Текст книги "Oblivion"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

Chapter 21

Bringing anyone into the fold was risky and could open up a whole new set of problems, but discovering that the Arum were working with the DOD wasn’t something I could keep to myself. That wasn’t smart. We were going to have to take this risk and see it through.

Matthew lived farther out than we should’ve attempted to reach in this car. By the time the vehicle crawled up his driveway, I was wondering if we were going to make it back in the Prius.

We climbed out and immediately Kat slipped in the snow. I grabbed her arm. “You fall and break something, I’m going to be irritated.”

“Sorry, not all of us can be as awesome—”

She squealed as I lifted her up in my arms. I darted up the driveway, shielding her face against the wind and snow. Once we were in front of Matthew’s door, I placed her on her feet. Kat stumbled to the side. “Could you give me a warning next time?”

I grinned as I knocked on the door. “And miss that look on your face? Never.”

“You’re insufferable,” she muttered.

Matthew opened the door, his gaze swinging from me to where Kat stood shivering, because of course, it was snowing and she didn’t have a jacket on. “This is…unexpected,” he said.

“We need to talk,” I said.

He eyed Kat for a moment and then led us into his living room. Matthew lived in a legit log cabin home. It looked like it had when he first moved here. Like no one lived there. Kat sat close to the fire, obviously needing to thaw out.

“What’s going on?” Matthew picked up a glass of wine. “I’m assuming it’s something I don’t want to know, considering she’s with you.”

Kat looked entirely unimpressed with the statement.

I sat beside her. “I guess we should start from the beginning, and you’re probably going to want to sit.”

“Oh, this is starting out good.” He swirled the liquid inside the glass.

Oh, he had no idea. “Katy saw Bethany yesterday with Vaughn.”

Matthew’s brows shot up, and then he took a long drink of his wine. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say. Katy, are you sure that’s who you saw?”

She nodded. “It was her, Mr. Garrison.”

“Matthew, call me Matthew.” He took a step back, shaking his head as he cleared his throat. “I really don’t know what to say.”

“It gets worse,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

“I know where one of the DOD officers lives,” I chimed in. “And we went there tonight.”

“What?” Matthew lowered his glass. “Are you insane?”

I shrugged. “While we were watching his house, Nancy Husher showed up and guess who else did?”

“Santa?” he said drily.

Kat laughed out loud.

I ignored that. “An Arum showed up and they let him in. Even greeted him by name—Residon.”

Looking away, Matthew downed the entire drink. He 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?” I rose, stepping forward. “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 through me. “If it was one of your siblings, would you ‘get that 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!”

I sat down, taking a deep breath. “You’re family to us, too. And Dawson also considered you family, Matthew.”

Pain flashed in Matthew’s ultrabright eyes, and then he looked away. “I know. I know.” Turning, he walked 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…”

“But if he is, we need to do something about it.” I paused. “And if he’s truly dead, then…”

“You don’t understand, Daemon. The DOD would have no interest in Bethany unless…unless Dawson healed her.”

I stilled as I stared at Matthew, and I could feel Kat doing the same. I didn’t want him to know about Kat and me. Not yet. “What are you saying, Matthew?”

He 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?” I glanced at Kat, relieved that she knew to stay quiet. “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.”

A true want? What the hell did that mean?

“The connection between a human and a Luxen after a massive healing is unbreakable at a cellular level,” he continued. “It marries the two together. One cannot survive if the other perishes.”

Kat’s sharp inhale echoed in my head as I shot to my feet. Blake had not said that when he talked about Kat being changed. He never mentioned that the Luxen and the human were bonded on an unbreakable level. But that meant…

Oh my God.

I barely got the words out. “Then if Bethany is alive…”

“Then Dawson would have to be alive,” Matthew finished, sounding weary. “If he had in fact healed her.”

Flipping my gaze to the fire, that tiny spark of hope grew stronger. Dawson had to have healed Bethany. I knew it, deep in my core, and that meant that my brother was alive. He was alive, somewhere out there; he was alive.

“But you just said he couldn’t be alive,” Kat spoke up, and I looked at Matthew.

“That was my weakest attempt to persuade this one from getting himself killed,” he said.

It was like taking a punch to the chest. Raw emotion poured into me. “Did you…did you know this the entire time?” My form began to flicker. “Did you?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. No! I believed both of them to be dead, but if he did heal her—did change her—and she’s alive, then he has to be alive. That’s a big if—an if based on whether or not Katy really did recognize someone she’s never met.”

I slowly sat down, feeling so much I didn’t feel anything. “My brother’s alive. He’s…he’s alive.”

“What do you think they’re doing to him?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know.” Matthew stood. “Whatever it is, it can’t be…”

It wasn’t good.

“The DOD knows, Matthew. They know what we can do,” I said finally. “They’ve probably known since the beginning.”

His lashes swept up, and he met my stare. “I’ve never truly believed they didn’t, to be honest. The only reason I never voiced my belief is because I didn’t want any of you to worry.”

“And the Elders—do they know this, too?” I asked, thinking of Lydia.

“The Elders are just grateful to have a place to live in peace and be basically separated from the human race. Stick-their-heads-in-the-sand kind of thing, Daemon. If anything, they probably choose to not believe our secrets aren’t safe.” He glanced at his empty glass on the fireplace. “It’s…easier for them.”

“That sounds incredibly stupid,” Kat said.

Matthew smiled wryly in response. “Dear girl, you do not know what it is like to be a guest, do you? Imagine living with the knowledge that your home and everything could be whipped out from under you at any moment. But you have to lead people, keep them calm and happy—safe. The worst thing would be to voice the darkest of your concerns to the masses.” He paused, eyeing that glass again. “Tell me, what would humans do if they knew aliens lived among them?”

Her cheeks flushed. “Uh, they’d probably riot and go nuts.”

“Exactly,” he murmured. “Our kinds are not that different.”

She squirmed next to me. “What about the Arum thing?”

“I don’t know.” Matthew refilled his glass. “I can’t even fathom a reason why the DOD would be working with them—what they could even gain. The Arum absorb our powers, but never healing—nothing of that magnitude. They have a different heat signature than we do, so with the right tools, the DOD would know they weren’t dealing with us, but to walk up to an Arum or a Luxen on the street, there would be no way to tell us apart.”

“Wait.” She tucked her hair back, glancing at me. “What if the DOD captured an Arum, believing it to be a Luxen, and you guys were studied, too, right? Forced to assimilate into the human world? I don’t know what assimilation entails, but I’m sure it was some kind of observation, so wouldn’t they have noticed eventually, especially with the heat-signature thing?”

Matthew walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner, going for something harder. “When we were being assimilated, they never saw our abilities. So if we work off the theory that they’ve known for some time, they studied our abilities on Luxen who could never tell us that the DOD is aware of what we can do.”

“You’re saying that those Luxen would be…”

“Dead,” he said, tossing back a mouthful of clear liquor. “I’m not sure how much Daemon has told you, but there were Luxen who didn’t assimilate. They were put down…like feral animals. No stretch of the imagination to believe that they used some Luxen to study their abilities, to learn about us, and then got rid of them.”

I was quiet, but I was listening, and I suddenly thought about Blake. What if the DOD was sending some of the Luxen—or ones like Kat—out to spy on others? Maybe that was paranoid. Maybe not.

“But that doesn’t explain why the Arum would work with the DOD,” Kat argued.

“It doesn’t.” Matthew moved to the fireplace. He propped his elbow on the mantel. “I am afraid to theorize over what that could mean.”

“Part of me doesn’t even care about that right now,” I said, feeling tired. “Someone betrayed Dawson. Someone had to tell the DOD.”

“It could be anyone,” Matthew said wearily. “Dawson didn’t try to hide his relationship with Bethany. And if anyone was watching them closely, they could’ve suspected something happened. We all watched them when they first got together. I’m sure some of us didn’t stop.”

Who in the hell could it have been?

We left Matthew’s house shortly after that, and she handed the keys to me without fighting when I asked for them. Snow was coming down heavier, and I needed…well, I needed something like driving to focus on. I turned to open the car door, but Kat walked back to me. Before I knew what she was doing, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We’ll figure out something. We’ll get him back.”

We’ll get him back.

After a moment of hesitation, I folded my arms around Kat and held her close. “I know,” I said, full of steely determination. “I’ll get him back if it’s the last thing I do.”

Over the next couple of days, we staked out Vaughn’s house after Kat finished her evening training with Blake. We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. No visiting Arum or Nancy. Each evening, we returned home, and my frustration grew.

My brother was out there, somewhere, and nothing I was doing seemed to be getting me any closer to finding him. When I wasn’t with Kat, I was staking out Vaughn’s home on my own. I began to realize that the man was barely there, and I wondered if he had another home. Though the times I managed to follow Vaughn on foot, he didn’t go anyplace else.

Thoughts of my brother and who could’ve possibly reported what he’d done to the DOD consumed me. It would have to have been someone who saw either Dawson or Bethany immediately after whatever happened or someone Dawson trusted enough to tell.

Dawson didn’t trust anyone in the colony, not even Lydia, with that kind of information. The only person he could’ve talked to would’ve been Dee, but there’s no way she would’ve kept that quiet all this time. I already knew he hadn’t confided in Adam. So that left two options. Someone saw them.

Or it was someone Bethany knew.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that the person who had notified the DOD was connected to Bethany and not Dawson. My brother would’ve been so damn careful to keep what he’d done a secret, and maybe Bethany hadn’t realized the seriousness of what had happened, trusted the wrong person.

But that theory had its flaws, too, because who did Bethany know that would’ve even had the inclination or the know-how to contact the DOD? It’s not like you could call 1-800-ALIENS or something.

Looking into Bethany was a start, though.

Since Kat wasn’t home early Thursday evening, I scoped out Vaughn’s place on my own. As usual, nothing happened. I headed back to the house, spying Kat’s car in the driveway, but I knew she wasn’t there. She was out somewhere with Douche Bag, and to stop from wanting to blow up something, I reminded myself of why she was with him in the first place.

Because of my mouth.

Guilt churned in the pit of my gut as I headed to my bedroom. Once inside, I grabbed my laptop and refocused on Bethany.

I had no idea what I could find on the internet, but it was a start. I typed in her full name, and Google pulled up several articles. My chest hollowed as I started scanning through them. At first, they discussed her as if she were a missing child, and then the later articles hinted that she was presumed dead. Her family had moved away from Petersburg about a year ago, something I personally found strange. If I hadn’t been told that Dawson was dead and only that he was missing, I would probably stay here forever, hoping that he’d someday return.

Unless her family had reason to believe that she was dead.

Or they just couldn’t live in an area that served as a constant reminder. I could understand that.

I stared at a picture of Bethany on a news website. Pretty girl. Dark hair. Bright smile.

There was nothing on the internet, barely even a mention of Dawson, which I’m sure the DOD had something to do with. The lack of anything mentioning him was as if he’d been erased from history. Made sense. After all, we lived here, but when things went south, we ceased to exist.

Bethany hadn’t been at school long enough to get really close to anyone, so there wasn’t a friend I could check with. Dead end there. Closing the laptop, I stood and stretched, growing restless. What else…?

Beth’s house.

Lowering my arms, I smiled wryly. There was one place I could check out. Bethany’s old house. I didn’t even know if anyone had moved into it or if I’d find anything, but shit, it was better than pacing in my bedroom, which was surely coming next.

It was better than doing nothing.

I passed Dee’s bedroom on the way out. The door was halfway open. I stopped and peered inside. She was already asleep. What an exciting way to spend a Thursday evening. It wasn’t even seven. I knew the house wasn’t empty. I could hear Adam moving around downstairs.

I was almost at the door when Adam appeared, coming from the kitchen. The light from the Christmas tree flickered. He glanced at me and then the direction of the door. “You leaving?”

My brows rose. “You staying?”

“Actually, no. Dee’s asleep, and I was just cleaning up after the dinner she made.” He looked up the stairwell, smiling faintly. “I was just heading out. Where are you going?”

First inclination was to say nowhere, but as I stared at Adam, I made a split decision. “I’m going to go check out Bethany’s house.”

Adam blinked. “Come again?”

“Come outside, okay?” He followed me out onto the porch. My boots crunched over the layer of snow covering the porch, blown in by the wind. “Before I say anything else, I need to know you’re not going to repeat a single thing to anyone, including Dee.”

“You’re starting to worry me,” he replied, crossing his arms over his PHS sweatshirt. “This is the second time you’re asking me not to talk to Dee.”

“I know, and if you don’t want to keep her in the dark, then the convo between us ends here. Nothing personal,” I told him. “But I don’t want her knowing any of this. Not yet.”

Adam eyed me for a long moment and then exhaled roughly. “Okay. I swear. I won’t say anything, but this better be good.”

Oh, he had no idea. “Kat saw Bethany at the post office.”

His mouth opened and then snapped shut. A moment passed, and he tried again. “What?”

I glanced at the closed door. “She saw her at the post office, and she’s positive it was Bethany. Kat’s seen her picture.”

He shook his head slowly as he unfolded his arms. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Well, that’s not all.” I kept my voice low as I went on. “You know how I wondered if something had gone down between Dawson and Bethany—if he’d healed her, right?” When he nodded, I continued. “I think he did—no, I’m…I’m positive he did.” Once that was out, the rest was easy. “Dawson healed her and it changed her on a cellular level. It linked them together, bonding them.”

“Bonding them together?” Adam thrust his hand through his hair. “That sounds crazy. You know that, right? It sounds—”

“Matthew confirmed that it was possible.”

His eyes widened.

“Yeah.” I smiled, but it was without humor. “Matthew confirmed that we can heal a human to the point that it changes their DNA. They take on some of our abilities and it links us together. That means if Bethany is alive, then so is Dawson.”

“Holy…” Adam stepped back. “Dawson is alive?”

That spark of hope had turned into a seedling, and damn if it wasn’t growing. “I think so, Adam. I really think so.” I moved to the porch steps, stirring the snow. “Kat saw Bethany with Vaughn. If the DOD has her—”

“Then they have Dawson.” Adam cursed under his breath as he thrust his fingers through his hair again. “I don’t know if I should be happy or scared as hell, because if they have him and Bethany…”

“I know,” I said quietly, staring out over the still yard. “Someone had to have betrayed them. Dawson didn’t tell any of us. I think it might have been someone Bethany knew. So that’s why I want to check out her house. I don’t even know if anyone lives there now or—”

“No one lives there,” Adam said, coming to stand next to me. “We drive past it every so often on the way to school. No one has moved in since her family left.”

That was good news. Still didn’t mean we’d find anything, but it was worth trying.

“And you haven’t told Dee?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to get her hopes up if I’m just chasing a ghost, you know? It would kill her.”

“It will kill you.”

I didn’t respond.

Adam stepped off the porch. “I’m not going to say anything. Not until we have concrete proof, because you’re right, she doesn’t need to go through losing him all over again.” He paused, his eyes meeting mine. “But neither do you, Daemon. You shouldn’t have to experience this again.”

We traveled the several miles to Beth’s old house by foot, which only took us a handful of minutes. We stayed in our human forms so we didn’t freak out the locals. My face stung from the snowy wind as the renovated farmhouse came into view, perched atop a hill.

Snow crunched under our boots as we walked up the sidewalk and hit the front porch. I eyed the front door. It wasn’t just locked, but also had one of those Realtor locks on it. A closed and locked door wasn’t going to deter me. I placed my hand on the center of the door, prepared to blast it into next week.

“Hold on.” Adam stepped back. “We really don’t want to make it that obvious that we’re here.”

We didn’t?

With a quick grin, Adam backed off the porch and disappeared around the side of the house. A few moments later, I heard the click of the front door and then it opened. I arched a brow as Adam held the door open.

“Figured if we had to break something, we shouldn’t make it so obvious,” Adam said as I stepped past him, into the dark and cold house. “Plus the back door didn’t have one of those weird locks on it. Easily broken.”

“Smart,” I murmured, scanning the bare walls as I walked farther into the house.

Adam pulled out his cell phone. A few seconds later, the screen lit up with harsh white light, casting a glow along the floors and walls. We passed what looked like a living room. A couch draped in a light-colored canvas was the only thing remaining in the room. The kitchen was odd, though. A table sat in the corner of the room, covered in a thick layer of dust.

“Is this normal?” Adam asked, gesturing at the counters. Kitchen appliances were still in their designated spaces. A toaster sat next to a coffeemaker, and both had obviously been sitting untouched since the Williamses moved away. “Do people just leave stuff behind?”

I raised a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe they didn’t need it.”

“Or they were in a hurry,” Adam supplied.

In a hurry for what? To get away from all reminders of their missing, presumed dead daughter? Or something else? God. We would probably never know.

From the kitchen, we headed upstairs. Our footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent house. We found Bethany’s room pretty easily. From what I remembered, she liked to paint, and there was a nice-sized room with an easel by a dirtied window. There were papers on a small desk, mostly assignments from school. An odd pang hit me in the chest when I saw the neat stack of books in a corner. It reminded me of Kat.

This could be her.

One day, someone could be walking through her room, looking for evidence of what happened to her. Shit. That hit me hard, a fist to the lungs and stomach. Made me want to turn around, find Kat, and keep her…keep her safe somewhere, and that had nothing to do with us being connected. And the punch of panic was far too strong for someone who was just physically attracted to another person.

But I already knew that what I was feeling for Kat dug in far deeper than lust.

Adam opened a closet door, revealing that it hadn’t been packed up. Clothing hung from hangers. Jeans were stacked on a shelf. Shoes scattered the inside. “You know,” he said, stepping aside as he looked over his shoulder at me, “I think this is kind of weird.”

“Same here.” I had no idea if her parents had owned this house or rented it. Either way, it didn’t seem normal that this much stuff was left behind.

I riffled through the papers, finding nothing of interest. The same with her closet. What was I really expecting? A list of people Bethany might’ve confided in? Like life was that easy.

Adam roamed out of the room, and a few moments later he returned, his expression unreadable. “I think I found something interesting.”

Following him down the hall, we entered a smaller bedroom. Like the rest of the house, personal items were scattered about, along with dusty furniture. Adam walked over to an open closet and picked up what looked like a shoe box off the floor. He sat it on the stripped-down bed. “If I remember correctly, Beth lived here with her parents and a younger brother. Her dad worked in Virginia somewhere.”

I nodded, knowing this.

“And I’m pretty sure neither of her parents was a doctor. I remember Dawson telling me once what they did, but hell if I can remember exactly now, but I know neither of them was a doctor.” He gestured at the box. “Which is why I find it strange there’s a shoe box with a stethoscope and a blank prescription pad from the hospital.”

Walking over to the box, I picked up the pad. With the light from Adam’s phone, I saw that was indeed a prescription pad from the local hospital. “These cannot be easy to get ahold of nowadays, not if you don’t actually work at the hospital.”

“Exactly.” Adam moved the phone back to the box, shining the light on the stethoscope. He picked it up, running his thumb along the metal part. “Something was either scratched into the metal or engraved, but you can’t make it out.”

I caught it when he tossed it over, and he was right, the markings were ilegible. I dropped it back in the box, frowning. When I walked to the closet, I saw a couple of plain white men’s shirts lying on the floor.

“No one in her family was a doctor or worked at the hospital?” I asked.

“Not that I know of. I mean, at least not her immediate family, but it looks like someone else lived here with them.” Adam sighed. “The thing is, none of this could mean a damn thing.”

Bending at the knees, I nodded again. “I know.” I swept the shirts aside, feeling something under them. “Hey, bring the light over here.”

A second later, white light shone down on what was under the forgotten shirts. My brows lifted. Several unused bundles of gauze sat atop a bedpan, and I spotted a cane in the corner of the closet. A walker was folded up, resting against the back wall. Next to the bedpan was a pack of unused plastic cups with lids and an unopened six-pack of Ensure.

“Someone was either very old or very sick,” Adam commented.

“Yeah,” I murmured, standing up as unease crawled its way down my spine. “Someone who was either sick or old who might’ve worked at the hospital.”

“Uh-huh.”

Something about this struck me as wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What we found might not mean anything and as we scoped out the rest of the house, we didn’t find anything else. Later that night, as I lay in bed, staring at the cracks in the plaster, I still couldn’t shake the discomfort of knowing I’d stumbled across something without knowing what had tripped me.