” I asked as a cool breeze rolled down the street.

  “It proves a lot more than you were just thinking, Peaches.” Luc took my hand. “You can use the Source, and you can control it, but it’s almost like a muscle that has wasted due to lack of use. I think with a couple of sessions, you’ll be shocked by what you can do.”

  A dozen or so different scenarios played out. Opening and closing doors with the power of my mind just because I could. Lighting and extinguishing candles. Summoning a jar of peanut butter and a spoon from the kitchen. Heating up my own—

  “Peaches.” Luc chuckled, lifting my hand to his mouth. He kissed the back. “Not even I can summon a jar of peanut butter from a totally different room and have it do anything other than smack into a wall.”

  “But I’m supposed to be awesomer than you, so maybe I can.”

  “You are already awesomer than I am.” He tugged me along as we came to the overgrown field that bordered the street. Off in the distance, I heard the mournful call of cows. “We’ll practice moving some more stuff, and then we’ll move on to seeing if you can move harder things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like people who are able to resist.”

  My eyes widened. “Like you?”

  He nodded. “Grayson. I’m sure Zoe will volunteer.”

  “But what if I hurt you guys?”

  Luc glanced down at me. “You didn’t hurt Grayson today, even though you wanted to.”

  He was right.

  I stared out over the field, wondering how much more my life would change. “Does that make me a bad person? That I did want to hurt him?”

  “Who hasn’t wanted to hurt Grayson?”

  I choked out a laugh.

  “Grayson was purposely trying to get a rise out of you,” he added. “And he’s exceptionally good at it.”

  “That he is,” I murmured, thinking that over. “You’re saying that he wasn’t pushing my buttons because he just wanted to be a jerk to me, but to see what I’d do?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “And because he’s a jerk. It’s one of his strengths.”

  How that was considered a strength, I didn’t know.

  “Today was a good day. No one had to hurt anyone. No one got hurt,” he said, eyeing the cloudy sky. “Well, except maybe Grayson’s pride and a Blow Pop or two, and we didn’t have to make you panic or really upset. I’ll count this as a win and proof that we’re on the right path.”

  Squeezing his hand, I decided that I would also count today as a win.

  “So.” He drew the word out. “You want to see if you can run fast?”

  I came to a sudden halt. “I thought you said I should take it easy.”

  “If you can run faster than before, it will be the mutation—the Source fueling it—but it’s not the same as what you were doing today.” A mischievous glint settled in his eyes. “Or are you feeling tired? If so, I’m sure I can carry you back. Here.” He tugged on my hand. “You can hop on my back—”

  “I don’t need you to carry me.” I pulled my hand free. “Let’s do it. Where are we running to?”

  That boyish grin of his surfaced, the one that made it feel like there was a nest of carnivorous butterflies in my chest. “Back to the house. You can find it from here?”

  “If we cut through the field, yes.”

  “Then let’s do it. On the count of three.”

  There was no time to second-guess this or ask questions. Luc fired off the countdown, and when he hit three, he was already a blur of motion, racing into the knee-high weeds.

  “Dammit!” I shouted.

  His wild laugh echoed around me, and I cursed again as I broke out into a run. At first, I noticed nothing different. Luc was so far ahead, he was just a blip, and that was so unfair. How could I not be able to run fast? That would seem to make me a very inefficient Trojan.

  I had to be able to run like Luc. I had to.

  The hum of energy cranked, and then I wasn’t thumping through the field. I was racing.

  I didn’t know exactly what second my speed picked up, but it did, and holy crap on a cracker, I was running fast—so fast that the li
ttle pieces of the grass and dirt pelting my cheeks and bare arms stung. There was no burning in my legs or seizing of the stomach and lungs. My heart was racing, but it didn’t feel like it was going to burst out of my chest. Up ahead, Luc came more into focus. I was catching up to him.

  I moved so fast it was almost like flying.

  And it was freeing. There was no room for thoughts as the wind whipped strands of hair from the knot I’d twisted the hair back into that morning. I wasn’t thinking about what I’d done, what it could mean, and what it might not. No space to think about Jason Dasher or the Daedalus. There was no room for the throat-clogging mixture of grief and anger that accompanied any thoughts of my mom. I didn’t worry about Heidi or Emery or James as I ran. I didn’t wonder if Nate would come back and how many more kids were out there, barely getting by. There was just the song of my pounding heart and the crunch of grass under my sneakers.

  When I overtook Luc and blew past him, I knew I was going to beat him, and I did, slowing down only when I reached the front door and all but threw it open.

  I spun, breathing fast but not heavy. Luc appeared in the doorway a heartbeat or two after me, hair blown back from his face in wild waves.

  Laughing even as my heart still pounded, I backed up into the living room. “I can’t believe I beat you.”

  “Me, either.” The door swung closed behind Luc as he stalked forward, his eyes shards of amethyst. My stomach fluttered at the intensity in his gaze.

  “How does it feel to not be the best?” I asked, stopping when my calves hit the coffee table.

  “I’m a sore loser.” His hands landed on my hips, and before I knew it, I was up in the air and then I was lying on the couch. Luc was prowling over me. “You’re going to need to make me feel better.”

  “You’re going to have to suck it up.”

  Dipping his head as his hands slid up my shirt, he whispered something in my ear that scorched my cheeks and a whole lot of other areas. “I’m sweaty,” I told him.

  “So am I.” He kissed me, and an exquisite pulse shot through me.

  I gripped his shoulder and fisted my other hand in the hair along the back of his head. “I’m dirty.”

  “I don’t care.” His mouth came over mine again, and his body moved over and against mine. I felt it all in the sharpest, most delicious way. “Before everything, when you were feeling better, we’d run like that all the time. Used to drive Paris crazy, because we’d often be in the house, knocking everything over, and it always ended in an argument between us.”

  Now my heart thundered for a whole different reason. “Why?”

  “Because you’d get mad when I let you win,” he said, and I laughed at the absurdity of it. He kissed me again, an almost greedy clash. “I missed that.”

  “You didn’t let me win this time.”

  “No.” His lips curved into a smile against mine. “I didn’t, and hell, you have no idea how relieved I am to know that.”

  I knew why he would be. My chest tightened. It was more proof I was no longer sick—no longer dying. Luc knew that, but I imagined it was a lot like me having a hard time believing that using the Source could be that easy. There was still a part of him that couldn’t believe I wasn’t sick.

  Pressing my forehead to his, I hoped for once he was listening to my thoughts when I said, I love you.

  Illogical as it was, I thought I heard him whisper, I know, but I knew he couldn’t, because his lips were busy with mine once more.

  My fingers tightened in his hair, and his hand was slowly tracking northward, reaching the satiny material—

  I felt the strange buzz along the base of my neck at the same moment Luc froze above me. He rose, looking over his shoulder, toward the door. Before I could share what I felt, he spoke.

  “It’s Dee,” he said, and a moment later, there was a knock—a pounding.

  13

  There was absolutely not a single thing about giving birth that remotely appealed to me.

  Sure, babies were cute when they weren’t competing with your insides for lodging, and the whole circle of life was a miracle in itself, but—

  Another scream tore through the night sky, followed by a litany of the most impressive combinations of the F-bomb I’d ever heard in my life. Most were directed at Daemon.

  I winced.

  Actually, all the curses had been directed at Daemon.

  Poor Kat.

  There should be some sort of cosmic law that required men to feel everything women felt while giving birth.

  I really had no idea what time it was. I had dozed off at some point, before the whole screaming thing jarred me awake. Someone had draped a colorful fuchsia-and-turquoise patchwork quilt over me. I didn’t think it had been Luc, since I figured he would’ve woken me up.

  According to the last update given by Dee, which had come hours after she’d showed up at the house, everything was going “typically.”

  How typical could it be when Daemon had called for Luc, and I hadn’t seen either of them emerge from the inside of the house? And it was now well past midnight.

  Luc would’ve definitely checked on me if he were able to, and while I hadn’t seen Dr. Hemenway with my own two eyes, the old gas-powered vehicle that reminded me of a dune buggy was still parked just beyond the carport. Zoe had told me the all-terrain utility vehicle belonged to the doc and that there were several like that scattered about Zone 3, used by humans who didn’t have the handy ability of running with supersonic speed.

  Worry pecked on my shoulder. I didn’t know a lot—okay, I didn’t know anything—about giving birth, but I was thinking something not so typical was going down.

  I didn’t really know Kat, and Daemon would probably rather see me anywhere other than where I was, but I hoped with every fiber of my being that both the mother and child came out of this whole and healthy.

  They had to.

  Kat was a hybrid, nowhere near as weak or prone to death as a human. Plus, if medical intervention failed, she had Daemon, his siblings, and also had Luc, who could harness the Source into a healing energy.

  Kat and the baby had to be okay.

  That’s what I kept telling myself as I sat on one of the brilliant blue cushions of the wicker couches seated under the twinkling warm white light of solar string lights hanging from the top of the carport. I watched the breeze toy with the canopy, alone at the moment. Zoe had left with a young man I’d pegged as a Luxen before he’d even parted the canopy. Cekiah had sent him for Zoe, and I apparently wasn’t privy to why.

  I glanced down at the quilt. If she had been the one to bring the blanket, where was she now? I guessed it could’ve been anyone. People had come and gone throughout the evening and into the night. Luxen and hybrids I’d never met and humans who sometimes accompanied a Luxen. I kept feeling that weird cobweb-type sensation, but at the moment I was too tired for the brain energy required to truly consider it might be the Source inside me recognizing it in others … or the possibility that I was continuously walking through actual cobwebs or lying in a giant one.

  If it turned out I was covered in cobwebs, I’d set myself on fire. For real.

  Anyway, all of them quieted when they saw me. Not a single one approached me as they stopped by to see how Kat and Daemon were doing and if there were any news or anything they could do. Only a few brave people sent a tentative smile in my direction, which I returned, probably a little too eagerly.

  There was such a sense of community here. I doubted Kat and Daemon were best friends forever with all who stopped by, but people cared enough about them to show up, and I thought that said something amazing about both Daemon and Kat and those who came by.

  I knew that Nate and whoever else was in the city would be welcome here, cared for, and would have access to all the food they needed. They would be accepted, and I just hoped I was given a chance to convince the kid of that.

  But me?

  Would these same people become more comfortable with me once I�
�d been here awhile? Once I proved I didn’t fall into the stranger-danger category?

  I hoped so, because for the foreseeable future, this was my home. Our home. Luc and I actually had a home together. Sort of. Wasn’t like we went out and picked out an apartment or something, but it was just us. Either way, the flutter in my chest had pterodactyl-size wings.

  Zone 3 had to become my home, because not only did I need to be somewhere where I could continue to work on the Source, neither the Daedalus nor the Sons of Liberty could find me here.

  Hopefully.

  Right now, I was safe here. It took no leap of logic to know I wouldn’t be if I were out there. I needed to make this work.

  I had Zoe, and Heidi would be here soon, and they were more than enough, but I needed to make friends here, too. Connections. Something that led to something other than a half-scared smile. Hell, I’d be happy with a hello. Seemed silly in the big scheme of things, but I wanted to feel like I was a part of what they were doing here and not like an unwanted guest.

  They just needed time. That’s all.

  I added that thought to the “Kat and baby would be a-okay” record and hit the mental Repeat button.

  Shifting on the couch, I unfurled my legs. My stomach ached a little. The quick dinner Zoe and I had ended up eating while we’d waited for news had only tempered my appetite. Maybe I was having sympathy contractions.

  Man, Kat was a boss. When Dee had given us an update, she’d briefly mentioned there were no pain meds. Kat had opted out of them in case someone else needed them more than she did. Like, who needed it more than someone pushing out a tiny person? Au naturel childbirth had nope written all over it. There was absolutely no way I could do that without being high as a kite.

  The wind kicked up the heavy canopy, and outside the carport, the night was dark and silent with the exception of the occasional cricket … or pain-filled scream. Snuggling under the quilt, I glanced over my shoulder to the side door that hadn’t opened in quite some time. I hadn’t gone inside with Luc, because even though Kat and I had gotten to chat the day before, I didn’t know her like that. I didn’t want to intrude in moments meant to be shared with family and friends. I didn’t want to be in the way, and well, I hadn’t been invited.