Opal (24 page)

Chapter 25

I felt the warm tingle on the back of my neck numbly, and then Daemon stood in the doorway, brows lifted and his mouth hanging open.

“I can’t leave you alone for two seconds, Kitten.”

I sprung from the mess of clothing and threw myself in his arms. All of it came out in an incoherent babble of words and run-on sentences. Several times he slowed me down and asked me to repeat myself before he got the general gist of what went down.

He took me downstairs and sat beside me on the couch, his fingers moving over my bottom lip as his eyes narrowed in concentration. Healing warmth spread along my lips and across my aching cheeks.

“I don’t understand what happened,” I said, tracking his movements. “She was normal last week. Daemon, you saw her. How did we not know this?”

His jaw tightened. “I think the better question is, why did she come after you?”

The knot that had been in my stomach moved upward, settling on my chest and making it hard to breathe. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t know anything anymore. I kept rewinding every conversation with Carissa, from the first time I met her up until she was out of school with the “flu.” Where were the clues, the red herring? I couldn’t find one that stood out.

Daemon frowned. “She could’ve known a Luxen—known the truth and knew not to tell anyone. I mean, no one inside of the colony knows that you’re aware of the truth.”

“But there’s no other Luxen around our age,” I said.

His gaze flicked up. “None outside the colony, but there are a few who are only a couple years older or younger than us
in
the colony.”

It was possible that Carissa had always known and we didn’t. I’d never told her or Lesa, so it took no leap of the imagination to think that Carissa knew but never told anyone. But why did she try and kill me?

Entirely possible that I wasn’t the only person around here who knew what lived among us, but dear God, what went wrong? Had she been hurt and a Luxen tried to heal her? “You don’t think…” I couldn’t finish the question. It was too sickening, but Daemon knew where I was going with it.

“That Daedalus took her and forced a Luxen to heal her like with Dawson?” Anger darkened the green hue. “I seriously pray that’s not the case. If so, it’s just…”

“Revolting,” I said hoarsely. My hands shook so I shoved them between my knees. “She wasn’t there. Not even a flicker of her personality. She was like a zombie, you know? Just freaking crazed. Is that what instability does?”

Daemon moved his hands away and the healing warmth ebbed off. When it did, so did the barrier that had kept the truth of everything from really breaking free and consuming me.
“God, she…she died. Does that mean…?” I swallowed, but the lump was pushing its way up my throat.

Daemon’s arms tightened. “If it were one of the Luxen here, then I’ll hear about it, but we don’t know if the mutation held. Blake has said that sometimes the mutation is unstable and that sounded pretty damn unstable. The bonding only happens if it’s a stable mutation, I believe.”

“We need to talk to Blake,” I said, and a shudder rolled through me. I blinked, but my vision blurred even more. I took a breath and choked. “Oh…oh, God, Daemon…that was Carissa. That was Carissa and that wasn’t right.”

Another shudder racked my shoulders and before I knew what was happening, I was crying—those big, breath-stealing sobs. Vaguely, I realized that Daemon had pulled me over to him and cradled my head to his chest.

I’m not sure how long the tears came, but every part of me ached in a way that couldn’t by repaired by Daemon. Carissa was wholly innocent in all of this, or at least I believed her to be, and maybe that’s what made this whole thing worse. I didn’t know how deep Carissa was involved, and how would I ever find out?

The tears…they flowed, practically soaking Daemon’s shirt, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, he held me tighter and he whispered in that lyrical voice of his in a language I could never understand but felt drawn to nonetheless. The unknown words soothed me and I wondered if long ago someone, a parent maybe, had held him and whispered the same words to him. And how many times had he done it for his siblings? Even with all the bark
and
bite he carried, he was a natural at this.

It calmed the dark abyss, dulled the edges of the sharp blow.

Carissa… Carissa was gone, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. Or with the fact that her last act had been to try to take me out, which was so, so unlike her.

When the tears finally subsided, I sniffled and wiped at my face with my sleeves. The one on my right was charred from the energy blast and was rough against my cheek. The scratchy feeling poked a memory free.

I lifted my head. “She had a bracelet I’d never seen her wear before. The same kind of bracelet that Luc had on.”

“Are you sure?” When I nodded, he leaned back against the couch, keeping me in his embrace. “This is even more suspicious.”

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk to Luc without our unwanted sidekick first.” He tipped his chin up, letting out a long sigh. Worry touched his face, roughened his voice. “I’ll let the others know.” I started to speak, but he shook his head. “I don’t want you to have to go through telling them what happened.”

I lowered my cheek to his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“And I’ll take care of your bedroom. We’ll get it cleaned up.”

Relief coursed through me. Cleaning up that room, seeing the spot on the floor, was the last thing I wanted to do. “You’re perfect, you know.”

“Sometimes,” he murmured, brushing his chin along my cheek. “I’m sorry, Kat. I’m sorry about Carissa. She was a good girl and didn’t deserve this.”

My lips trembled. “No, she didn’t.”

“And you didn’t deserve to have to go through that with her.”

I didn’t say anything to that, because I wasn’t so sure what I deserved anymore. Sometimes I didn’t think I even deserved Daemon.

We made plans to go to Martinsburg on Wednesday, which meant we’d be missing our second day of onyx training, but I couldn’t think about that right now. Finding out how Carissa ended up a hybrid and in possession of the same kind of bracelet Luc wore was paramount. If I could figure out what happened to her, then there would be some kind of justice.

I had no idea what I was supposed to say at school when Carissa never came back and the inevitable questions began. I didn’t think I had it in me to pretend to be clueless and tell more lies. Another kid missing…

Oh, God, Lesa… What would Lesa do? They’d been best friends since grade school.

I squeezed my eyes tight and curled up against Daemon. The aches of the fight had long faded, but I was weary to the core, mentally and physically drained. It was ironic that I’d spent the last month avoiding the living room and now it would be my bedroom. I was running out of rooms to hide from.

Daemon kept up talking in his beautiful language, a streaming melody, until I drifted off in his arms. I was only a little aware of him placing me on the couch and drawing the afghan over me.

Hours later, I opened my eyes and saw Dee sitting in the recliner, legs tucked against her chest, reading one of my books. A favorite YA paranormal of mine—about a demon-hunting girl living in Atlanta.

But what was Dee doing here?

I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face. The clock below the TV, an old-fashioned windup one that my mom loved, read a quarter till midnight.

Dee closed the book. “Daemon went to Walmart in Moorefield. So that will take an absurd amount of time, but it’s the only place open that has throw rugs.”

“Throw rugs?”

Her features tightened. “For your bedroom… There weren’t any extra ones in the house and he didn’t want your mom looking for one and finding the spot, thinking you were trying to burn down the house.”

The spot…? Sleep faded away completely as the last couple of hours resurfaced. The spot on my bedroom floor where Carissa had basically self-destructed.

“Oh, God….” I threw my legs off the couch, but they shook too much to stand. Tears welled behind my eyes. “I didn’t… I didn’t kill her.”

I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it was because deep down I wondered if Dee would automatically assume I was responsible for what happened to Carissa.

“I know. Daemon told me everything.” She unfurled her legs, lashes lowered, fanning her cheeks. “I can’t…”

“You can’t believe this happened?” She nodded, and I tucked my legs up, wrapping my arms around them. “I can’t, either. I just can’t even wrap my brain around it.”

Dee was silent for a moment. “I haven’t talked to her since…well, since everything.” She tipped her head down and her hair slipped over her shoulders, shielding her face. “I liked her and I was a complete bitch to her.”

I started to tell her that she hadn’t been, but Dee looked up, a wry smile on her lips. “Don’t lie to make me feel better. I appreciate it, but it doesn’t change the fact. I don’t think I even said two words to her since Adam…died, and now…”

And now she was dead, too.

I wanted to comfort her, but there was a gulf and a ten-foot wall topped with barbed wire between Dee and me. The electrical fence surrounding the wall had disappeared, but there wasn’t any level of ease between us, and right now, that hurt more than anything.

Rubbing a kink in my neck, I closed my eyes. My brain was sluggish and I wasn’t sure what I should be doing right now. All I wanted to do was mourn my friend, but how was I supposed to grieve someone who no one in the outside would knew had passed?

Dee cleared her throat. “Daemon and I cleaned up your bedroom. Um, there are a few things that weren’t salvageable. Some clothing that was burned or torn I threw away. I…I hung a picture over the crack in the wall.” She peeked up as if gauging my reaction. “Your laptop… It’s not…in functioning shape.”

My shoulders slumped. The laptop was the least of tonight’s causalities, but I had no idea how I was going to explain that to my mom.

“Thank you,” I said finally, voice thick. “I don’t think I could’ve done that.”

Dee twisted a strand of hair around her finger. Minutes passed in silence and then, “Are you okay, Katy? Like, really okay?”

Shock caused me to take a few seconds to respond. “No, I’m not,” I said truthfully.

“I didn’t think so.” She paused, wiping under her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I really liked Carissa.”

“Me, too,” I whispered, and there was nothing else to be said.

Everything that came before tonight and everything we’d been so focused on seemed almost unimportant, which those issues weren’t, but a friend was dead—another friend. Her death and her life was a mystery. I’d known her for six months, but I hadn’t known her at all.

Chapter 26

Playing sick on Tuesday, I stayed home and vegetated on the couch. I couldn’t do the school thing. See Lesa and know her best friend was dead and pretend I didn’t know a thing. I just couldn’t do it yet.

Every so often, I saw Carissa’s face. There were two versions: before last night and afterward. When I saw her and her funky glasses in my memories, my chest ached, and when I saw those vastly empty eyes, I wanted to cry all over again.

And I did.

Mom didn’t push it. For one thing, I rarely skipped school. And secondly, I looked like crap. Being sick didn’t take a leap of faith. She spent the better part of the morning coddling me and I soaked it up, needing my mom more than she could ever know.

Later, after she went upstairs to get some sleep, Daemon showed up unexpectedly. Wearing a black cap pulled down low, he came in and closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” It was only one in the afternoon.

He took my hand, pulling me into the living room. “Nice jammies.”

I ignored that. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.” He twisted his cap around.

“I’m all right.”

Daemon shot me a knowing look. Admittedly, I was happy that he was here, because I did need someone who knew what was really going on. All day I’d been ripped apart, caught by guilt and confusion, tossed around by sorrow I couldn’t really even grasp.

Wordlessly, he led me to the couch and stretched out, tucking me against his side. His heavy arm around my waist had a soothing weight. Keeping our voices low, we talked about normal things—safe things that didn’t slice through him or me.

After a while, I twisted in his arms so that our noses brushed. We didn’t kiss. There wasn’t one shenanigan going on between us. We held each other, though, and that was more intimate than anything else we could’ve done. Daemon’s presence eased me. At some point, we dozed off, our breaths mixing.

My mom had to have come downstairs at some point and seen us together on the couch, just the way we were when I woke: Daemon’s head resting atop mine, my hand balled around his shirt. It was the scent of the coffee that roused me just around five.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of his embrace and smoothed my hands through my hair. Mom stood in the doorway, one leg crossed over her ankle as she leaned against the frame. A steaming cup of coffee was in her hands.

Mom was wearing Lucky Charms pajamas.

Oh, holy Houdini. “Where did you get them?” I asked.

“What?” She took a sip.

“Those…hideous pajamas,” I said.

She shrugged. “I like them.”

“They’re cute,” Daemon said, taking off his hat and running his hand through his messy hair. I elbowed him, and he gave me a cheeky grin. “I’m sorry, Miss Swartz, I didn’t mean to fall asleep with—”

“It’s okay.” She waved him off. “Katy hasn’t been feeling well, and I’m glad you wanted to be here for her, but I hope you don’t get what she has.”

He cast me a sideways look. “I hope you didn’t give me cooties.”

I huffed. If anyone was spreading alien cooties, it was Daemon.

Mom’s cell went off, and she dug it out of her pajama pocket, sloshing coffee onto the floor. Her face lit up, the way it always did when Will called her. My heart dropped as she turned and headed into the kitchen.

“Will,” I whispered, standing before I realized it.

Daemon was right behind me. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“I do. It’s in her eyes—he makes her glow.” I wanted to barf, like, seriously. Suddenly, I saw Mom on the bedroom floor, lifeless, gone like Carissa. Panic blossomed and took root. “I need to tell her why Will got close to her.”

“Tell her what?” He blocked me. “That he was here to get close to you—that he used her? I don’t think that’s going to lessen any blows.”

I opened my mouth, but he had a point.

He placed his hands on my shoulders. “We don’t know if it was him calling or what’s happened to him. Look at Carissa,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Her mutation was unstable. It didn’t take long for it…to do what it did.”

“Then that means it held.” He wasn’t making me feel better about anything right now.

“Or it means it faded off.” He tried again. “We can’t do anything until we know what we’re dealing with.”

I shifted my weight restlessly, watching over his shoulder. Stress built in me like a seven-ton ball that settled on my shoulders. There was so much to deal with.

“One at a time,” Daemon said, as if he read my thoughts. “We’re going to deal with things one at a time. That’s all we can do.”

Nodding, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. My heart still raced. “I’m going to see if it was him.”

He let go and stepped aside, and I hurried to the door.

“I like your pajamas better,” he said, and I turned. Daemon grinned at me, that lopsided one that hinted at laughter.

My jammies weren’t much better than Mom’s. They had, like, a thousand pink and purple polka dots on them. “Shut up,” I said.

Daemon returned to the couch. “I’ll be waiting.”

I went to the kitchen just as Mom was getting off the phone, her features pinched. The weight on my shoulders increased. “What’s wrong?”

She blinked and forced a smile. “Oh, nothing, honey.”

Grabbing a towel, I wiped up the spilled sugar. “Doesn’t look like nothing.” In fact, it looked like a whole lot of something.

Mom grimaced. “It was Will. He’s still out west. He thinks he came down with something traveling. He’s going to stay out there until he feels better.”

I froze.
Liar
, I wanted to scream.

She dumped her coffee and rinsed out her cup. “I didn’t tell you this, honey, because I didn’t want to drag up bad memories, but Will…well, he was sick once, like your father.”

My mouth dropped open.

Mistaking my surprise, she said, “I know. It seems cosmically unfair, doesn’t it? But Will has been in remission. His cancer was completely curable.”

I had nothing to say. Nothing. Will had told her he’d been sick.

“But of course, I worry.” She placed the cup in the dishwasher, but she didn’t close the door all the way. I shut it out of habit. “Useless to worry over something like that, I know.” She stopped in front of me, placing her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Are you feeling better?”

The change in conversation threw me. “Yeah, I feel fine.”

“Good.” Mom smiled then and it wasn’t forced. “Don’t worry about Will, honey. He’ll be fine and back before we know it. Everything will be okay.”

My heart tripped up. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

I came so close to telling her everything, but I froze. Daemon was right. What could I say? I shook my head. “I’m sure…Will’s okay.”

She bent quickly, kissing my cheek. “He’d be happy to know you were concerned.”

A hysterical laugh crept up my throat. I was sure he would be.

…

Later that day, after Mom had left for work, I stood beside the lake, staring at a pile of glittering onyx.

Matthew and Daemon hadn’t said much since we arrived, and even Blake was abnormally quiet. They all knew what had happened last night with Carissa. Daemon had spoken to Blake earlier in the day; the entire conversation had gone down between the two without fists being thrown and I’d missed it. Apparently Blake had never witnessed an unstable hybrid with his own eyes. He’d only heard about them.

But Dawson had.

He’d seen people who’d been brought to him, had been normal Joes before the mutation and then snapped days later. Violent outbursts were common right before they went into self-destruction mode. All of them had been given the serum I’d been given. Without it, according to Blake, the mutation could hold, but it was rare and in most cases, the mutations faded.

Since I arrived at the lake, Dawson had stayed close to my side while Daemon and Matthew handled the onyx carefully.

“I had to do it once,” Dawson said quietly, focused on the overcast sky.

“Do what?”

“Watch a hybrid die like that.” He took a breath, squinting. “The guy just went crazy, and no one could stop him. He took out one of the officers and then there was a flash of light. Sort of like spontaneous combustion, because when the light faded, he was gone. Nothing was left. It happened so fast, he couldn’t have felt a thing.”

I remembered how Carissa was shaking, and I knew she
had
to feel that. Feeling nauseous, I focused on Daemon. The onyx was in a hole, and he knelt in front of it, talking quietly to Matthew. I was glad the rest of the group wasn’t there.

“Did the people they brought to you know why they were there?” I asked.

“Some did, like they signed up for it. Others were sedated. They didn’t have a clue. I think they were homeless people.”

That was sickening. Unable to stay still, I headed toward the bank of the lake. The water wasn’t frozen over anymore, but it was still and calm. Completely at odds with how I felt inside.

Dawson followed. “Carissa was a good person. She didn’t deserve this. Do we even know why they chose her?”

I shook my head. I’d spent a good part of the day thinking about everything. Even if Carissa had known about the Luxen and had been healed by one, Daedalus was involved. I knew it. But the hows and whys were the mysteries. As was the stone I’d seen around her wrist.

“Did you ever see anything on the hybrids there? Like a weird black stone that looked like it had fire inside it?”

His brows knitted. “None of mine made it except Beth. They didn’t have anything like that on them. I never saw the others.”

Terrible… It was just terrible.

I swallowed thickly, but my throat felt tight. A soft breeze stirred the lake, and a wave rippled from one bank to the next. Like a shock wave…

“Guys?” Daemon called, and we turned. “Are you ready?”

Were we ready to step into the house of pain? Uh, no. But we walked over to them. Daemon stood, holding a circular piece of onyx in his gloved hand.

He turned to Blake. “This is your show.”

Blake took a deep breath and nodded. “I think the first thing to test out is if I do have a tolerance to onyx. If I do, then that gives us a starting point, right? At least then we know that we can build up a tolerance.”

Across from him, Daemon glanced down at the onyx he held and shrugged. Without preamble, he shot forward, placing the onyx against Blake’s cheek.

My jaw hit the ground.

Matthew stepped back. “God.”

Beside me, Dawson laughed under his breath.

But nothing happened for several moments. Finally, Blake knocked the onyx away, his nostrils flaring. “What the hell?”

Disappointed, Daemon tossed the rock in the pile. “Well, apparently you have a tolerance to onyx and here I was hoping you didn’t.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling a giggle. He was such an asshole, and I loved him.

Blake stared. “What if I didn’t have a tolerance to it? Good God, I kind of wanted to prepare myself for that.”

“I know.” Daemon smirked.

Matthew shook his head. “Okay, back on track, boys. How do you suggest doing this?”

Stalking over to the pile of onyx, Blake picked one up. There was a slight ripple of unease this time, but he held on. “I suggest Daemon goes first. We hold it to the skin until you drop. No longer.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” I muttered.

Daemon took off his gloves and held out his arms. “Bring it.”

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation. Blake stepped forward and pressed that onyx against Daemon’s palm. Immediately, his face contorted and he appeared to try to step back, but the onyx held him in place. A tremor started in his arm and traveled through his body.

Dawson and I both stepped forward. Neither of us could help it. Standing here, watching the pain harshen his beautiful face, was too much. Panic shot through me.

But then Blake pulled back and Daemon dropped to his knees, slamming his hands onto the ground before him. “Crap…”

I rushed forward, touching his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“He’s fine,” Blake said, placing the onyx on the ground. His right hand shook as our eyes met. “It started to burn. There must be a limit to my tolerance…”

Daemon stood unsteadily, and I followed. “I’m okay.” Then he said to his brother, who was eyeballing Blake like he wanted to toss him through a window, “I’m fine, Dawson.”

“How do we know this will work?” Matthew demanded. “Touching onyx is completely different than being sprayed all over with it.”

“I’ve walked out of those doors before and nothing happened. And it’s not like they’ve sprayed onyx in my face before. This has to be it.”

I remembered how he said everything he touched had been encased in the shiny jewel. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Daemon opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a glare. He wasn’t going to talk me out of this.