Текст книги "Opal"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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“It just sucks,” she said, glancing at Lesa. “I thought maybe we could go to the movies after school this week. Take her mind off it.”

I nodded. I liked the sound of that but doubted we’d get very far with her. It was also time to put Plan A into motion-which was reintroducing Dawson to society. Even though I was on his brother’s poo-poo list, Dawson had stopped by yesterday and explained that Matthew was on board. Probably wouldn’t happen until the middle of the week, but it was a go.

“She may not be able to do anything this week, though,” I said.

“Why?” Curiosity sparkled in Lesa’s dark eyes. Loved the girl, but she was such a gossip whore. Which was exactly what I needed.

If people expected Dawson’s return, it wouldn’t be such a surprise when it did happen. Lesa would make sure word got out.

“You guys are not going to believe this, but

Dawson’s come home.”

Carissa turned several degrees paler, and Lesa shouted something that sounded an awful lot like what the duck . I’d kept my voice low, but their reactions garnered a lot of attention. “Yeah, apparently he’s alive. Ran away and finally decided to come home.”

“No way,” Carissa breathed, her eyes going wide behind her glasses. “I can’t believe this. I mean, it’s great news but everyone thought

well, you know.”

Lesa was just as shell-shocked. “Everyone thought he was dead.”

I forced a casual shrug. “Well, he’s not.”

“Wow.” Lesa pushed a section of tight curls out of her face. “I can’t even process this. My brain has just shut down. A first.”

Carissa asked the one question that was probably going to be on everyone’s mind. “Did Beth come back?”

Keeping my face blank, I shook my head. “Apparently they ran off together, but Dawson wanted to come home. She didn’t. He doesn’t know where she is.”

Carissa stared at me while Lesa kept fiddling with her hair. “That’s

so weird.” She paused, turning her attention to her notebook. A strange look, one I couldn’t decipher, crept across her face, but then again, this was really WTF news. “Maybe she went to Nevada. Wasn’t that where she’s from? Her parents moved back there, I think.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, wondering what the hell we were supposed to do if we did free Beth. Wasn’t like we could keep her here. Sure, she was eighteen now and legally an adult, but her family was in a different time zone.

Warmth spread over my neck, and I looked to the front of the class. A few seconds later, Daemon strolled in. My stomach tightened, and I forced myself not to look down. If I was arguing that I was capable of handling bad things, I couldn’t hide from my boyfriend when we had a fight.

Daemon arched a single brow as he passed by, taking his seat behind me. Before my friends could verbally attack Daemon with all their Dawson-related questions, I twisted in my seat.

“Hey,” I said, and then I flushed, because there was nothing lamer than hey .

He seemed to think the same thing and showed it as one side of his lip curled up into a trademark Daemon smirk. Sexy? Yes. Infuriating? Oh, yes. I wondered what he would say. Would he yell at me for talking to Dawson yesterday? Apologize? Because if he apologized, I’d probably crawl into his lap right there in class. Or would he go with the ever-faithful “talk in private” comment? While Daemon loved an audience, I knew what he showed the world wasn’t really him, and if he were going to open himself up, vulnerable to the core, he wouldn’t want people watching.

“I like your hair like that,” he said.

My brows rose. Okay. Not what I was expecting. Lifting my arms, I smoothed my hands down the sides of my hair. The only thing I’d done differently was part it down the middle. Nothing amazing. “Um, thanks

?”

The smirk remained on his face as we continued to stare at each other, and as the seconds passed, the more irritated I grew. Seriously?

“Anything else you want to say?” I asked.

He leaned forward, sliding his elbows across the desk. Our faces were inches apart. “Is there anything you want me to say?”

I took a deep breath. “Lots of things

”

Thick lashes lowered, and his voice was rich as satin. “I bet.”

He thought I was flirting? Then he spoke again. “There’s something I’d like you to say. How about ‘I’m sorry for Saturday’?”

I wanted to clock him. Of all the arrogant nerve, I swear. Instead of being snarky, I shot him an annoyed look and turned around. I ignored him for the rest of class and even left without saying a word to him.

Of course, he was two steps behind me in the hallway. My entire back tingled under his scrutiny, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was amused by all of this.

Morning classes dragged. Bio was weird, since the seat beside me was now empty. Lesa noticed it with a frown. “I haven’t seen Blake since Christmas break ended.”

I shrugged, studiously staring at the projector screen Matthew was pulling down. “I have no clue.”

“You guys were like BFFs forevah, and you have no idea where he’s been?” Doubt clouded her tone.

Her suspicions were totally understandable. Petersburg was like the Bermuda Triangle for teenagers. Many came. Some were never seen again while others resurfaced from the rabbit hole. In that moment, I found myself wanting to spill the beans like I did every so often. Keeping so many secrets was killer.

“I don’t know. He mentioned something about visiting fam back in California. Maybe he decided to stay.” God, I was getting frighteningly good at lying. “Petersburg is kind of boring.”

“No doubt.” She paused. “But he didn’t tell you if he was coming back or not?”

I bit my lip. “Well, since Daemon and I are kind of seeing each other now, Blake and I haven’t really talked.”

“Ha.” Her face transformed with a knowing grin. “Daemon seems like the RAWR type. He so wouldn’t be cool with another guy being super friendly.”

A flush crept over my cheeks. “Ah, he’s okay with guy friends

” Just not ones who kill his friends. I rubbed my brow, sighing. “Anyway, how’s Chad?”

“My boy toy?” She giggled. “He’s perfect.”

I managed to keep the conversation on Chad and how close they’d come to doing it. Of course, Lesa wanted to know about Daemon and me, and I refused to go there, much to her dismay. She admitted to wanting to live vicariously through me.

After bio, I stopped by my locker as usual and took my sweet old time changing out books. I doubted Dee wanted to see my face. The seating arrangements in the cafeteria were going to be super awkward, and I was still annoyed with Daemon. By the time I’d finished grabbing books, the hall was empty and the hum of conversation was distant.

I closed the locker door and twisted halfway, closing the flap on the messenger bag my mom had gotten me for Christmas. Something moved at the end of the once-empty corridor, coming out of what seemed like nowhere. A tall and slender form at the end of the hall, obviously male by the quick look, and he was wearing a baseball cap, which was odd, because that was in violation of the school dress code. It was one of those God-awful trucker hats that guys found cool once upon a time.

Drifter was written in bold black and behind the words was an oval shape

that looked a lot like a surfboard.

My pulse spiked and I blinked, taking a step back. The guy was gone, but the door to the left was slowly swinging closed.

No

no, it couldn’t be. He’d be crazy insane to come back here, but

Holding my bag tightly to my side, I started walking and then I was jogging before I knew it. I hit the door, throwing it open. Rushing to the railing, I peered over it. Mystery Dude was on the bottom level, as if he were waiting at the door.

I could see the trucker hat more clearly. It was definitely a surfboard.

Blake had been an avid surfer when he lived in California.

Then a golden-toned hand, as if the person spent his life under the sun, wrapped around the silver doorknob, and a wave of familiarity raised the tiny hairs on my arms.

Oh, crap.

Part of my brain clicked off. I went down the steps three at a time, my breath locked in my chest. The hallway was more crowded on the first floor as people headed for the cafeteria. I heard Carissa call my name, but I was focused on the top of the trucker hat moving toward the gymnasium and the back entrance, leading to the parking lots.

I darted around a couple totally getting into hallway PDA, slipped between friends talking, and lost sight of the hat for a second. Dammit. Everyone and their mother were in my way. I bumped into someone, mumbling an apology, and kept going. When I reached the end of the hall, the only place he could’ve gone was out the door. I didn’t think twice. Pushing the heavy double doors open, I stepped outside. Overcast skies turned everything dreary and cold, and as my eyes scanned the common area and, beyond that, the parking lots, I realized he was gone.

Only two things in this world could move that fast: aliens and humans mutated by aliens.

And I had no doubt in my mind that I’d seen Blake, and he’d wanted me to see him.

Armentrout, Jennifer L.

Opal ( A Lux Novel)

Chapter 8

Finding Daemon wasn’t hard at all. He was lounging against the painted mural of the school mascot in the cafeteria, talking to Billy Crump, a boy from our trig class. A carton of milk was in one hand and a slice of pizza folded in the other. What a gross-as-hell combination.

“We need to talk,” I said, interrupting boy time.

Daemon took a bite of his pizza while Billy glanced down at me. There must’ve been something in my stare, because his smile faded and he lifted his hands, backing up slowly.

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you later, Daemon.”

He nodded, eyes trained on me. “What’s up, Kitten? Come to apologize?”

My eyes narrowed, and for a brief moment, I entertained the idea of body slamming him in the middle of the cafeteria. “Uh, no, I’m not here to apologize. You owe me an apology.”

“How do you see that?” He took a drink, appearing naively curious.

“Well, for starters, I’m not an ass. You are.”

He chuckled as he glanced to the side. “That’s a good start.”

“And I got Dawson to heel.” I smiled victoriously when his eyes narrowed. “And-Wait. This isn’t even important. God, you always do this.”

“Do what?” His intense gaze swung back to me without a trace of anger. More like amusement and something really inappropriate, given that we were standing in the lunchroom. Dear God

“Distract me with the inane. And in case you don’t know what that means, it’s silly-you always distract me with something silly.”

He finished off his pizza. “I know what inane means.”

“Shocker,” I retorted.

A slow, cat-got-the-canary grin pulled at his lips. “I must be really distracting you, because you still haven’t told me what you need to talk to me about.”

Dammit. He was right. Ugh. Taking a deep breath, I focused. “I saw-”

Daemon cupped my elbow, spun me around, and started down the aisle. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

I tried to yank my elbow from his grasp. I really hated it when he went all He-Man on me and ordered me around. “Stop dragging me, Daemon. I can walk on my own, Doofus.”

“Uh huh.” He led me down the hall, stopping by the gym doors. He placed his hands on either side of my head, caging me in as he leaned down. His forehead brushed mine. “Can I tell you something?”

I nodded.

“I find it incredibly attractive when you’re all feisty with me.” His lips brushed against my temple. “That probably makes me disturbed. But I like it.”

Yeah, it kind of was wrong, but there was something

hot about how quickly he defended me whenever something happened.

His nearness was tempting, especially when his breath was tantalizingly warm and so near my lips. Summoning my willpower, I placed my hands on his chest and pushed lightly. “Focus,” I said, not sure who I was talking to, me or him. “I have something more important to tell you than what disturbing things get you hot.”

His lips quirked into a grin. “Okay, back to what you saw. I’m focused. My head’s in the game and all that.”

I laughed under my breath but sobered up pretty quickly. In no way was Daemon going to respond well to this. “I’m pretty sure I saw Blake today.”

Daemon cocked his head to the side. “Say what?”

“I think I saw Blake here, just a few minutes ago.”

“How sure are you? Did you see him-his face?” He was all business now, eyes as sharp as a hawk’s and his face set in grim lines.

“Yeah, I saw-” I hadn’t seen his face. Biting down on my lip, I glanced down the hall. Students piled out of the cafeteria, pushing into one another, laughing. I swallowed. “I didn’t see his face.”

He let out a long breath. “Okay. What did you see?”

“A hat-a trucker hat.” God, that sounded lame. “That had a surfboard on it. And I saw his hand

” And that sounded even worse.

His brows arched up. “So, let me get this right. You saw a hat and a hand?”

“Yeah.” I sighed, shoulders slumping.

Daemon smoothed out his expression and placed a heavy arm around my shoulder. “Are you really sure it was him? Because if not, that’s okay. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I remember you saying something like that to me before. You know, when you were trying to hide what you were from me. Yeah, I remember that.”

“Now, Kitten, you know this is different.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Are you sure, Kat? I don’t want to get everyone freaking out if you’re not sure.”

What I’d experienced was more of a feeling than a true sighting of Blake. God knew that a ton of boys around here broke the dress code with atrocities such as trucker hats. The thing was, I hadn’t seen his face and looking back, I couldn’t be 100 percent sure it had been Blake.

I looked into Daemon’s bright gaze and felt my cheeks burn. There wasn’t judgment in his eyes. More like sympathy. He thought I was cracking under the pressure of everything. Maybe I was imagining stuff.

“I’m not sure,” I said finally, casting my eyes down.

And those words soured in my stomach.

Later that night, Daemon and I did babysitting duty. Although Dawson had promised not to do his own search-and-rescue mission, I knew Daemon wasn’t comfortable leaving him alone and Dee wanted to get out tonight, go to the movies or something.

I wasn’t invited.

Instead, I was sitting in between Daemon and Dawson, four hours into a George Romero zombiethon, with a bowl of popcorn in my lap and a notebook resting against my chest. We’d been making plans to look for Beth, getting as far as listing the two places that we knew to check before deciding to do surveillance this weekend to see what kind of security they had going on now. By the start of Land of the Dead , the zombies got uglier and smarter.

And I was having fun.

“I had no idea you were a zombie fan.” Daemon grabbed a handful of popcorn. “What is it-the blood and guts or the in-your-face social undertones?”

I laughed. “Mostly the blood and guts.”

“That’s so un-girlie of you,” Daemon commented, brows knitting as a zombie started to use its meat cleaver to break through a wall. “I don’t know about this. How many hours do we have left?”

Dawson raised his arm and two DVDs shot into his hand. “Uh, we have Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead .”

“Great,” Daemon muttered.

I rolled my eyes. “Wussy.”

“Whatever.” He elbowed me, knocking a kernel of popcorn between my chest and notebook. I sighed. “Want me to get that for you?” he asked.

Shooting him a look, I dug it out and then tossed it in his face. “You’re going to be grateful when the zombie apocalypse occurs and I know what to do because of my zombie fetish.”

He looked doubtful. “There are better fetishes out there, Kitten. I could show you a few.”

“Uh, no, thank you.” But I did flush. And there were a lot of images that suddenly polluted my brain.

“Aren’t you supposed to go to the nearest Costco or something?” Dawson asked, letting the DVDs float back to the coffee table.

Daemon turned to his twin slowly, face incredulous. “And how would you know that?”

He shrugged. “It’s in the Zombie Survival Guide .”

“It is.” I nodded eagerly. “Costco has everything-thick walls, food, and supplies. They even sell guns and ammunition. You could hole up there for years while the zombies are getting their nom nom on.”

Daemon’s mouth dropped open.

“What?” I grinned. “Zombies got to eat, too, you know.”

“Very true about the Costco thing.” Dawson picked up a single kernel and popped it in his mouth. “But we could just blast the zombies. We’d be fine.”

“Ah, good point.” I rooted around in the bowl for a half-popped kernel-my favorite.

“I’m surrounded by freaks,” Daemon said, looking dumbfounded as he shook his head, but I knew he was secretly thrilled.

For one thing, his body was completely relaxed next to mine and this was one of the first times that Dawson was acting

normal. Yeah, talking about zombies probably wasn’t the biggest step known to mankind, but it was something.

On the flat screen, a zombie took a chunk out of some dude’s arm. “What the hell?” Daemon complained. “The guy just stood there. Hello. There’re zombies everywhere. Try looking behind you, douche canoe.”

I giggled.

“This is why zombie movies are unbelievable to me,” he went on. “Okay. Say the world ends in a shit storm of zombies. The last thing anyone with two working brain cells would do is just stand along a building waiting for a zombie to creep up on him.”

Dawson cracked a smile.

“Shut up and watch the movie,” I said.

He ignored that. “So you really think you’d do well in a zombie apocalypse?”

“Yeppers,” I said. “I’d totally save your butt.”

“Oh, really?” He glanced at the screen. Then he faded out and something

something else replaced him.

Shrieking, I jerked into Dawson. “Oh my God

”

Daemon’s skin was ghastly gray and hanging loose from his face. Patches of decaying brown skin covered his cheekbones. One of his eyes was just

a hole. The other was glazed over and milky white. Clumps of hair were missing.

Zombie Daemon gave a rotted, toothy grin. “Save my butt? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

I could only stare.

Dawson actually laughed. Not sure what was more shocking: that or the zombie sitting next to me.

His form faded out and then he was back-beautiful, carved cheekbones and head full of hair. Thank God. “I think you’d suck at the zombie apocalypse,” he said.

“You

you are disturbed,” I murmured, carefully settling down next to him.

With a smug grin, he reached for the bowl and came up empty. Some of it might have been on the floor. Feeling eyes on me, I glanced at Dawson.

He was staring at us, but I wasn’t sure if he was even seeing us. There was a reminiscent expression in his eyes, tainted with sadness and something else. Determination? I didn’t really know, but for a second, the green hue brightened, no longer dull and listless, and he looked so much like Daemon that I drew in a shallow breath.

Then he gave his head a little shake and looked away.

I glanced at Daemon and I knew he’d noticed. He shrugged. “Anyone want more popcorn?” he asked. “We have food coloring. I can make it red for you.”

“More popcorn but minus the food coloring, please.” When he grabbed the bowl and stood, I caught him sneaking a relieved glance at his brother. “Want me to pause the movie?”

His look told me no and I giggled again. Daemon sauntered out of the room, stopping at the door when the zombies crested the water. Then he shook his head again and left. He wasn’t fooling me.

“I think he secretly enjoys zombie movies,” Dawson said, glancing at me.

I smiled at him. “I was just thinking the same thing. He has to, since he’s all into ghost stuff.”

Dawson nodded. “We used to record those shows and spend all day Saturday watching them. Sounds kind of lame, but it was fun.” There was a pause and his gaze flickered back to the TV. “I miss that.”

My heart went out to him and Daemon. I glanced at the screen, chewing on my lower lip. “You know, you still can.”

He didn’t respond.

I wondered if the problem was that Dawson wasn’t comfortable alone with Daemon. There was definitely a lot of baggage between the two. “I’d love to watch some of them this Saturday before we check out the buildings.”

Dawson was silent as he crossed his legs at the ankles. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to answer, just ignore what I offered, and I was okay with that. Small steps and all.

But then he did speak. “Yeah, that would be kind of cool. I

I can do that.”

Surprised, my head swung toward Dawson. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. It was weak, but it was a smile.

Happy about this, I nodded and then turned my attention back to the gore. But I saw Daemon standing just outside the living room. My gaze was drawn to his, and I sucked in an unsteady breath.

He’d heard everything.

Relief and gratitude poured from him. He didn’t need to say anything. The thank-you was in his stare, in the way his hands gave a little shake around the fresh bowl of popcorn. He came into the room and sat, placing the bowl in my lap. Then he reached over, took my hand in his, and it stayed that way the rest of the night.

Over the next couple of days, I came to accept that I probably did have a mini freak-out on Monday. There had been no more trucker hat sightings from hell, and then on Thursday, the whole Blake thing became a nonissue.

Dawson had returned to PHS.

“I saw him this morning,” Lesa said in trig, her body practically humming like a tuning fork with excitement. “Or at least I think I did. It really could’ve been Daemon, but this guy was thinner.”

To me, it was easy to tell the two brothers apart. “It was Dawson.”

“That’s the strange thing.” Some of the enthusiasm faded. “Dawson and I were never best buds, but he was always friendly. I went up to him, but he kept on walking like he hadn’t even seen me. And hey, I’m hard to miss. My bubbly personality is like its own screaming person.”

I laughed. “So true.”

Lesa grinned. “But seriously, something

something was off about him.”

“Oh?” My pulse picked up. Was there something about Dawson that humans could sense? “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” She looked to the front of the classroom, her eyes traveling over the faded formulas scribbled on the chalkboard. Her curls spilled around her shoulder. “It’s hard to explain.”

There wasn’t much time to dig into what she meant. Carissa arrived to class and then Daemon. He placed a cup of mocha latte on my desk. Cinnamon permeated the air.

“Thanks.” I held the warm cup. “Where’s yours?”

“Not thirsty this morning,” he said, twirling his pen. He glanced over my shoulder. “Hi, Lesa.”

Lesa sighed. “I need a Daemon.”

I turned to her, unable to hide my grin. “You have a Chad.”

She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t bring me lattes.”

Daemon chuckled. “Not everyone can be as great as I am.”

Now I rolled my eyes. “Ego check, Daemon, ego check.”

From across the aisle, Carissa fiddled with her glasses, her eyes serious and somber as she glanced at Daemon. “I just wanted to say I’m glad Dawson’s back and okay.” Two red spots bloomed on her cheeks. “It must be a huge relief.”

Daemon nodded. “It is.”

Talk of his brother ended right there. Carissa turned around, and though Lesa rarely let awkward topics detour her, she didn’t pick up our conversation. But after class, as Daemon and I navigated the hall, people were almost at a standstill.

Everyone was staring at Daemon and there were a lot of whispers. Some tried to keep it quiet. Others didn’t seem to care.

“Did you see?”

“Two of them again

”

“So weird that he’d come back without Beth

”

“Where is Beth

?”

“Maybe he came back because of Adam

”

Gossip mill at its finest, I realized.

I took a sip of my still-warm mocha and peeked at Daemon. The curve of his jaw was hard. “Uh, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

His hand rested on the small of my back as he held open the door to the stairwell. “Now what makes you think that?”

I ignored his sarcasm. “But if he didn’t come back, what was he supposed to do?”

Daemon stayed by my side as we headed to the second floor, taking up most of the cramped space. Kids had to squeeze past him. And I really had no idea where he was going. His class was on the first floor.

He leaned down, keeping his voice low. “It was a bad and good idea. He needs to get back into the world. There’s going to be fallout, but it’s worth it.”

I nodded. What he said was true. At the door to my English class, he took a sip of my mocha and handed it back.

“See you at lunch,” he said, kissing me briefly before pivoting around.

My lips tingled as I watched the back of his dark head disappear, and then I headed into class. So much was going on that concentrating was pretty much out of the question. The teacher called on me at one point, and I didn’t notice. The entire class did, though. Awkward.

Turned out Dawson was in my bio class, and boy did he have a lot of eyes on him. He was seated beside Kimmy when I walked past. He nodded and then returned to flipping through his textbook. His tablemate’s eyes were like two moons.

Did he get any sort of education while he was gone? Not that it mattered. The Luxen developed mentally a lot faster than humans. Missing over a year of school probably meant nothing to him.

“See?” Lesa twisted around as soon as I sat behind her.

“See what?”

“Dawson,” she whispered. “That’s not the Dawson I remember. He was always talking and laughing. Never reading a bio textbook.”

I shrugged. “He’s probably been through some crazy stuff.” Not a lie. “And it’s probably uncomfortable for him to be back here with everyone staring at him.” Also not a lie.

“I don’t know.” She tugged on her backpack as she glanced over at Dawson’s table. “He’s moodier than Daemon used to be.”

“Daemon was moody?” I said a bit dryly.

“Well, just not that friendly, I guess. He kind of stuck to himself before.” She shrugged. “Oh! By the way, what the hell is up with Dee hanging out with the Bitch Squad?”

Bitch Squad was a code name Lesa had given Ash and Andrew when I first started at PHS. Once upon a time, I bet Daemon was a part of that group.

“Ah,” I said, suddenly wanting to read my bio textbook. Whenever I thought of Dee, I wanted to cry. Our friendship had taken a sharp detour to Breakupsville. “I don’t know. She’s been

different since Adam.”

“No. Shit.” Lesa shook her head. “Her grieving process is scary. I tried to talk to her yesterday at her locker, and she looked at me, said nothing, and then walked away.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, it actually hurt my feelings.”

“Pretty much what I’ve-”

The door to the classroom opened as the bell rang and the first thing I noticed was the vintage Nintendo shirt worn over a gray thermal. I loved all those old-school screen T-shirts. Then the messy bronze hair and hazel eyes.

My heart stopped; a buzzing started in my ears and picked up to a roar. The air was sucked right out of the room. I’d expected Will to come back, but not

him .

“Oh. Look who’s here,” Lesa said, smoothing her hands over her notebook. “Blake.”

Armentrout, Jennifer L.

Opal ( A Lux Novel)

Chapter 9

I had to be dreaming because this could not be real. No way. Absolutely not. It wasn’t Blake strolling into the classroom like it was any other day. Nor did Matthew drop his stack of notes. I glanced at Dawson before realizing he wouldn’t know any better. He’d never seen Blake.

“You okay, Katy? Looking a little wigged out,” Lesa said.

My eyes darted to hers wildly. “I

”

A second later, Blake was taking his seat-his seat beside me. The rest of the class blurred out. I was struck stupid by his reappearance.

He placed his book on the table and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. Casting me a sidelong glance, he winked.

What the holy hell

?

Giving up on waiting for me to finish what I was saying, Lesa turned around, shaking her head. “I have weird friends,” she muttered.

Blake said nothing as Matthew gathered up his scattered papers. My heart was now racing so fast I was sure I was going to stroke out any second.

People were staring, but I couldn’t pull my eyes off Blake. Finally, I found my voice. “What

are you doing?”

He looked at me, a thousand secrets among the green flecks in his gaze. “Going to class.”

“You

” There were no words. And then the shock wore off, replaced with a spike of anger so powerful and so hot I felt static rush over my skin.

“Your eyes,” Blake whispered, a grin teasing his lips, “are starting to glow.”

Closing my eyes, I struggled to control my swirling emotions. When I was about 40 percent sure I wasn’t going to jump on him like a monkey and snap his neck, I reopened my eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“But I am.”

This wasn’t the time for evasive comments. I glanced toward the front of the classroom and saw Matthew writing on the chalkboard, his face pale. He was talking, but I didn’t hear anything.

I tucked my hair back behind one ear and kept my hand there. Anything to keep me from hitting Blake, because it was a real possibility that I would. “We gave you a chance.” I kept my voice low. “We won’t do it again.”

“But I think you will.” He leaned over the small space, coming too close and causing my muscles to lock up. “Once you hear what I have to offer.”

A crazed laugh bubbled up my throat as I kept my eyes fixed on Matthew. “You are so, so dead.”

Lesa glanced over her shoulder questioningly. I forced a smile.

“Speaking of dead,” he murmured once Lesa had turned back around. “I see the long lost twin has returned.” He picked up his pen and started writing. “I bet Daemon is so thrilled. Ah, which reminds me, I’m pretty sure he’s the one who mutated you.”

My hand closest to him curled. A faint white light danced over my knuckles, flicking like the core of a flame. The knowledge of who mutated me was dangerous. Besides the ramifications Daemon would face if it got out in the Luxen community, the DOD could use it against us. Just like they had with Dawson and Bethany.

“Careful,” he said. “I can see you still need to work on your anger.”

I shot him a dark, promising look. “Why are you here? For real?”

He put his finger over his lips. “Shush. I need to learn about

” He glanced at the board, eyes narrowing in concentration. “Different types of organisms. Yawn.”

It took every ounce of my self-control to sit through that class. Even Matthew looked like he was having trouble, forgetting where he was going with his lecture every couple of minutes. I caught Dawson’s stare once and wished I could communicate to him