Opal

Chapter 23

Daemon and I rode together to school on Monday. The car still carried a musty, wet scent to it, a painful reminder of where our mission had ended—in a river. On the way, Daemon was convinced that his brother had been talked down from bum-rushing Mount Weather, but I knew we needed to come up with another way to get to Beth and Chris. Dawson couldn’t wait forever, and I could understand that. If it were Daemon locked up, I don’t think anyone would be able to stop me.

As soon as we stepped out, I saw Blake leaning against his truck a few spaces down. He pushed off and trotted over the moment he spotted us.

Daemon groaned. “He is not who I want to see as soon as I get to school.”

“Agreed,” I said, wrapping my hand around Daemon’s. “Just remember we are in public.”

“No fun.”

Blake slowed as he reached us, his gaze dipping to our joined hands and then quickly sweeping up. “We all need to talk.”

We kept walking—or Daemon kept walking. “Talking to you is the last thing I want to do.”

“I can understand that.” He caught up to us. “But I seriously didn’t know about the onyx shields in the doors. I had no idea.”

“I believe you,” Daemon said.

Blake’s step faltered. “You punched me.”

“That’s because he wanted to,” I answered for Daemon, earning a wink from him. “Look, I don’t trust you, but maybe you didn’t know about the shields. It doesn’t change the fact that we’re not going to be able to get in there.”

“I talked to Luc last night. He didn’t know about the shields, either.” Blake shoved his hands into his pockets and stopped in front of us. He was lucky Daemon didn’t lay him out right there. “He’s willing to do it again—take down the cameras and stuff.”

Daemon blew out a long breath. “And what good does that do us? We can’t get past those doors.”

“Or if every door is set up like that,” I added, shivering. I couldn’t imagine going through that three or four times. Sure, I’d been in that cage longer, but the airborne onyx had covered everything.

The three of us were huddled along the fence surrounding the track, careful of keeping our voices low so other students didn’t overhear us and wonder what the heck.

“Well, I was thinking about that,” Blake said, shifting from one foot to the other. “While I was with Daedalus, they used to expose us to this stone each day. Our forks and silverware were encased in it. A lot of stuff was, almost everything we came into contact with. Burned like holy hell to touch, but we didn’t have any other choice. I’ve walked through the doors before and recently. Nothing happened.”

Daemon laughed as he looked away from Blake. “And you now just thought this was a good thing to tell us?”

“I didn’t know what it was. None of us did.” Blake’s gaze pleaded with mine. “I didn’t think much about it.”

Dumbfounded, I realized they’d been conditioning Blake. Probably exposing him and others to the onyx over and over but like last night, something wasn’t right. Why would they expose them to it? Sick and twisted punishment or for tolerance? And why would they want Luxen or hybrids to develop a tolerance to the one weapon that could be used against them?

“You can’t tell me you never knew about the onyx and what it could do,” I said.

He met me dead-on. “I didn’t know that it could incapacitate us.”

I pressed my lips together. “You know, there’s so much we have to just trust you with. That you really are working against Daedalus and not for them. That Beth and Chris are where you’re saying they are, and now, that you didn’t really know about onyx.”

“I know how this looks.”

“I don’t think you do,” Daemon said, letting go of my hand as he propped his hip against the fence. “We have no reason to trust you.”

“And you’ve blackmailed us into helping you,” I added.

Blake exhaled roughly. “Okay. I don’t have a glowing history, but I want nothing more than to get my friend away from them. That’s why I’m here.”

“And why are you here right this instant?” Daemon asked, obviously at his patience threshold.

“I think we can get around the onyx,” he said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and holding them in front of him. “Now, hear me out. This is going to sound crazy.”

“Oh, goodie,” Daemon muttered.

“I think we need to build up a tolerance. If that was what Daedalus was doing, then that makes sense. Hybrids have to go in and out of those doors. If we expose ourselves to it—”

“Are you insane?” Daemon turned around, running his hand through his hair, clasping the back of his neck. “You want us to expose ourselves to onyx?”

“Do you see any other option?”

Yeah, there was one—we didn’t go back. But was it really an option? Daemon was starting to pace. Not a good sign. “Can we do this later? We’re going to be late.”

“Sure.” He sidestepped Daemon. “After school?”

“Maybe,” I said, focusing on Daemon. “We’ll talk later.”

Taking the hint, Blake skedaddled out of there. I had no idea what to say to any of this. “Expose ourselves to onyx?”

Daemon huffed. “He’s insane.”

He was. “Do you think it would work?”

“You’re not…?”

“I don’t know.” I switched my backpack to the other shoulder and we started toward the school. “I really don’t know. We can’t give up, but what other options do we have?”

“We don’t even know if it will work.”

“But if Blake really is sort of immune to it, then we can test it out on him.”

A wide grin spread across his face. “I like the sound of that.”

I laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? But seriously, if he has a tolerance to it, then shouldn’t we be able to? It’s something. We’d just need to figure out how to get some.” Daemon was quiet for a few seconds “What?” I asked.

He squinted. “I think I have the onyx part covered.”

“What do you mean?” I stopped again, ignoring the faint warning bell.

“After Will got you and a couple of days after Dawson came back, I returned to the warehouse and stripped most of the onyx from the outside.”

My jaw hit the ground. “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why I did it. Kind of like my big FU to the establishment.” He laughed. “Imagine their faces when they went back and saw it was all gone.”

I was speechless.

He tweaked my nose. I smacked his hand away. “You’re insane. You could’ve gotten caught!”

“But I didn’t.”

I smacked him again, this time harder. “You’re crazy.”

“But you love my craziness.” He leaned down, kissing the corner of my lip. “Come on, we’re late. The last thing we need is detention.”

I snorted. “Yeah, like that would be the biggest of our problems.”

…

Carissa still hadn’t returned to school on Monday. The flu must’ve been kicking her butt. Lesa seemed a bit jealous over the whole thing. “I’m, like, five pounds from my goal weight,” she said before trig started. “Why can’t I come down with something? Geesh.”

I giggled and we moved on to some gossip. For a little while, I forgot about everything. It was nice and much needed downtime even though we were in school. The morning blew by and when Blake entered bio, I refused to let him ruin my mood.

But then he opened his mouth and the big “what the hell” statement came out. “You didn’t tell Daemon about what I said to you in the woods? About me liking you?”

Ah, what the frig, man? “Um, no. He’d kill you.”

Blake laughed.

I frowned. “I’m being serious.”

“Oh.” His smile faded and he paled. I imagined that he was playing that scenario out in his head: me telling Daemon about his dirty little secret and Daemon going ape poo poo over it. He came to the same conclusion as me. “Yeah, good call.

“Anyway,” he continued. “About what I said this morning—”

“Not now.” I opened my notebook. “I really don’t want to talk about that right now.”

I smiled when Lesa sat down and luckily, Blake respected my request. He chatted it up with Lesa like a normal person would. He was good at that—pretending.

A knot formed in my stomach as I looked at him sharply. He was telling Lesa about different kinds of surfing techniques. I was pretty sure she wasn’t even listening, considering her gaze was trained on how his shirt strained over his biceps.

He laughed easily, blending in perfectly. Like a good implant would, and I knew from previous experience that Blake was skilled at faking it. There really was no way of telling what side Blake was truly on, and it was stupid to even guess.

At the front of the class, Matthew pulled out his roll book. His eyes met mine briefly and then shifted to the boy beside me. I wondered how Matthew did it—kept calm all the time. How he stayed the glue that kept everyone together.

…

I stopped at my locker and grabbed my US history text at the end of the day. The chances of a pop quiz tomorrow were high. Mrs. Kerns had a schedule, which really didn’t make the quiz a big surprise. I closed my locker door and turned, shoving my book into the bag. The crowd was thinning out as everyone rushed to get out of the school. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to rush or not. Blake had already texted me during gym about getting everyone together to talk about the onyx situation, and I really didn’t want to.

I wanted one day to go home and do nothing—no plotting or dealing with alien shenanigans. Books needed reading and reviewing and my poor blog could really use a makeover. I couldn’t think of a better way to finish out a Monday.

But it was probably not going to happen.

Stepping outside, I trailed behind the last group of students heading to the parking lot. From my vantage point, I could hear Kimmy’s high-pitched voice from the front.

“My daddy said that Simon’s father has been talking to the FBI. He’s demanding a full investigation and won’t stop until Simon comes home.”

I wondered if the FBI knew about the aliens. Images of The X-Files flew through my head.

“I heard on TV that the longer a person is missing, the less likely it is for them to turn up alive,” one of her friends said.

“But look at Dawson. He was gone for over a year, and he’s back,” another said.

Tommy Cruz rubbed a beefy hand along the back of his neck. “And isn’t that strange? He’s gone forever. The one Thompson kid bites it and then Dawson shows up? Something insane with that.”

I’d heard enough. Going between cars, I put distance between the group and me. I doubted their suspicious would go anywhere, but I wasn’t trolling for new things to worry about. We had enough.

Daemon waited by his car. Long legs crossed at the ankles. He smiled when he saw me and pushed off the side of the vehicle. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to stay here.”

“Sorry.” He opened the passenger door and bowed. Grinning, I jumped in. I waited until he was behind the wheel. “Blake wants to talk tonight.”

“Yeah, I know. He apparently got ahold of Dawson and already told him about the whole onyx tolerance thing.” He backed out, hand on the gear shifter. Anger lit up his eyes. “And of course, Dawson is all about that. It was like handing him a winning lottery ticket.”

“Great.” I tilted my head back against the seat. Dawson really was a suicidal Energizer bunny.

And suddenly it struck me. This was my life—all of this craziness. The ups and downs, the near-death moments and those far worse, the lies and the fact I probably wouldn’t be able to trust anyone who befriended me without worrying if they were an implant. And hell, how could I really befriend anyone normal? Like Daemon in the beginning—he’d stayed away and wanted Dee to do the same so I wouldn’t be caught in their world.

It would be the same with anyone I met.

My life wasn’t my own. Every moment was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I sank back against the seat, weighted down, and sighed. “There go my reviewing and reading plans.”

“Shouldn’t it be reading and then reviewing?”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

Daemon coasted the SUV out onto the road. “Why can’t you still do that?”

“If Blake wants to talk tonight, then that’s going to soak up all my time.” I really wanted to pout. Maybe even kick my feet.

With one hand on the wheel and the other arm thrown over the back of my seat, he cast me a half smile. “You don’t need to be there, Kitten. We can talk to him without you.”

“Yeah right.” I laughed. “There’s a good chance someone will kill Blake without me there.”

“And would you really be torn up about that?”

I made a face. “Well…”

Daemon laughed.

“And the fact that upon his untimely death, there’s a letter delivered to Nancy Husher. So, we kind of need him alive.”

“True,” he said, catching a strand of my hair between his fingers. “But we can keep it short. You’ll have a normal Monday evening full of normal suck and not extraterrestrial suckage.”

Shame burned my cheeks as I bit down on my lip. As crazy as everything had turned out, I could admit that things could be worse. “That’s really selfish of me.”

“What?” He tugged on my hair gently. “It’s not selfish, Kitten. Your whole life can’t revolve around this crap. It won’t.”

Straightening my fingers, I smiled. “You sound so determined.”

“And you know what happens when I get determined.”

“You get your way.” He raised his brows at me, and I laughed. “But what about you—your life can’t revolve around this crap.”

He pulled his hand back, resting it on his thigh. “I was born into this. I’m used to it, and besides, it’s all about time management. Say, like time management last night. We did our mission thing—”

“And failed.”

“There’s that, but the rest of last night?” One side of his lips curled up and I felt my cheeks heat for a totally different reason. “We had the bad—the not-normal. And then we had the good—the normal. Granted, the good was interrupted by the bad, but there was time management there.”

“You make it sound so easy.” I stretched out my legs, relaxing.

“It is that easy, Kat. You just need to know when to draw the line, when you’ve had enough.” There was a pause as he slowed and turned onto the lonely road leading up to our houses. “And if you’ve had enough for today, you have. Nothing to feel guilty about or to worry about.”

Daemon coasted to a stop in his driveway and killed the engine. “And no one will kill Bill.”

I laughed softly as I unbuckled the seat belt. “Blake. His name is Blake.”

Daemon pulled the keys out and leaned back, his eyes glimmering with amusement. “He’s whatever I decide to call him.”

“You’re terrible.” Crossing the distance between us, I kissed him. As I pulled away, he reached for me and I giggled, opening the door. “And by the way, I haven’t had enough today. I just needed a kick in the pants. But I do need to be home by seven.”

I shut the door and turned. Daemon stood before me. He stepped forward and there was nowhere for me to go if I wanted to. And I didn’t.

“You haven’t had enough?” he asked.

Recognizing the tone of his voice, my bones melted in response. “No, not nearly enough.”

“Good.” His hands were on my hips, tugging me forward. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Placing my hands on his chest, I tilted my head back. This was totally an exercise in time management. Our lips brushed and warmth cascaded through me. It was a really fun exercise. I rose onto the tips of my toes and slid my hands up the hard plane of his chest, marveled at the way it rose unsteadily.

Daemon whispered something and then the soft kiss, which wasn’t much more than a butterfly touch, strengthened me and unraveled him. His arms swept around me, and I could feel his heart pounding in tandem with mine.

“Hey!” Dawson yelled from the front door. “I think Dee caught the microwave on fire. Again. And I tried popping some popcorn with my hands and it kind of went wrong. Like really, really wrong.”

Daemon pressed his forehead against mine and growled. “Dammit.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Time management, right?”

“Time management,” he muttered.

…

Surprisingly, pretty much everyone was on board with the onyx thing. I was convinced we had an invasion of the body snatchers or something, because even Matthew was nodding like exposing yourself to the hellishly painful onyx was a good thing.

I had a feeling that would change the first time he came in contact with it.

“This is so insane,” Dee said, and I had to agree. “This is tantamount to self-mutilation.”

Ah, she kind of had a point.

Dawson’s head dropped back, and he sighed. “That’s a little extreme.”

“I remember what you looked like when they brought you back down the mountain.” She twisted her hair around her hand. “And Katy lost her voice for a while from screaming. Who signs up for that?”

“Crazy people.” Daemon sighed. “Dee, I don’t want you doing this.”

Her expression was clearly a no duh one. “No offense, Dawson, I love you and want you to see Beth and to hold her, because I wish…” Her voice cracked, but her spine straightened. “But I don’t want to do this.”

Dawson shot forward, placing a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to do this.”

“I want to help.” Her voice was wobbly. “But I can’t…”

“It’s fine.” Dawson smiled and there was a moment between the siblings, as if he were saying more with just that gesture alone. Whatever it was, it worked, because Dee relaxed. “Not all of us need to do this.”

“Then who’s in?” Blake’s eyes touched on all of us. “If we are going to do this, we need to start, like, yesterday, because I don’t know how long it’ll take to build a tolerance.”

Antsy, Dawson stood. “It can’t take that long.”

Blake let out a surprised laugh. “I’ve been with Daedalus for years, so there’s no telling at what point I built a tolerance…or if I really even have one.”

“We’ve got to test that out, then.” I grinned.

He frowned. “Wow. Kind of excited about that?”

I nodded.

Dee twisted around, eyeing Blake. “Can I test it out, too?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone will get a round.” Daemon’s sinister twist of the lips was actually kind of frightening. “Anyway, back to the basics. Who’s in?”

Matthew raised his hand. “I want to be in on this. No offense, Andrew, but I prefer to take your place this time.”

Andrew nodded his head. “No problem. I can wait with Dee and Ash.”

Ash, who hadn’t said more than two words, just nodded. I realized that half of the room was staring at me. “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I’m in.” Beside me, Daemon gave me a look that said, You are so out of your mind. I folded my arms. “Don’t start with me. I’m in. Nothing you can say will change that.”

The next look translated into, This is going to turn into a conversation—argument—in private. Blake watched with approval—a ringing endorsement I didn’t want or need. Frankly, it made my skin crawl, since it reminded me of when I had killed the Arum he’d practically thrown at me.

God, I wanted to hit him again.

Plans were made to meet after school and, weather permitting, we’d head out to the lake to basically start causing ourselves an obscene amount of pain. Whee.

Since there were some hours left before bedtime, I said my good-byes and left to get some studying in and hopefully a dang review.

Daemon walked me over and I knew it wasn’t a gentlemanly act, but I let him in and offered him his favorite: milk.

He downed the drink in five seconds flat. “Can we talk about this?”

I hopped up on the counter and opened my bag, pulling out my history book. “Nope.”

“Kat.”

“Hmm?” I flipped open to the chapter we’d been reading in class.

He stalked over, placing his hands on either side of my crossed legs. “I can’t watch you get hurt over and over again.”

I dug out a Highlighter.

“Seeing what happened last night and when Will had you handcuffed in that stuff? And I’m supposed to just stand there— Are you listening to me?”

Halfway through the sentence I’d highlighted, I stopped. “I’m listening.”

“Then look at me.”

I lifted my lashes. “I’m looking at you.”

Daemon scowled.

Sighing, I put the cap back on the Highlighter. “Okay. I don’t want to see you in pain.”

“Kat—”

“No. Don’t interrupt. I don’t want to see you in pain and just thinking about you going through what that feels like makes me want to hurl.”

“I can handle it.”

Our eyes locked. “I know you can, but that doesn’t change how horrible it’s going to be to see you go through that, but I’m not asking you not to do it.”

He pushed off and pivoted around, thrusting his fingers through his hair. Tension and frustration settled over the kitchen like a well-worn blanket.

Setting my stuff aside, I hopped down. “I don’t want to argue with you, Daemon, but you can’t say it’s okay for me to watch you go through this and not you.”

I made my way over to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He stiffened. “I know this is coming from a good place, but just because it’s getting ugly, I can’t back out. And you know you’re not going to. It’s only fair.”

“I hate your logic.” He placed his hands on mine, though, and I pressed against his back, smiling. “And I’m really going to hate this.”

Squeezing him like my favorite teddy bear, I knew how hard this was for him to give on. This was monumental, actually. He twisted in my arms, lowered his head, and I thought, Wow, this is how adults do things. They may not agree on stuff all the time, they may argue, but in the end, they work it out and they love.

Like my mom and dad.

A lump formed in my throat. Crying so wouldn’t be the right thing to do, but it was hard to keep those tears back.

“The only good thing is that I’m going to hold Buff down and make him kiss onyx over and over again,” he said.

I choked out a laugh. “You’re sadistic.”

“And you need to study, right? It’s school time management—not Daemon time management, which blows, because we’re alone and it requires more effort for them to interrupt us over here.”

Disappointed, I pulled free. “Yeah, I need to study.”

He pouted and it was incredibly sexy on him. Wrong. “All right, I’m leaving.”

I followed him to the door. “I’ll text when I’m done and you can come over and tuck me in.”

“’Kay,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll be waiting.”

And knowing that had me all warm and fuzzy. Wiggling my fingers at him, I closed the door and went back to the kitchen, grabbed my stuff and a glass of OJ. Happy that an all-out brouhaha was avoided with Daemon, I went upstairs and bumped open my door.

I came to a complete stop.

A girl sat on my bed, hands folded primly in her lap. It took me a moment to recognize her, because her hair hung in limp strands around her pale face and her almond-shaped eyes weren’t hidden behind purple or pink glasses.

“Carissa,” I said, stunned. “How…how did you get in here?”

She stood wordlessly. Her hands extended out. The overhead light reflected off a bracelet I also recognized—black stone with fire inside.

What the hell…? Luc had that stone. Why would—?

Static crackled in the air and there was a smell of burned ozone a second before whitish-blue light radiated from Carissa’s hands. The bracelet was no longer a concern.

Shocked into a stupor, I stared at my friend in disbelief. “Crap.”

Carissa attacked.