Текст книги "Onyx (A Lux Novel)"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“Yeah,” Blake said, sounding real genuine.

We got started with moving stuff around for a little while and Daemon didn’t say much, not even a “Wow” or a “Congratulations,” but he watched me. Constantly.

“Moving stuff is just a parlor trick, really.” Blake’s arms were pinned to his chest.

“Wow.” Daemon cocked his head to the side. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

Blake ignored him. “The good news is you can do it on command now, but that doesn’t mean you have control. I hope it does, but we really don’t know.”

Damn. Blake was such a downer sometimes.

“I have an idea. You’re going to need to completely trust me. If I ask you to do something, you can’t fire back with a thousand questions.” He paused while Daemon’s eyes narrowed. “We need to see something amazing.”

Amazing? I was moving stuff without touching it! That’s pretty amazing in my book. But then again, there was the fire hoopla. “I’m doing my best.”

“Your best isn’t good enough.” He exhaled loudly. “Okay. Stay here.”

I glanced at Daemon as Blake disappeared into the foyer. “I have no idea what he’s up to.”

Daemon arched a brow. “I’m guessing it’s going to be something I don’t like.”

Like there was much Blake could do that Daemon would like. What he didn’t know or get was that Blake hadn’t put the moves on me. Not once since he’d tried to hug me that day in the diner. But maybe it was just plain old dislike.

While we waited, I heard drawers opening in the kitchen. There was a clankof silverware. Oh goodie, more glassware to destroy.

Blake returned and stopped in the doorway, one hand behind his back. “You ready?”

“Sure.”

He smiled and then cocked his arm back. Light reflected off the sharp edge of metal. A knife? And then the butcher knifewas flying straight at my chest.

A scream caught in my throat. I threw up my hand, horrified and panicked. The knife stopped in midair. Frozen inches from my chest, pointy end facing toward me. It just stayed there, suspended.

Blake clapped. “I knew it!”

I stared at him as my critical-thinking skills slowly trickled back in. “What the hell, Blake?”

Several things happened all at once. Now that my concentration was broken, the knife fell out of the air, smacking off the floor harmlessly. Blake was still clapping. I let loose several curses that would’ve caused my mom to cry and Daemon, who’d appeared to have been knocked into a stupor by what Blake had done, snapped out of it.

Daemon shot off that couch like a rocket, simultaneously flipping into his true form. A heartbeat later, he had Blake pinned halfway up the wall, swathed in an intense whitish-red light that lit up the entire living room.

I craned my neck and whispered, “Holy smokes.”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Blake yelled, arms flailing in the light. “You need to check yourself. Katy wasn’t in any danger.”

There was no response from Daemon, not one that Blake could hear, anyway, but I did. Loud and clear. That’s it. I’m going to kill him.

Windows began to shake and walls trembled. The flat-screen on the TV stand rattled. All around, little puffs of plaster filled the air. Daemon’s light flared, swallowing Blake whole, and for a horrible moment, I really thought he had killed Blake.

“Daemon!” I shrieked, darting around the coffee table. “Stop!”

But then there was a crackling sound, like air heated and charged after a lightning strike. Still in his Luxen form, Daemon jerked back and let Blake go. The boy landed on his feet and staggered to the side as he rose.

Daemon hummed and started toward Blake, but I got in the middle. “Okay. You two need to freaking stop.”

Blake ran both his hands down his shirt, straightening it. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You did throw a freaking knife at me,” I shot back. Wrong thing to say, because I heard Daemon promise, I will break him in two. “Stop.”

An arm appeared in the light and fingers brushed along my cheek. The touch was soft as silk and brief, lasting only half of a second and so quick that I doubted Blake even saw it. Then his light flickered out. He stood in his human form, trembling with barely restrained rage, his eyes white and sharp like icicles. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“She wasn’t in any danger! If I thought for a second she couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have thrown it at her!”

Daemon sidestepped me, his large hand curled into a fist. Human or alien, Daemon could do some real damage. “But there was no way you would’ve known she could do it! Not a hundred percent!”

Turning wide, pleading eyes to me, Blake shook his head. “I swear you were never in any danger, Katy. If I thought you couldn’t stop it, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Daemon cursed again and I moved, blocking him. “Who does that?” Daemon demanded. Heat rolled off his body.

“Actually, Kiefer Sutherland did. In the original Buffy movie,” he explained. When I continued to gape at him, he grimaced. “It was on TV a few nights ago. He threw one at Buffy and she caught it.”

“That was Donald Sutherland—the dad,” Daemon corrected, much to my surprise.

Blake shrugged. “Same difference.”

“I’m not Buffy!” I yelled.

A slow grin pulled at his lips. “You are definitely cuter than Buffy.”

And that wasn’t the right thing to say. Daemon growled low in his throat. “You got a death wish? Because you’re really pushing it tonight, buddy. I’m dead serious. Really pushing it. I can hold you up against that wall until you run out of juice. Can you hold me off forever? No? I didn’t think so.”

Blake’s jaw jutted out. “Okay. I’m sorry. But if she hadn’t been able to catch it, I would’ve stopped it. Just like you would’ve. No harm. No foul.”

A whirlwind of rage was building inside Daemon and I doubted I could stop him again if he went after Blake. I tensed. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”

“But—”

“Blake, I reallythink you should leave,” I said meaningfully. “Okay? I think you need to go.”

Blake looked over my shoulder and seemed to get it, because he nodded. “All right.” He started toward the door and stopped. “But you did great, Katy. I don’t think you realize how awesome that was.”

A low hum rattled the floors and Blake took his cue, hightailing his behind out of the house. Only when I heard the rumbling of his truck’s engine did I relax.

“No more,” Daemon said, voice low. “Absolutely no more.”

Slowly, I turned around. His eyes were still doing the glow thing. Up close, they were sort of beautiful—odd but really striking.

“He could have killed you, Kat. I’m not okay with that. I won’t be okay with that.”

“Daemon, he wasn’t trying to kill me.”

He looked incredulous. “Are you insane?”

“No.” Tired, I bent and picked up the huge serial-killer knife. As I held it, it sunk in that I had stopped a knife whizzing toward my chest. I faced Daemon, swallowing.

He was still ranting. “I don’t want you doing any more training with him. I don’t even want you near him. That boy’s got a few screws loose.”

Freezing anything was a huge deal. It was one of the most powerful uses of the Source, Blake and Daemon had both said, with the exception of using it as a weapon.

“I’m going to give him back-alley plastic surgery. I can’t—”

“Daemon,” I whispered.

“—believe he did that.” All of a sudden, he was wrapping his arms around me, hauling me against his chest. By some miracle, I didn’t stab him. “Jesus, Kat, he could have hurt you.”

Somewhat shocked by the close contact that he’d avoided since the evening he made me a sandwich, I didn’t move at first. His entire body hummed. The hand that came up, wrapping around the back of my head, shook slightly.

“Look, you’ve obviously got some control. I can help you work on it,” he said, resting his chin against the top of my head, and God, his arms, his body was so warm and so perfect. “This can’t happen again.”

“Daemon.” My voice was muffled against his chest.

“What?” He pulled back a little, lowering his chin.

“I froze it.”

His brows knitted. “Huh?”

“I frozethe knife.” I wiggled free, waving the thing around. “I didn’t just stop it, but I froze it. The thing was just hovering in air.”

It seemed to hit him, too. “Holy…”

I laughed. “God, that’s pretty huge, isn’t it?”

Daemon nodded. “It is. That’s…that’s a big deal.”

Excitement thrummed through me. “We can’t stop training.”

“Kat—”

“We can’t! Look, throwing a knife at me isn’t cool. And God knows, I’m not exactly thrilled that he did it, but it worked. It really worked. We’re getting somewhere—”

“What part of ’He could’ve killed you’ don’t you understand?” Daemon backed off, which usually meant he was really, really angry. “I don’t want you training with him. Not when he’s putting your life in danger.”

“He’s not putting my life in danger.” Besides catching my fingers on fire and the knife incident—but still, the risks were worth it. If I could control these abilities and actually use them to protect Daemon and Dee, then I wouldn’t be just a human—or just a mutated human one step away from exposing them to the world.

“We can’t stop,” I reasoned. “I’ll be able to control it and use the Source, just like you and Dee can. I can help you—”

“Help me with what?” Daemon stared at me, then laughed. “Help me to fight Arum?”

Okay. I wasn’t going that far, but now that he mentioned it, why not? According to Blake, I had potential to be stronger than Daemon. Crossing my arms over my chest, I tapped the edge of the knife on my arm. “Yeah, what if I wanted to?”

He laughed again, and I wanted to kick him. “Kitten, you’re not helping me fight Arum.”

“Why not? If I can control the Source and help, why not? I could fight.”

“I think the reasons are pretty huge,” he yelled, all the humor vanishing. “First off, you’re a human.”

“Not really.”

His eyes narrowed. “Granted, you’re a mutated human, but a human who’s a hell of a lot weaker and more vulnerable than a Luxen.”

I exhaled slowly. “You don’t know how weak or vulnerable I’ll be fully trained.”

“Whatever. Secondly, you have no business going up against the Arum. That will never happen.”

“Daemon—”

“It won’t if I’m still alive. Do you understand that? You will never go after an Arum. I don’t care if you can stop the world from spinning.”

I tried to push down my anger. One thing I hated more than Daemon’s douche-nozzle side was him telling me what to do. “You don’t own me, Daemon.”

“It’s not about ownership, you little nut.”

“Nut?” I glared at him. “I wouldn’t call me names when I have a knife in my hand.”

He ignored that. “Thirdly, there is something off about Blake. You can’t tell me you don’t see or sense that.”

“Oh, don’t—”

“You know nothing about him—nothing deeper than that he likes to surf and blog. Big deal.”

“These aren’t good enough reasons.”

“Because I don’t want you in danger—how about that? Is that damn good enough for you?” he shouted, and I jumped. He looked away, drawing in several deep breaths.

I hadn’t realized that could’ve been the real reason behind it all. About every part of me softened, and my temper slipped away like a snowflake melting. “Daemon, you can’t stop me just to protect me.”

His head swung back to me. “I needto protect you.”

Needwas such a strong word that it stole my breath and my heart. “Daemon, I’m flattered—I am, but your job is not to protect me. I’m not Dee. I’m not another one of your responsibilities.”

“Damn right you’re not Dee! But you are my responsibility. I got you into this mess. And I will not be dragging you further into it!”

My head was spinning. His reasons for wanting me to stop training with Blake were right but all wrong. I needed to prove to him that I wasn’t a liability or something to be constantly watched over. If he felt that way and did keep putting himself in jeopardy because of me, he could lose his own life or Dee’s.

“I’m not stopping,” I said.

Daemon stared at me. “Does it even matter that I don’t want you in that kind of danger? That I won’t facilitate something as idiotic as you gearing up to go against the Arum?”

I flinched. Ouch, that stung. “Wanting to help you and your kind is idiotic?”

His jaw tightened. “Yeah, it is.”

“Daemon,” I whispered. “I get that you care—”

“You don’t get it. That’s the problem!” He stopped, pulling it all back in, sucking the air right out of the room with it. “I won’t be a part of this. I mean it, Katy. You chose this, then…whatever. I won’t have this hanging over my head like I do every freaking day with Dawson. I won’t make another mistake and condone this.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. My chest ached at the thought of him carrying that kind of guilt—guilt that didn’t belong to him. “Daemon—”

“What will it be, Katy?” He looked at me dead-on. “Tell me now.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes. Didn’t he see? Going through with this would give me a better chance of not turning out like Bethany and Dawson, of being able to take care of myself and protect him, because one day, he’d need it.

Daemon took a step back as though I’d hit him. “That was the wrong thing to say.” His face turned hard, his eyes like glaciers. The coldness radiating from him chilled me to the bone. He’d never looked more detached. “I’m done.”

Chapter 21

Part of me wanted to skip classes the next day, but it wasn’t like I could hide forever. Unexpectedly, Daemon was a no-show. I didn’t see him in the halls, either, or when I grabbed my stuff out of my locker before lunch. He never showed.

I’d chased him right out of the damn school.

“Hey,” Blake said, strolling up to me. “You don’t look any better.”

Through the duration of bio, I’d pretty much had my face stuck in my textbook. I sighed, closing the door. “Yeah, not feeling it today.”

“Hungry?” When I shook my head, he tugged on my backpack. “Me neither. I know a place to go, no food and no people.”

Sounded good to me, because the last thing I could stomach right now was watching Adam and Dee go to second base at the lunch table. Turned out, the place Blake had in mind was the empty auditorium. Perfect.

We sat in the back, propping our feet up on the seats in front of us. Blake pulled an apple from his bag. “Did Daemon ever calm down last night?”

I groaned inwardly. “Yeah…not really.”

“I was afraid of that.” There was a pause as he bit into the shiny red fruit. “You really weren’t in any danger. If you didn’t stop it, one of us would’ve.”

“I know.” I scooted down and laid my head on the back of my seat. “He just doesn’t want to see me hurt.” And that actually hurt to say, because I knew there was a mile-long road of good intentions behind what he had been saying last night, but he needed to see me as an equal. Not someone who was weak and needed rescuing.

“That’s admirable.” Blake grinned around his apple. “You know I don’t like the tool, but he cares about you. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you two.”

“It’s not your fault.” I patted his knee, not surprised when I got a little shock. “Everything will be okay.”

Blake nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

He took another bite before he continued. “Is Daemon the one who healed you? I ask, because it may give me a better understanding of your power to know who changed you.”

Anxiousness blossomed. “Why would you think it was him?”

Blake gave me a pointed look. “It would explain how close you two are. My friend and I were close afterward. I almost always knew when he was around. We were like two halves of the same whole after he healed me. It was a strong…bond.”

Healing me was so forbidden that even an army of Arum couldn’t get me to admit that it had been Daemon. “That’s good to know, but that’s not the case.” Curiosity did get the best of me, though. “You say you two were close. Did it make you…attracted to him?”

“What?” He laughed. “No. We were like brothers, but the connection—whatever it is that they do to us—doesn’t force us to feel anything. It just makes us close to who healed us. It’s stronger than a familial bond, but not sexual or even emotional on that kind of level.”

I lowered my lashes before he could see the rush of fresh tears that burned my eyes. Great. I was the biggest asshat alive. This whole time I’d kept throwing the alien connection in Daemon’s face and it hadn’t been what was propelling him.

“Well, that’s good to know.” My own voice sounded strange to me. “Anyway...why is it so important who healed me?”

He looked at me like he doubted my IQ as he finished off his apple. “Because I hear that how strong the Luxen is who heals you is an indication of how much stronger you’ll be. At least, that’s what I’ve picked up from Liz. Her power and limitations were linked to who healed her. Same as me.”

“Oh.” Well, that explained how I blasted a satellite into outer space. Daemon’s ego would go through the charts if he knew. I started to grin, but thinking of him renewed the ache in my chest.

“Which is why I thought it was Daemon, but he’s pretty damn powerful. No offense, but you really haven’t done anything extraordinary, so…”

“Gee, thanks?” I laughed at his chagrined look. “Anyway, it’s not anyone you’d ever expect, and that’s all I’m willing to say about it, okay?”

“All right.” He held up the core of his apple, frowning. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

I was quick to tell him that I did, I stopped. Someone at least deserved my honesty. “Don’t take it personally, but right now, I think trust is something not easily given, considering.”

Blake glanced at me sideways and smiled. “Good idea.”

…

If I saw another knife in the next ten years, I’d need long-term psychiatric care. Spending time with a knife being thrown at me wasn’t my idea of fun.

Thankfully, I’d been able to stop them all. And without Daemon there, Blake stayed in one piece.

He moved onto throwing non-deadly stuff at my head, like pillows and books, by the end of the week. After several hours, I’d mastered the art of not eating fabric. I never let the books hit me or the floor, though. That just seemed sacrilegious.

It seemed ass backward to start off with the knives and end with the pillow, but I understood his master plan. My ability was also tied to my emotions—like fear. I needed to be able to tap into those strong feelings and use them when I wasn’t freaking out. I also needed to be able to control them when I was spazzing.

I groaned as I picked up all of the pillows off the floor and the books off the coffee table, putting them each back where they belonged.

“Tired?” Blake commented, lounging against the wall.

“Yeah.” I yawned.

“You know how the Luxen get tired from using their powers?” Blake grabbed the last book, placing it where he’d gotten it: the TV stand.

“Yeah, and I remember you saying something about us tiring out faster than they do.”

“We are just like the Luxen in that sense. They use up energy to do things—the whole sending-a-piece-of-them thing? We’re the same way, but they can go a lot longer than we can. I don’t know why. Has something to do with the fact that we only have half-alien DNA, but we have to be careful, Katy. The more abilities we use, the weaker we get. And faster.”

“Great,” I muttered. “So Daemon could’ve really held you against the wall all night?”

“Yep.” He stopped beside me. “Sugar helps. But so does the Melody Stone.”

“The what?” I rubbed the back of my neck as I dropped onto the couch.

“It’s a type of crystal—a very rare opal.” He sat beside me, so close that his thigh pressed against mine. I scooted away.

“What does it do?”

He rested his head back on the cushion and gave me a lopsided shrug. “From what I’ve learned, it can help increase our powers. Possibly even stabilize them so we don’t grow tired like the Luxen do.”

The whole crystal business didn’t make sense to me. It sounded like a bunch of New Age crap, but then again, what did I know? “Do you have one?”

Blake laughed. “No. They’re hard to get.”

Grabbing an abused pillow, I placed it under my head and closed my eyes, snuggling against the arm of the couch. “Well, then I guess it’s just me and sugar.”

There was a pause. “You did really well, though. You’re a fast learner.”

“Ha! You weren’t saying that the first week of training.” I yawned. “Maybe this won’t be so hard. I’ll get control of my abilities…and everything will go back to normal.”

“Things won’t ever be normal, Katy. Once you step outside the range of the beta quartz, the Arum will find you.” The couch dipped on my side, but I was too tired to open my eyes. “But if you can really control this, you’ll be able to defend yourself.”

And that’s what I wanted. To stand beside Daemon, not cower behind him. “You’re such a bearer of great news. You know that?”

“I don’t mean to.”

The cushion under me shifted even more, and I felt Blake’s fingers brushing my hair aside. My eyes snapped open, and I jerked up, twisting around to face him. “Blake.”

He sat back, placing his hand on his thigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay over there.”

Was that all? Or more? Oh, man, this was so awkward. “Things are really complicated right now.”

“Understandable,” he said, sitting back. “You like him, don’t you?”

I clutched the pillow to my chest, not sure what to say.

“Don’t lie.” He laughed when I frowned. “You always blush when you lie.”

“I don’t know why people keep saying that. My cheeks are not a human lie detector.” I toyed with a frayed thread, knowing we needed to have thatconversation, especially since we were working together. “I’m sorry. Just right now—”

“Katy, it’s okay.” He placed his hand on mine, squeezing reassuringly. “For real. I like you. I do. Obviously. But you have a lot going on, and probably some of that was before I even came here. So it’s okay. Really.”

The first real smile in two days turned up my lips. “Thanks for being so…understanding.”

Blake pushed off the couch, running his hand through his hair. “Well, I have the time to be patient. I’m not going anywhere.”

…

I sat in class, trying to focus on what Carissa and Lesa were talking about. My skin was alternating between hot and cold flashes.

“So, Katy, you’ve been hanging out with surfer boy a lot.” Lesa cocked an eyebrow. “Care to share the details on that?”

I shrank in my seat. “No. We’re just hanging out.”

“Just hanging out,” Lesa repeated slyly, “is like code for having sex.”

Carissa’s mouth dropped open. “No, it’s not!”

“You obviously haven’t dated a lot of guys around here.” Lesa sat back in her chair, pulling on a tight curl. “Actually, pretty much everything with guys around here is code for sex.”

“I’m going to have to go with Carissa on this one. Hanging out does not equal sex the last time I—”

Tingles shot across my neck and my heart rate spiked. I caught a glimpse of Daemon coming through the doorway and I focused on Lesa’s face as though she were my lifeline.

Daemon glided past my seat and took his behind me. I clenched the edges of my notebook, hoping our teacher wouldn’t take his sweet time getting to class.

A pen poked me in the back.

An unbelievably giddy rush swept through me. I turned slowly. I couldn’t pick up anything from his guarded expression.

“I see you’ve been…busy,” he said, lashes lowered.

Sucky part about living next to Daemon was the fact he pretty much saw everything I did. And that meant he knew I was still training with Blake. “Yeah, kind of.”

Daemon’s elbows scooted over the desk as he cupped his chin in his hands. “So what is Bobo doing?”

“It’s Blake,” I said, voice low. “And you know what we’ve been doing. You’re more—”

“Not going to happen.” He then laughed under his breath, but there was no humor to it as he inched a little closer. His irises deepened. “I really wish you’d think about this.”

“And I wish you’d think about this.”

Daemon didn’t respond. He pulled his elbows back toward him, crossing his arms. Our conversation was obviously over. I twisted around, feeling icky.

Morning classes dragged. Lesa was waiting for me outside of bio, stopping me from going in. “Can I ask you a question?” she said, glancing around.

I sighed. “Sure.”

She pulled me against an unoccupied locker. “What’s going on? You kissed Daemon before Halloween, went out with Blake once, and now you went out with him again, but you and Daemon undeniably have something going on.”

I made a face. “Gee, it sounds like I’m a ho-bag or something.”

Lesa made a face. “I’m so not the one who’s going to slut shame. Trust me. I’m just curious. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

One of the reasons I liked Lesa? She didn’t beat around the bush. She spoke what she thought, and because of that, I was more open with her than anyone. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, I do. I’m not…dating Blake. And I’m not dating Daemon.”

“You’re not?”

I leaned against the cool steel and sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Can’t be that complicated,” she said. “Who do you like?”

Closing my eyes, I finally put voice to it. “Daemon.”

“Ah-ha!” She bumped me with her hip. “Wait. How is it complicated? Daemon’s got it for you big time. Everyone can see that, even when you guys are at each other’s throats. And you like him. What’s the deal?”

How could I explain how messed up everything was? “It’s just really complicated. Trust me.”

Lesa frowned. “I’m going to have to take your word for it, because Blake is coming down the hall.” She whipped around so quickly it was like she’d been caught peeping down my shirt.

Bio was uneventful. Blake typically acted like we weren’t mutants or anything while we were in school, and I appreciated him for that. Here, I could be normal, as odd as that was.

I discovered they were serving cold lasagna and salad that smelled funny for lunch. Yum. I slopped some on my plate while craving a strawberry smoothie. Doubtful I’d get that delivered today. Daemon had stopped bringing me treats about the time training had started. I missed it. I missed him.

Dee and Adam were joined at the mouth when I sat down. I glanced at Carissa. She rolled her eyes, but I smiled. My sucky love life aside, I was still on Team Love Rocks. The only thing I honestly couldn’t deal with was my mom and Will making out, which I’d gotten an eyeful of yesterday before she left for work. Ew.

“You going to eat that salad?” Dee asked.

“It’s cute how you stopped kissing for food.” I laughed, pushing my tray toward her. “Hey, Adam.”

His cheeks were flushed. “Hey, Katy.”

“Sorry. I worked up an appetite.” Dee grinned.

“And I lost mine,” Carissa muttered.

Blake never arrived at the cafeteria, but Daemon had. He’d taken his seat beside Andrew and Ash. Against my will, I watched him. Daemon glanced up, holding a smoothie. He smirked.

Bastard.

I shifted my gaze to Dee. “How can you eat that? I swear the edges of the lettuce are brown. It’s gross.”

Adam laughed. “Dee can eat anything.”

“So can you.” She offered him the tomato on her fork. “Want some?”

“Okay.” I sat back. “If you feed him, I’m going to have to find a new table.”

“I second that,” Carissa added.

Dee rolled her eyes but relented. “I like to share. What’s wrong with that?” Then she looked at me, her expression hopeful. “I’m glad you’re eating with us…alone today.”

Uncomfortable, I nodded and focused on pulling apart my lasagna. I hated layered food, unless those layers involved chocolate and peanut butter.

Lunch and the afternoon classes finally ended, and I swung by the post office to pick up the mail before Blake came over.

As I was placing the junk and packages on the backseat, I caught sight of one of the black Expeditions parked at the edge of the parking lot, as if they’d pulled over abruptly and left the engine running.

It could be any Expedition, I told myself as I closed the door, but a shiver danced down my spine and all the tiny hairs rose on my arms. Maybe I’d developed some kind of wicked sixth sense along with my alien mojo?

Going to the driver’s side, I kept an eye on the Expedition. Smoke plumed out of the muffler, choking the air.

Suddenly, the passenger door jerked open and I saw two people. Brian Vaughn, the DOD officer who owned the creepiest laugh ever, was leaning over the passenger, grabbing for the door. His mouth was a thin, angry slash as he groped for the door with one hand while his arm braced a girl against the seat.

Squinting, I took another look at the girl when I should’ve been climbing into my car and getting the hell out of there. The last thing I needed was for Vaughn to catch me peeping at him, but…I knewthis girl.

I’d seen her face on a flyer, taped on the glass windows of FOOLAND. Her brown hair was pulled back tightly from her pale, elfin face. Her eyes weren’t dancing with laughter when she turned to the door, watching Vaughn pull it shut, closing her in…closing me out.

Her eyes were empty.

But it was her.

It was Bethany.