Opal

Chapter 30

One of the first things I did the next day was invite Lesa. I was thrilled when she perked up and agreed. It made me feel a lot better about my decision to go. Like Carissa’s best friend approved and that went a long way.

Like me, she was a tad wary of going shopping with Ash, and a glimmer of her old personality shone through when she started making cracks.

“I bet she’ll get something ridiculously tight and short and make the rest of us feel like unattractive Oompa Loompas.” She sighed pitifully. “No. Scratch that. She’ll probably just go to the dress store and parade in front of the mirror naked.”

I laughed. “No doubt, but I’m happy Dee invited us.”

“Me, too,” she said seriously. “I miss her, especially after… Yeah, I just miss her.”

My smile was a bit wobbly. Whenever Carissa came up in conversation, I never knew how to handle it. Luckily, for today, we were interrupted by Daemon, who decided to tug on my ponytail like a six-year-old.

He sat behind me and then poked me in the back with his trusty pen.

I rolled my eyes at Lesa and then turned around. “You and that damn pen.”

“You love it.” He leaned over his desk, tapping it off my chin. “Anyway, I thought I could catch a ride home with you after school. That thing we’ve got to do later was delayed for about an hour. And your mom’s already at Winchester by then, right?”

A low hum of excitement thrummed through my veins. I knew where he was going with this. No Mom. An hour or so of time alone and without interruption—hopefully.

I couldn’t stop my dreamy sigh. “That would be perfect.”

“Thought so.” He took his pen and sat back, eyeing me. “Can’t wait.”

Oxygen fled my brain while blood rushed everywhere. Feeling a bit out of it, I nodded and turned around. The look on Lesa’s face told me she so overheard the conversation.

Her eyebrows waggled suggestively, and I felt my face burn. Oh, dear God…

After trig, the rest of the morning crept by in a slow procession. The cosmos were against me. Like they knew I was bouncing with energy and excitement. A little part of me was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? If we actually had time alone and we weren’t interrupted and stuff fell into place…

Stuff fell into place?

I smothered a giggle.

Blake looked up from his bio text and frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” I grinned. “Nothing.”

He arched a brow. “Did Daemon tell you that Matthew has some after-school meeting with a kid’s parents?”

I giggled again, earning a weird look from him. “Yeah, he did.”

Blake stared at me a second and then placed his pen down. Without any warning, he reached over and picked a piece of lint out of my hair. I jerked back at the same time he pulled his arm away, which put my nose right at the perfect angle to get a sniff of his wrist.

The clean, citrusy scent sparked a muggy, uncomfortable feeling inside me. Like when you’ve done something stupid and you were about to face public humiliation. Pins and needles spread across my flesh.

A memory was wiggling loose. That smell… I’d smelled it before.

“You okay?” he asked.

I tilted my head to the side, like that helped my smelling abilities. Where did I know that scent? Obviously I’d smelled it on Blake before. No doubt it was one of those expensive colognes, but it was more than that.

Like when you hear an actor’s voice but don’t see his face. The answer was on the tip of my tongue and I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling.

Why did that scent feel achingly familiar? Daemon’s face popped in my head, but that wasn’t right. He smelled earthy, like the outdoors and the wind. And his scent lingered long after he was gone, on my clothes, the pillow…

The pillow…

My heart stuttered and then skipped a beat. It sunk in and threatened to pull me through the seat. Shock washed over me, quickly followed by a bolt of anger so fierce I jerked forward.

I couldn’t sit here. I couldn’t breathe.

Static crackled under my shirt. Tiny hairs rose over my body. Burned ozone filled the air. At the front of the class, Matthew looked up. His gaze went to Dawson first, because hey, if anyone were going to lose it, it would be him. But Dawson was also glancing around the room, searching for the source of the increased friction and static in the air.

It was coming from me.

I was going to blow.

Snapping into action, I shut my book and shoved it into my messenger bag. Wasting no time, I stood on shaky legs. My skin felt like it was humming. And maybe it was at a low frequency. Violent energy rolled through me. Only once before had I felt this way and that was when Blake…

I headed past Matthew, unable to answer his look of concern, and ignored the curious stares. Hurrying from the room, I dragged in several deep breaths to try to calm down. Gray lockers blurred around me. Conversations were muted and sounded so very far away.

Where was I going? What was I going to do? Going to Daemon was out of the question, because right now, on top of everything, it was the last thing we needed.

I started forward, my fingers clenched tightly around my bag’s strap. I felt…I felt like I was going to hurl. Anger and nausea roiled. I headed toward the girls’ restroom at the end of the hall.

“Katy! Are you okay? Wait up?”

The floor dropped out from underneath me, but I kept walking.

Blake caught up with me, catching my arm. “Katy—”

“Don’t touch me!” I wrenched my arm free, horrified…just horrified. “Don’t ever touch me.”

He stared at me, anger tightening the lines of his face. “What is your problem?”

A terrible, ugly feeling clawed its way through my insides. “I know, Blake. I know.”

“Know what?” He looked confounded. “Katy, your eyes are starting to glow. You’ve got to chill out.”

I stepped forward but forced myself to stop. I was so close to losing it. “You—you are a freak.”

His brows shot up. “All right, you’re going to have to give me a better explanation than that, because I have no idea what I’ve done to tick you off.”

The hallway was empty for now, but this was no place to get into this kind of conversation. I turned, heading to the stairwell. Blake followed and once the door swung shut behind us, I whirled on him.

It wasn’t my fist that hit him.

A blast of energy, probably what felt like a hit from a Taser, smacked him in the chest. Blake stumbled back into the door, mouth dropping open as his legs and arms twitched.

“What,” he gasped. “What was that for?”

Static crackled over my fingers. I wanted to do it again. “You’ve been sleeping in my bed.”

Blake straightened, rubbing a hand over his chest. The faint light coming from the window in the landing danced over his face. “Katy, I—”

“Don’t lie about it. I know you’ve been. I smelled your cologne. It’s been on my pillows.” Bile filled the back of my throat and the urge to lash out hit me hard. “How could you? How could you do something so revolting and creepy?”

Something flickered in his eyes. Hurt? Anger? I didn’t know or care. What he did was so wrong on so many levels that restraining orders were usually issued in response.

Blake thrust his fingers through his hair. “It’s not what you think.”

“It’s not.” I barked out a short laugh. “I don’t know what else it could be. You came into my house and my bedroom uninvited and you…you got into bed with me, you sick son of a—”

“It’s not what you think!” he practically shouted and the Source inside me perked even more, responding to the outburst. I expected teachers to rush the stairwell, but they didn’t. “I’ve been keeping an eye on everything at night because of Daedalus. I patrol the area just like Daemon and the other Luxen do.”

I scoffed. “They don’t climb into my bed, Blake.”

He stared back at me so blatantly I wanted to smack him. “I know. Like I said, that…was never my intention. It was an accident.”

My mouth dropped open. “Did you slip and fall on my bed? Because I don’t understand how you’ve accidentally ended up there.”

Red stained the tips of his cheeks. “I check the outside, and then I check the inside just to be sure. Hybrids can get into your house, Katy, as you already know. So could Daedalus if they wanted.”

What would he have done if Daemon had been there? Then it struck me and I felt sick all over again. “How long do you watch at night?”

He shrugged. “A couple of hours.”

So he’d have known if Daemon had come over most of the time, and the rest was just sheer dumb luck. Part of me wished he’d tried it just once when Daemon was there. He wouldn’t be walking right for months.

There was a good chance he may leave this stairwell with a limp.

Blake seemed to sense where my mind went. “After I checked inside your house, I…I don’t know what happened. You have bad dreams.”

I wondered why. I had perverts sleeping in the bed with me.

“I just wanted to comfort you. That’s all.” He leaned against the wall, below the window, closing his eyes. “I guess I fell asleep.”

“This wasn’t a onetime thing. Not that once would be okay. Do you understand that?”

“I do.” His eyes opened into thin slits. “Are you going to tell Daemon?”

I shook my head. I could handle this. I would handle this. “He would kill you on the spot and then we’d end up in Daedalus’s hands.”

Relief loosened his body. “Katy, I’m sorry. It’s not as creepy as it—”

“Not as creepy? Are you serious? No, don’t answer. I don’t care.” I stepped forward, my voice shaking. “I don’t care if you were just worried and keeping an eye on me. I don’t care if my house is on fire. You do not come in there again. And you sure as hell don’t sleep in my bed again. You kissed…” I sucked in a sharp breath. The raw, ugly black feeling was back, crawling up my throat. “I don’t care. I don’t want to be near you any more than I have to be. Okay? I want you to stay away from me. No more watching or anything.”

Hurt flashed in his churning eyes, and he looked like he’d protest for a long moment. “Okay.”

I turned back to the door, my entire body shaking. I stopped and faced him. He stood under the opaque windows, his head lowered. He ran a hand through his spiky hair, clasping the back of his neck.

“If you do again what you’ve been doing, I will hurt you.” Emotion clogged my throat. “I don’t care what happens. I will hurt you.”

…

Shaking off my discovery was hard to do. I alternated between wanting to take a scalding hot shower and anger so potent I could taste it the rest of the day. Luckily, I was able to convince Matthew that Blake had just ticked me off because he was Blake, which was believable and explained why Blake would follow me. I convinced Lesa I wasn’t feeling well and that was why I rushed out of class, which she pointed out would put a damper on my afternoon plans.

Those had already been tainted.

I had no intention of bringing this up with Daemon. He would lose his ever-loving mind and as much as I hated it, we needed Blake. We had come too far to end up being captured by them because of whatever letter he had hanging over our heads. I also wasn’t willing to risk not rescuing Beth.

Whenever I thought about it throughout the day, my skin crawled. I’d thought it had either been Daemon all of those times or a dream, but I should’ve known. Not once did I feel the warmth that our connection gave as warning whenever Daemon was near.

I should’ve known that Blake was a bigger freak than I could ever imagine.

On the way home, I swung by the post office. Daemon hopped out of the car and followed me in. Three steps from the door, he caught me around the waist from behind and lifted me up. He spun me around so fast my legs were like little windmills.

A woman and her child came out of the post office, narrowly avoiding being taken out by my legs. She laughed and I was sure it had something to do with the smile I knew Daemon was sporting.

When he placed me on my feet and let go, I swayed unsteadily through the door. He laughed. “You look a little drunk.”

“No thanks to you.”

He dropped an arm over my shoulder, apparently in a playful mood. We stopped at my mom’s PO box and dug out the packages. A few were media mail and the rest a bunch of junk mail.

Daemon snatched the yellow packages from my hands. “Oh! Books! You have books!”

I laughed as several people waiting in line looked over their shoulders. “Hand them over.”

He clutched them to his chest, making moony eyes. “My life is now complete.”

“My life would be complete if I could actually post a review on something other than the school library computers.”

I did that about twice a week since my latest laptop went to the big computer heaven in the sky. Daemon always went with me. In his words, he was there to “proof” my posts. In other words, he served as a huge distraction.

Taking the rest of the mail from me, he kissed my cheek. “Wouldn’t that be nice? But I think you’ve exhausted your mom’s allowance for laptops.”

“Neither was my fault.” I’d been hiding my recently destroyed laptop from her. She’d go postal if she found it.

“True.” He held open the door for a little old lady and then let me shimmy past. “But I bet you go to bed every night dreaming and thinking about a shiny new laptop.”

A warm breeze blew a strand of hair across my face as I stopped at my car. “Besides dreaming about you?”

“In between dreaming about me,” he corrected, placing my mail on the backseat. “What’s the first thing you’d do if you got a new laptop?”

Letting him take the keys from me, I went to the passenger side and thought about it. “I don’t know. I’d probably hug it and promise it that I’d never let anything bad happen to it.”

He laughed again, eyes twinkling. “Okay, other than that?”

“Make a vlog thanking the laptop gods for bestowing one upon me.” I sighed then, because that would be the only way I’d get one. “I need to get a job.”

“What you need to do is apply for college.”

“You haven’t,” I pointed out.

He cast me a sidelong glance. “I’ve been waiting on you.”

“Colorado,” I said, and when he nodded, my mom’s horrified expression loomed in my head. “Mom would freak.”

“I think she’d be happy with the fact that you’re going to college.”

He had a point, but the whole college thing seemed up in the air at this point. I had no idea what next week would hold for us, let alone a few months down the road. But I had good grades and I had looked into scholarships for next year’s spring enrollment.

In Colorado…and I knew Daemon had seen the pamphlet from the university. The prospect of going away to college with Daemon like normal teenagers was appealing. The problem was that getting my hopes up and not being able to do something like that would suck too much.

My house was silent and a little warm. I opened a window in the living room while Daemon helped himself to a glass of milk. When I walked into the kitchen, he was running the back of his hand over his mouth, his hair a mess of waves and eyes as green as spring grass. The movement pulled his shirt taut over his biceps and chest.

I bit back a sigh. Milk did a body good.

His smile was just as wicked. Putting the glass on the counter, he moved so fast I didn’t see him until he was standing in front of me, taking my cheeks in his hands. I loved that he was able to be real around me. I used to think the freaky alien speed thing was to annoy me, but it was just his natural state. Slowing down to human speed actually caused him to use more energy.

But then he kissed me, and he tasted of milk and something richer, lush and smooth. I didn’t realize he was guiding me backward and that we were at the bottom of the stairs until he lifted me up without breaking the kiss.

I thought the whole thing with Blake would ruin this afternoon, but I had underestimated the magnetism of Daemon and his kisses. I wrapped my legs around his waist, reveling in the feel of his muscles under my hands.

He didn’t stop at the top of the stairs but kept going and kissing and my heart was pounding. Turning, he gently kicked my door open and then my heart was doing the skipping thing, because we were in my bedroom and there was no one around to interrupt us. Nervous excitement enveloped me.

Daemon lifted his head. A lopsided grin appeared on his lips and I slid down, breathing fast. I watched in a daze as he moved back and sat on the edge of my bed, his fingers slowly letting go of mine, trailing across my palm. I felt the tingles all the way up my arm.

Then he looked at my desk.

My gaze followed his and I blinked, thinking a mirage had appeared in my bedroom, because I couldn’t be seeing what I was.

Resting on my desk was a MacBook Air in a cherry red sleeve.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say. My brain emptied. Were we in the right house? I took in the familiar surroundings and decided that we were.

I took a step toward the desk and stopped. “Is that for me?”

A slow, beautiful smile crept across his face, filling his eyes. “Well, it is on your desk, so…”

My heart stuttered. “But I don’t understand.”

“See, there’s this place called an Apple Store and I went there, picked one out. They didn’t have any stock.” He paused as if to make sure I was following him, and all I could do was stare. “So I ordered one. Meanwhile, I ordered a sleeve. I did take some liberties, since I prefer red.”

“But why?”

He laughed softly. “Man, I wish you could see your face.”

I clasped my hands over my cheeks. “Why?”

“You didn’t have one and I know how much blogging and that stuff means to you. Using the school computer isn’t doing it for you.” He shrugged. “And we really didn’t do the Valentine’s thing. So…here we are.”

It hit me then that he’d been planning this all day. “When did you put it here?”

“This morning, after you left for school.”

I took a deep breath. I was about five seconds from full fan-girl mode. “And you got this for me? A MacBook Air? Those things cost a lot of money.”

“Thank the taxpayers. Their money funds the DOD who then turns over the money to us.” He laughed at my expression. “And I save money. I have a small fortune stashed.”

“Daemon, it’s too much.”

“It’s yours.”

My gaze was drawn back to the Mac like it was my own personal mecca. How many times since I could spell laptop had I dreamt of a MacBook?

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “I can’t believe you did this.”

He shrugged again. “You deserve it.”

Something deep inside me snapped. I tackled Daemon, and he laughed, sweeping his arms around my waist. “Thank you. Thank you,” I said over and over again, in between raining quick kisses all over his face.

He tipped his head back on the comforter, laughing. “Wow. You’re pretty strong when you’re excited.”

I sat up, grinning down at him. His face blurred a little. “I can’t believe you did this.”

Smugness filled his expression. “You had no idea, did you?”

“No, but that’s why you kept bringing up the blog stuff.” I smacked his chest playfully. “You are…”

He folded his arms under his head. “I’m what?”

“Amazing.” I leaned forward, kissing him. “You’re amazing.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying for years.”

I laughed against his mouth. “Seriously, though, you shouldn’t have.”

“I wanted to.”

I didn’t know what to say, other than scream from the top of my lungs. Getting a MacBook was like Christmas and Halloween rolled into one.

He lowered his lashes. “It’s okay. I know what you want to do. Go play.”

“You sure?” My fingers itched to explore.

“Yes.”

Squealing, I kissed him again and then rolled off, diving for the laptop. Carrying the super-lightweight book to my bed, I sat beside Daemon and placed it in my lap. Over the next hour, I familiarized myself with the programs and went through several phases of feeling extraordinarily cool and smart for having a Mac Book Air.

Daemon leaned over my shoulder, pointing out certain features. “There’s the webcam.”

I squeaked and then grinned when our faces appeared on the screen. “You should do your first vlog right now,” he said.

Giddy, I hit record and shrieked, “I have a MacBook Air!”

Daemon laughed as he buried his head in my hair. “You dork.”

I hit the stop button and noticed the time. Powering down the laptop, I placed it beside us and threw my arms around him once more. “Thank you.”

He pulled me down and reached up, tucking the hair behind my ear. His hand lingered. “I like it when you’re happy, and if I can do something small, then I will.”

“Something small?” Shock heightened my tone. “That’s not something small. That had to have cost—”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re happy. I’m happy.”

My chest swelled. “I love you. You know that, right?”

A cocky grin appeared. “I know.”

I waited. Nothing. Rolling my eyes, I sat up on the other side of him and kicked off my shoes. Glancing out the bedroom window, I saw nothing but beautiful blue skies. It was nice enough for flip-flops. Flip-flops!

“You’re never going to say it, are you?”

“Say what?” The bed shifted as he sat up, placing his hands on my hips.

I looked over my shoulder. Thick lashes shielded his eyes. “You know what.”

“Hmm?” He slid his hands up my sides, distracting as usual.

It might bother some girls that their boyfriends never said the four-letter word. With any other guy, it might’ve bothered me, too, to be honest, but with Daemon, well, those words would never be easy for him to say, even though he had no problem showing it.

And I was okay with it. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t tease him about it, though.

He pressed a kiss to my cheek and slid off the bed. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it.”

Daemon raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously, I do love it. I can’t thank you enough.”

Now he waggled that brow. “I’m sure you can.”

I stood and pushed him lightly as I scanned my bedroom floor for my flip-flops. I hadn’t really looked for anything since the night Carissa had been here. I was still finding stuff they’d put away in odd places. Dipping down, I lifted up the edge of my polka-dotted comforter and peered into the no-man’s-land under my bed.

Several loose sheets of notebook paper cluttered the floor. Rolled socks were everywhere. One sneaker was near the top, next to a couple of magazines. The other sneaker was nowhere to be found and appeared to have run off with half the socks, since none of them looked like a match.

The flip-flops were halfway in the middle. I lay down and stretched, smacking at the floor.

“What are you doing?” Daemon asked.

“Trying to get my flip-flops.”

“Is it really that hard?”

Ignoring him, I concentrated on the shoes and willed them toward me. A second later, one hit my hand and when the second pair hit, something warm and smooth-feeling bounced off my palm.

“What the…?”

Tossing the flip-flops aside, I felt around until my hand landed on the object. I wiggled out from under the bed and sat up, opening my palm.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“What?” Daemon knelt beside me and sucked in a sharp breath. “Is that what I think it is?”

Resting in my palm was a shiny black stone with red streaked through the center, like a vibrant red flame. It must’ve been Carissa’s and although the bracelet portion wasn’t attached and must’ve been destroyed along with her body, this survived.

I was holding a piece of opal.