Opal (8 page)

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.”

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…

Wait. Couldn’t I communicate to Daemon? We’d done it before, but he’d always been in his Luxen form when it happened. Taking a shallow breath, I lowered my gaze to the blurred lines on my notebook and concentrated as hard as I could.

Daemon?

The space between my ears buzzed like a TV on mute. No discernible sound but a high-frequency hum.
Daemon?
I waited, but there was no response.

Frustrated, I blew out a breath. I needed to find a way to let him know that Blake was back, like, really back and in school. I figured Dawson could get word to him, but there was no telling how Dawson would act if I got up to use the restroom and told him that the douchebag beside me was Blake.

I glanced at said douchebag. No doubt about it, Blake was good-looking. He rocked the whole messy hair and golden skin surfer-boy look. But beneath that easy grin lurked a killer.

The moment the bell rang, I gathered my stuff and headed toward the door, shooting Matthew a look. Somehow he seemed to know, because he waylaid Dawson and—I hoped—would keep Dawson from throwing Blake through a window in front of everyone once Matthew shared who Blake was. Lunch period was next, but I dug my cell out of my messenger bag.

I made it about three steps before Blake stalked up behind me in the hall and cupped my elbow. “We need to talk,” he said.

I tried to pull my arm free. “And you need to let go of me.”

“Or what? Are you going to do something about it?” His head angled toward me and I caught the familiar scent of his aftershave. “No. Because you know what the risk of exposure is.”

I gritted my teeth. “What do you want?”

“Only to talk.” He steered me into an empty classroom. Once inside, I tore my arm free as he locked the door. “Look—”

Acting on instinct, I dropped my bag on the floor and let the Source soar through me. Whitish-red light spread over my arms, crackling in the air. A ball of white light the size of a softball built above my palm.

Blake rolled his eyes. “Katy, I just want to talk. You don’t need—”

I released the energy. The light shot across the room in a bolt. Blake darted out of the way and the light smacked into the chalkboard. The intensity melted the middle of the green slate and the smell of burning ozone filled the air.

The Source built in me again, and this time I wasn’t going to miss. It rushed down my arms to my fingertips. In that moment, I really didn’t know if it was powerful enough to kill Blake or just do some serious damage. Or maybe I did and I just didn’t want to admit it.

Rushing behind a huge oak desk, Blake raised his hand. All the chairs to the left of me flew to the right, smacking into my legs and crowding me. My aim was off and the energy ball skyrocketed over Blake’s head, slamming into the circular clock above the board. It exploded in a hundred dazzling pieces of plastic and glass that rained down…

And then the pieces stopped in midair, hung there as if attached to invisible strings. Below them, Blake straightened, his eyes luminous.

“Crap,” I whispered, my gaze darting to the door. There was no way I’d make it there and if he’d frozen those pieces, most likely everything was frozen. The door. People outside the room, I imagined.

“Are you done yet?” Blake’s voice was harsh in my ears. “Because you’re going to tire yourself out here in a few seconds.”

He had a point. Mutated humans didn’t have the energy stores like the Luxen did. So when they used their abilities, they wimped out pretty quickly. There was also the fact that even though I whipped up on Blake the night everything went down, Daemon had been there and we were feeding off each other.

But it didn’t mean I was going to just stand there and let Blake do whatever he planned.

I took a step forward and the chairs reacted in defense. They launched into the air, forcing me back as they stacked atop one another, forming a circle around me that reached the ceiling.

Raising my hands, I pictured the chairs with little desk areas attached flying apart. Moving stuff was easy to me now, so in theory, those babies should’ve shot at Blake like bullets. They began to tremble and slid away from me.

Blake pushed back and the wall of chairs shook but didn’t budge. I kept the image of them moving away from me, drawing on the static energy inside me until a fierce throbbing sliced through my temples. The pain increased until I dropped my arms. My heart tripped up as I whirled around. Trapped—encased in a tomb of freaking chairs.

“And I bet you haven’t been practicing at all?” Through the gaps in chairs, I saw him come around the desk. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I paced in a tiny circle, dragging in deep breaths. My legs felt like jelly, skin dry and brittle. “You killed Adam.”

“I didn’t mean to. You have to believe that the last thing I wanted was for anyone to get hurt.”

My mouth dropped open. “You were going to turn me over! And someone did get hurt, Blake.”

“I know. And you have no idea how terrible I feel about that.” He followed me on the other side of the wall. “Adam was a nice guy—”

“Don’t talk about him!” I stopped, hands balling into weak, useless fists. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

Blake cocked his head to the side. “Why? Because Daemon’s going to kill me?”

I mirrored his movements. “Because
I’m
going to kill you.”

A brow arched and curiosity marked his features. “You already had your chance, Katy. Killing isn’t in your nature.”

“But it’s in yours, right?” I stepped back, checking the chairs. They shook a little. Blake may have more experience with this stuff, but he was tiring, too. “Anything to protect your friend?”

He drew in a long breath. “Yes.”

“Well, I’ll do anything to protect mine.”

There was a pause. During those seconds, the shattered pieces of the clock fell. I did a little victory dance inside. “You have changed,” he finally said.

Part of me wanted to laugh, but the action got stuck in my throat. “You have no idea.”

Moving back from the chairs, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “This is good, because maybe you’ll understand the importance of what I’m about to offer you.”

My eyes narrowed. “There is nothing you could offer.”

A wry smile appeared on his lips—lips that I had kissed once. Bile stung the back of my throat. “I’ve been watching you all for days. At first I wasn’t the only one, but you know that. Or at least your bedroom window does.”

He folded his arms when he realized he had my full attention. “I know Dawson has been trying to find Beth, but he doesn’t know where to look. I do. She’s being kept with Chris.”

I stopped pacing. “Where’s that?”

Blake laughed. “Like I’m going to tell you when it’s the only thing that might keep me alive. Agree to help me get Chris free, and I’ll make sure Dawson gets to Beth. That’s all I want.”

Rendered speechless, I blinked. He was asking for our help after everything? That crazy laugh was building again and it came out this time, throaty and low. “You’re freaking nuts.”

His expression slipped into a scowl. “The DOD thinks I’m their perfect little hybrid. I asked to stay here because of the community of Luxen and the likelihood of another being mutated. I’m their implant. And I can get you into the facility where they’re being held. I know where they are, what floor they’re on, and what cell. And more importantly, I know their weaknesses.”

He couldn’t be serious. The chairs at the top wobbled, and I knew I was seconds away from being buried under the damn things.

“Without me, you’ll never find her and all you’ll do is walk right into Daedalus’s hands.” He took another step back. Over his shoulder, the air was distorted in waves. The kind of power he was throwing off…

“You need me,” he said. “And yeah, I need you guys. I can’t get to Chris alone.”

Okay, he was being for real. “Why in the world would we trust you?”

“You don’t have a choice.” He cleared his throat and the chairs rattled. My gaze dropped. The legs of those on the bottom bent toward him. “You’ll never find her, and Dawson will end up doing something crazy.”

“We’ll take our chances.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Blake picked up my bag and placed it on the teacher’s desk. “Either you all help me or I go to Nancy Husher and tell her just how powerful you are.” At the sound of her name, I sucked in a sharp breath. Nancy worked for the DOD and most likely Daedalus. “I never reported back to her and since Vaughn was working with Will Michaels, neither did he,” he continued. “She thinks your mutation wore off. And handing over that kind of information might save my ass. It might not, but either way, they will come for you now. And before you think getting rid of me fixes this, you’re wrong. I have a message that will be delivered to her if anything happens to me, which tells what you’re capable of and exposes Daemon as the one who mutated you. Yeah, I’ve thought of everything.”

Anger raged inside me and the chairs really started to shake. In seconds, he’d stripped away whatever power I truly gained, leaving me helpless. “You rat bastard…”

“I’m sorry.” He was at the door now, and dear God, I was an idiot, because he looked and sounded sincere. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but you understand, right? You even said it yourself. You’ll do anything to protect your friends. We really aren’t that different, Katy.”

Then he opened the door and slipped out. The wall of chairs crumbled, spilling out across the floor. Kind of ironic how they fell upon themselves, just like my whole life was collapsing onto itself.