Opal

Chapter 36

Like the last time we made our trip to Mount Weather, I spent the bulk of Sunday with my mom. We went to a late breakfast and I filled her in on all the prom details. She was misty-eyed when I told her about Daemon’s surprise by the lake. Heck, I got misty-eyed and my chest fluttered as I told her.

Daemon and I had stayed out there until the stars had faded from the night and the sky had turned dark blue. It had been simply perfect and the things we’d done in those late hours still made my toes curl.

“You’re in love,” Mom said, chasing a piece of cantaloupe across her plate with her fork. “That’s not a question. I can see it in your eyes.”

Red swept across my cheeks. “Yeah, I am.”

She smiled. “You grew up too fast, baby.”

Didn’t always feel that way, especially this morning when I couldn’t find my other flip-flop and I’d been, like, two seconds from kicking a fit.

Then her voice lowered so that the packed church crowd couldn’t hear. “You’re being careful, right?”

Oddly, I wasn’t embarrassed by the change in conversation. Maybe it had to do with the “naked baby Katy stripping off her diapers” comment yesterday. Either way, I was glad that she asked—that she cared enough. My mom may be busy working like most single parents, but she wasn’t on the absentee list.

“Mom, I’d always be careful with that kind of stuff.” I took a sip of my soda. “I don’t want any baby Katys running around.”

Her eyes widened with shock and then they watered again. Oh, dear… “You have grown up,” she said, placing her hand over mine. “And I’m proud of you.”

Hearing that felt good, because on the whole parent side of things, I wasn’t sure what she could feel proud of. Sure, I went to school, stayed out of trouble—mostly—and got good grades. But I’d failed on the college thing so far, and I knew that bothered her. And everything else that I struggled and dealt with, she didn’t know.

But she was still proud of me, and I didn’t want to do anything to let her down.

When we arrived back home, Daemon stopped over for a little while and it took everything in me to keep Mom away from the photo albums before she went to grab a few hours of sleep, leaving Daemon and me to our own devices, which would sound like a really fun thing, but I was strung too tightly as the hours crept by.

Once I’d changed into the black sweats, Daemon asked for the opal. I handed it over.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, sitting across from me on my bed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin, white string. “Instead of keeping it in your pocket, I thought I could make a necklace out of it.”

“Oh. Good idea.”

I watched him wrap the chord around the piece of opal, adjusting it so there was enough string left on either side to fit comfortably around my neck. I sat still why he tied it and slipped the stone under my shirt. It rested slightly above the piece of obsidian I wore.

“Thank you,” I said, even though I still thought we should’ve risked shattering it.

He grinned. “I think we should skip out of lunch tomorrow and go to the movies.”

“Huh?”

“Tomorrow—I think we should make it a half day.”

Making plans to skip afternoon classes tomorrow wasn’t on my priorities list and I was about to point that out when I realized what he was doing. Distracting me from the possibility there might not be a tomorrow that I wanted to see, keeping things normal and, in a way, hopeful.

I lifted my lashes and our eyes held. The green hue of his burned extraordinarily bright and then turned white as I rose to my knees, cupped his face, and kissed him—really kissed him like he was the very air I was thirsting for.

“What was that for?” he asked when I sat back. “Not that I’m complaining.”

I shrugged. “Just because. And to answer your question, I think we should definitely skip and play truant for the day.”

Daemon moved so fast that one second he was sitting and the next he was over me, his arms like bands of steel on either side of my head and I was on my back, staring up at him.

“Did I tell you I have a soft spot for bad girls?” he murmured. His form blurred at the edges, a soft white as if someone had taken a paintbrush and smudged an outline around him. A lock of hair fell forward, into those astonishing diamond-like eyes.

I couldn’t find my breath. “Truancy does it for you?”

When he lowered his body, it thrummed with a low charge and where our bodies met, sparks flew. “You do it for me.”

“Always?” I whispered.

His lips grazed mine. “Always.”

…

Daemon left sometime later to meet up with Matthew and Dawson. The three of them wanted to run through things again, and Matthew, being the anal-retentive planner at heart, wanted to take a few more shots at the onyx.

I stayed back, hovering around my mom like a small child as she got ready. Feeling exceptionally needy, I even followed her outside and watched her back out of the driveway in her Prius.

Alone, my gaze went to the flowerbed skirting the porch. The faded mulch needed replacing and it could use a good weeding.

Stepping off the porch, I went to the small rose bushes and started pulling off the dead petals. I’d heard once that it could help the flowers bloom again. Wasn’t sure if that was correct or not, but the monotony of carefully picking out the leaves eased my nerves.

Tomorrow, Daemon and I would skip out at lunch.

Next weekend, I would convince my mom I needed to do an overhaul on the flowerbed.

At the beginning of June, I would graduate.

Sometime that month, I would get serious about filling out the paperwork for University of Colorado and I would drop that bomb on my mom.

In July, I would spend every day with Daemon swimming in the lake and getting a Jersey Shore tan.

By the end of summer, things would be normal between Dee and me.

And come fall, I’d move on from all of this. Things wouldn’t ever be mundane. I wasn’t fully human anymore. My boyfriend—the guy I loved—was an alien. And there may become a point where, like Dawson and Blake, Daemon and I would have to disappear.

But there was going to be a tomorrow, a next week, month, summer, and fall.

“Only you would be out gardening right now.”

I whipped around at the sound of Blake’s voice. He leaned against my car, dressed in all black, ready for tonight.

This was the first time since our confrontation that Blake had come around me while I was alone, and the alien part of me responded. That roller-coaster feeling was swelling inside me. Static pricked along my skin.

I held my ground. “What do you want, Blake?”

He laughed softly as his gaze fell to the ground. “We’re leaving soon, right? I’m just a little early.”

And I was just a little bit of a book nerd. Yeah, right.

Brushing the dirt off my fingers, I watched him wryly. “How did you get here?”

“Parked at the end of the road at the empty house.” He gestured with his chin. “The last time I parked here, I’m pretty sure someone melted the paint on the hood of my truck.”

Sounded like Dee and her microwave hands. I crossed my arms. “Dee and Andrew are next door,” I felt the need to point out.

“I know.” He pulled a hand out, ran it through his spikey hair. “You looked really good at prom.”

Unease unfurled in my belly. “Yeah, I saw you. Did you come alone?”

He nodded. “I was there only for a few minutes. Never did the high school dance thing. Kind of disappointing.”

I said nothing.

Blake dropped his hand. “You worried about tonight?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Smart girl,” he said, and smiled a little. It was more of a grimace than anything. “No one that I know of has infiltrated one of their facilities before or even gotten as far as we did last time. No Luxen or hybrid, and we can’t be the first to attempt it. I bet there’re a dozen Dawsons and Beths, Blakes and Chrises.”

Muscles tightened in my neck and shoulders. “If this is supposed to be a pep talk, you completely fail at it.”

Blake laughed.

“I don’t mean it that way. Just that if we do this, we’re the strongest, you know. The best out of their hybrids and out of the Luxen.”

Funny or maybe just ironic, I thought, that what Daedalus wanted so badly was the only ones who could go up against them.

I reached into my pocket, feeling the warm, smooth edges of the opal. “Then we’re just awesome, I guess.”

Another pained smile and then Blake said, “That’s what I’m counting on.”

…

We were all dressed like a ragtag group of reject ninjas. My skin sweated under the long-sleeved black thermal. The idea was that the less skin exposed, the less the onyx impacted us.

Didn’t really pan out that way last time, but we weren’t taking any chances tonight.

The opal was burning a hole in my pocket.

Driving to the mountains of Virginia was a quiet affair. This time around, even Blake was silent. Dawson was a ball of energy beside him. Once, luckily not when cars surrounded us, he slipped into his true form, nearly blinding all of us.

Blake’s words lingered in my head. That’s what I’m counting on. I was probably being paranoid, but they settled like sour milk. Of course he was counting on us to pull off the near impossible. He had just as much as us to gain.

And then I thought of Luc’s warning: never trust those who have anything to gain or lose. But that meant we couldn’t trust either him or our friends. All of us had something to gain or lose.

Daemon reached over the center console and squeezed my fidgeting hand.

Thinking these things right then wasn’t the best route to travel. I was getting myself all worked up and spazzy.

I smiled at Daemon and decided to focus on our afternoon. We didn’t really do anything. Just cuddled together, both of us wide awake, and somehow that was more intimate than anything else. Last night or early this morning had been a different story.

Daemon was a creative fellow.

My cheeks were stained red the rest of the trip.

The two SUVs arrived at the little farm at the bottom of the pitch-black access road with five minutes to spare. As we climbed out, Blake got his confirmation text from Luc.

Things were a go.

Instead of limbering up, we all stayed still, conserving our energy. Ash, Andrew, and Dee remained in their SUV. The rest of us moved to the edge of the overgrown field.

I hoped I didn’t get infested with ticks.

With one last look at the Luxen in the vehicle, it was time to go. Letting the Source flow through my blood and bones and ripple over my skin, we took off into the darkness, without the light of the moon on the cloudy night. Like last time, Daemon stayed beside me. The last thing anyone needed was my tripping over something and rolling back down the hill.

Things were quiet and tense when we reached the edge of the woods, waited to see that only one guard manned the fence.

It was Daemon who took him out this time. Then we were at the fence, keying in the first code.

Icarus.

Taking off across the stretch of field, the five of us moved like ghosts. Visible in one’s peripheral vision, but gone when looked at head-on.

At the set of three doors, Dawson entered in the second password.

Labyrinth.

And now it was do or die time. All these months had led up to this. Did our onyx training mean a damn thing? Daemon glanced at me.

I slipped my hand into my pocket, wrapping my fingers around the opal.

Going through the onyx spray would still hurt like the fiery bowels of hell for the others, but it should be manageable if Blake had been right.

The door slid open with an airlock sound and Daemon was the first through.

Air puffed and he flinched, but one leg moved in front of the other and then he was through, on the other side. He stopped, glancing over his shoulder, and smiled that half smile.

All of us let out a collective breath.

We filed through the onyx-shielded door. Each of the guys took the spray with a wince and grimace of pain. I barely felt a thing.

Inside Mount Weather for the first time, we fell behind Blake, who knew most of the way. The tunnel was shadowed, with small lamps placed every twenty feet or so on the orange walls. I searched for those murderous emergency doors but it was too dark to see them.

Tipping my head up, I noticed something terrifying about the ceiling. It was shiny—like it was wet or something, but it wasn’t liquid.

“Onyx,” Blake whispered. “The whole place is covered in onyx.”

Unless they did a massive remodel recently, that couldn’t be something new to Blake. Feeling the opal against my skin, I pulled on the Source and waited for the extreme rush of energy as we flew down the tunnel.

There was a tiny spark of extra energy, but nothing like it had been when Daemon and I had tested it out. My heart sunk as we neared the end of the long tunnel. It had to be all the onyx, somehow weakening the opal.

At the end of the tunnel, it split into a crossroad. Elevators were in the middle. Matthew edged toward the opening, checking the space first.

“Clear,” he said, then faded out, moving so fast that when he hit the elevator button, my eyes couldn’t track him until he was beside us again.

When the doors slid open, we moved at once, filling the steel elevator. Apparently the stairwells were under password and I wondered what the heck people did to get out in case of emergency.

I looked around the elevator, noting a few blackish-red shiny parts in the flickering overhead light. I half expected to be doused with onyx while we waited, but it didn’t happen.

Daemon’s hand brushed mine, and I looked up.

He winked.

Shaking my head, I shifted my weight restlessly. This seemed like the slowest-moving elevator in the world. I could figure out a trig formula faster.

Daemon squeezed my hand, as if he could sense my nervousness.

I stretched up on the tips of my toes and cupped Daemon’s cheek, guiding his head down to mine. I kissed him deeply and without reservation.

“For good luck,” I said after I pulled back, a bit breathless.

His emerald eyes glinted with a wealth of promises that sent a very different kind of chills over me. When we got home, we were so getting some one-on-one time.

Because we would get home, all of us. There could be no other outcome

Finally, the elevator doors popped open, revealing a small waiting room. White walls. White ceilings. White floors.

We’d stepped into an insane asylum.

“Lovely decorative colors,” Matthew said.

Daemon smirked.

His brother moved ahead, stopping at the door. There was no way, no idea of seeing what waited for us on the other side. With this code, we were going in blind.

But we’d come this far. Excitement hummed through me.

“Careful, brother,” Daemon said. “We take this slow.”

He nodded. “I’ve never been here. Blake?”

Blake moved to his side. “Should be another tunnel, shorter and wider, and there’ll be doors on the right side. Cells, really, outfitted with a bed, a TV, and a bathroom. There’ll be about twenty rooms. I don’t know if the others are occupied or not.”

Others? I hadn’t thought about others. I looked at Daemon. “We can’t just leave them.”

Before he could answer, Blake intervened. “We don’t have time, Katy. Taking too many will slow us down, and we don’t know what kind of condition they are in.”

“But—”

“For once, I agree with Blake.” Daemon met my shocked stare. “We can’t, Kitten. Not now.”

I wasn’t okay with this, but I couldn’t run down the hall, letting people free. We didn’t plan for that and we only had a set amount of time. It sucked—sucked worse than people who pirated books, sucked more than waiting a year for the next book in a beloved series, and sucked more than a brutal cliffhanger ending. Leaving here, knowing we could possibly be leaving innocent people behind, would haunt me forever.

Blake took a deep breath and keyed in the last code.

Daedalus.

The sound of several locks sucking back into place broke the silence and a light at the top of the door, on the right, flashed green.

As Blake inched the door open, Daemon moved to stand in front of me. Matthew was suddenly behind me and I was shielded. What the…?

“We’re clear,” Blake said, sounding relieved.

We went through the door, discovering another onyx shield. Now we had two more to get the others through. This wasn’t going to be easy.

The tunnel was like the one above, but all white and like Blake had informed us, it was shorter and wider. Everyone was moving but me. We’d made it—we were here. My stomach lurched and my skin tingled.

I almost couldn’t believe it.

Happy and anxious all at once, I felt the rush of responding Source, but it peaked and then quickly sputtered out. The amount of onyx in this building was insane.

“The third cell is hers,” Blake said, rushing down the hall, toward the last cluster of doors.

Spinning back around, I held my breath as Dawson reached for the onyx-coated door handle and turned. It met no resistance.

Dawson stepped into the room, his legs shaking, his entire body trembling, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “Beth?”

That one word, that one sound was pulled from the depths of Dawson and we all stopped, our breaths holding again.

Over his shoulder, I saw a slender form on a narrow bed sit up. As she came into view, I almost cheered—I wanted to, because it was her, it was Beth…but she looked nothing like she had when I’d last seen her.

Her brown hair wasn’t stringy or greasy but pulled back in a smooth ponytail. A few strands had slipped free, framing a pale but elfin face. A huge part of me feared that she wouldn’t recognize Dawson, that she’d be that cracked shell of a girl I’d met. I’d been planning for the worse. That she might even attack Dawson.

But when I saw Beth’s dark eyes, they weren’t empty like they’d been at Vaughn’s house. They also looked nothing like Carissa’s frighteningly blank stare.

Recognition flared in Beth’s eyes.

Time stopped for those two and then sped up. Dawson stumbled forward, and I thought he was going to drop to his knees. His hands opened and closed at his sides as if he had no control over them.

All he could say was, “Beth.”

The girl scrambled off the bed, her eyes bouncing over us and then they settled and stayed on him. “Dawson? Is that… I don’t understand.”

They both moved as one, rushing forward, crossing the distance at the same moment. Their arms went around each other and Dawson lifted her up, burying his face in her neck. Words were traded, but their voices were thick with emotion, too low and too fast for my ears to track. They were holding onto each other in a way I knew they were never going to let go.

Dawson lifted his head and said something in his language and it sounded just as beautiful as it did when Daemon spoke it. Then he kissed her, and I felt like an interloper watching them, but I couldn’t look away. There was so much beauty in their reunion, in the way he showered her upturned face with tiny kisses and the wetness that gathered on her cheeks.

Tears crept up my throat, burning the back of my eyes. Happy tears blurred my vision. I felt Matthew place his hand on my shoulder and squeeze. Sniffling, I nodded.

“Dawson.” Urgency filled Daemon’s tone, reminding all of us that we were running out of time.

Pulling apart, Dawson grabbed her hand and turned around as a whole boatload of questions came streaming out of Beth’s mouth.

“What are you guys doing? How did you all get in here? Do they know?” And on and on she went as Dawson, who was grinning like an idiot, tried to keep her quieted down.

“Later,” he said. “But we have to go through two doors and it’s going to hurt—”

“Onyx shields, I know,” she said.

Well, that solved that problem.

I turned as Blake came back, carrying the prone body of a dark-haired Luxen boy. A reddish stain bloomed across the teenager’s jaw. “Is he okay?”

Blake nodded. The skin around his lips was drawn tight and pale. “I… He didn’t recognize me. I had to keep him quiet.”

A tiny crack fissured my heart. The look in Blake’s eyes was so hopeless and bleak, especially when they flickered toward Dawson and Beth. Everything he had done: lied, cheated, and murdered had all been for the guy in his arms. Someone he considered a brother. Again, I hated that I felt sympathy for Blake.

But I did.

Beth looked up and her onslaught of questions faded off. “You can’t—”

“We need to go.” Blake cut her off and stalked past us. “We’re almost out of time.”

And we were. The reminder whipped through me and I gave the other girl what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “We have to leave. Now. Everything else can wait.”

Beth was shaking her head vigorously. “But—”

“We need to go, Beth. We know.” And she nodded at Dawson’s words, but panic was building in her eyes.

Urgency kicked adrenaline into high gear and without any more delay, the five of us took off down the hall. Daemon punched the code into panel on the wall, and the door opened.

The all-white waiting room wasn’t empty.

Simon Cutters stood there—missing, presumed dead Simon Cutters—as big and burly as ever. All of us were caught off guard. Daemon took a step back. Matthew came to a halt. I couldn’t wrap my head around how he was alive, why he was standing there, as if he were waiting for us.

The tiny hairs on my arms started to rise.

“Oh shit,” Daemon said.

Simon smiled. “Missed me? I missed you guys.”

Then he raised an arm. Light reflected off a metal cuff he wore. A piece of opal glittered, nearly identical to the one I wore around my neck. Everything happened so fast. Simon opened his hand, and it was like being hit with gale force winds. I was lifted off my feet and thrown back through the air. I crashed into the nearest door, my hip hitting the metal door handle. Pain exploded, knocking the air out of my lungs as I hit the floor.

Oh, my God… Simon was…

My brain raced to keep up with what was happening. If Simon had a piece of opal, then that meant he had to have been mutated. He probably wouldn’t have gotten us if we hadn’t been so unprepared to see him. It was like with Carissa. He was the last person I expected.

Daemon was picking himself up several feet back down the hall, as was Matthew. Dawson had Beth pressed back against the wall. Blake was closer, using his body to shield Chris’s.

I pushed myself up, wincing as pain arced down my leg. I tried to stand, but my leg gave out. Blake was there, catching me before I hit the floor for the second time.

Simon stepped into the room and smiled.

Daemon staggered to his feet. “Oh, you are so dead.”

“Ah, I think that’s my line,” Simon responded. A burst of energy flew from his hand, and I yelled Daemon’s name. He narrowly avoided a direct hit.

Daemon’s pupils were starting to glow white. He reared back. Energy arced across the room, a whitish-red light. Simon dodged it, laughing.

“You’re going to wear yourself out, Luxen.” Simon sneered.

“Not before you.”

Simon winked and then spun toward us, throwing his hand out again. Blake and I skidded back. I started to fall and Blake grabbed me. Somehow his arm ended up around my neck. There was a tugging feeling and then Daemon was beside me, shoving me behind him.

“This is so not good,” Blake said, edging closer to Simon. “We’re running out of time.”

“No shit,” Daemon spat.

Dawson shot toward Simon, but he threw him back, laughing. He was like a hybrid suped up on steroids. Another blast of energy flew at Blake and then toward Matthew. Both of them dive-bombed the floor to avoid taking a hit. Simon kept advancing, still smiling. I looked up and our eyes locked. His were devoid of all human emotion. Unreal. Inhuman.

And they were so very cold.

How had he been mutated? How was it successful? And how had it turned him into this unfeeling monster. There were so many questions, and none of them mattered right now. The breath-stealing pain made it difficult to concentrate, to even keep standing.

Simon’s smile spread, and a shudder rolled through me as I pulled on the Source, feeling it spark deep inside me. Before I could release it, he opened his mouth. “Want to play, Kitty Kat?”

“Oh, screw this,” Daemon growled.

Daemon was just so much faster than me. He shot past Blake and Matthew, beyond Dawson and Beth. Moving so fast had to have affected him with all the onyx, but he was like lightning. Half a heartbeat later, he was in front of Simon, his hands on either side of Simon’s head.

A sickening crack echoed down the hall.

Simon hit the floor.

Daemon stepped back, breathing deeply. “I never liked that punk in the first place.”

I stumbled to the side, heart racing as the Source stirred restlessly inside of me. Eyes wide, I swallowed hard. “He’s… He was…”

“We don’t have time.” Dawson pulled Beth down the hall, into the waiting room. “They have to know we’re here.”

Blake scooped Chris up, casting a look at Simon as he passed the prone body. He said nothing, but what was there to say?

My stomach dipped as panic threatened to take hold. Forcing myself forward, I ignored the jagged pain racing up and down my leg.

“Are you okay?” Daemon asked, his fingers threading through mine. “You took a nasty hit.”

“I’m okay.” I was alive and I could walk, so that had to mean I was okay. “You?”

He nodded as we entered the waiting room. Taking the elevator filled me with so much dread I thought I’d hurl, but there were no doors to stairwells. Nothing. We had no other choice.

“Come on.” Matthew slipped into the elevator, his face pale. “We need to prepare for anything once these doors are open.”

Daemon nodded. “How is everyone?”

“Not feeling very good,” Dawson answered, his free hand open and closing. “It’s the damn onyx. I don’t know how much is left in me.”

“What the hell was up with Simon?” Daemon turned on Blake as the elevator pitched into motion. “He barely seemed affected by the onyx.”

Blake shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

Beth was babbling on about something, but I couldn’t pay attention. The ball of dread was building in my stomach, spreading into my limbs. How could Blake not know? I felt Daemon shift beside me, and then his lips brushed my forehead.

“It’s going to be okay. We’re almost out of here. We got this,” Daemon whispered into my ear, and more tension seeped out of him, out of me. Then he smiled. It was a real one, so wide and beautiful that my own lips curved to meet his. “I promise, Kitten.”

I closed my eyes briefly, soaking in his words and hanging onto them. I needed to believe in them because I was seconds away from freaking out. I had to hold it together. We were a tunnel away from freedom.

“Time?” Blake asked.

Matthew checked his watch. “Two minutes.”

The doors released with a suction-cup sound and the long narrow tunnel appeared, thankfully, beautifully empty and devoid of anymore freak-me-out surprises. Blake and his bundle were the first out, his strides long and quick. Daemon and I took up the flank with Matthew in front of Dawson and Beth, just in case something happened.

“Stay behind me,” Daemon said.

Nodding, I kept my eyes peeled. The tunnel was a blur, we were moving that fast. The pain in my leg increased with each step. As Blake reached the middle door, he shifted Chris to over his shoulder and entered in the key. The door rattled and then slid open.

Blake stood there, swathed in the darkness of the encroaching night. In his arms, the motionless Luxen was pale and seemed barely alive, but he’d be free in seconds. Blake had finally gotten what he wanted. Our eyes met from across the distance. There was something churning in those green flecks.

A great sense of foreboding took root and spread rapidly. Immediately, I reached for the opal around my neck and all I felt was the chain the piece of obsidian hung from.

Blake’s lips slowly curved up at the corners.

My heart stuttered and then my stomach fell so fast I thought I’d be sick. That smile… That smile felt like a big gotcha. A surge of unbridled terror turned my skin icy cold. But it couldn’t be. No. No. No. It couldn’t be…

Blake cocked his head to the side as he stepped back. He opened his free hand. The thin, white string unraveled, slipping through his fingers. The piece of opal dangled there, in his grasp. “Sorry,” he said, and he truly sounded sorry. It was unbelievable. “It had to be this way.”

“Son of a bitch!” roared Daemon, breaking free from me. He launched forward, going after Blake in a way I knew would end in bloody violence.

Heat flared between my breasts, unexpected and just as terrifying as an army of DOD soldiers. I reached down, yanking the obsidian from my shirt. It glowed red.

Daemon drew up short, snarling.

The darkness behind Blake thickened and stretched out, creeping into the entrance of the tunnel. The blackness seeped over the walls. Lamps sparked and went out. The shadows dropped onto the floor, rising up all around Blake. Not touching him. Not stopping him. The smoke formed pillars at first and then human forms. Their skin was like midnight oil, slick and shiny.

Arum formed all around Blake—seven of them. All dressed the same. Dark pants. Dark shirts. Eyes shielded behind sunglasses. One by one, they smiled.

They ignored Blake.

They let him go.

Blake disappeared into the night as the Arum flew forward.

Daemon met the first one head on, his human form flickering out as he slammed the Arum back into the wall. Dawson shoved Beth to the side as he closed line on an advancing Arum, taking him down.

Reaching down, Matthew grabbed a slender shard of Obsidian, sharpened into a fine point. He spun around, slamming it deep into the belly of the nearest Arum.

The Arum drew up, losing its human form as it rose to the low ceiling. It hung there for a second and then shattered as if it were made of nothing more than frail bone.

I snapped out of it.

Knowing that none of them, including me, would be able to rely on the Source for very long, this would be a hand to hand kind of combat. I yanked the obsidian around my neck and the chain snapped just as one of the Arums reached me. I saw my pale face in its dark sunglasses and searched for the Source inside me.

He reached forward, and whitish-red light erupted from me, throwing the Arum back and knocking it flat on its ass. The energy rushed out like an overflowing stream. The onyx had lessened the blow, and the Arum was on his feet as Daemon took out the one he was fighting. Another explosion of black smoke rocked the corridor.

The Arum I knocked down was in front of me, sunglasses gone. His eyes were the palest blue, the color of the winter sky. They were just as cold as Simon’s, if not more.

I took a step back, my hand clenching the piece of obsidian.

The Arum smiled, and then he twisted to the side, swinging his leg out and catching my bad one. I yelped as my leg caved. I started to go down, but he caught me around the neck, lifted me off my feet and into the air. Beyond him, I saw Daemon spin, saw the anger building in him, saw the Arum rising up behind him.

“Daemon!” I shouted as I slammed the piece of obsidian into the chest of the Arum holding me.

The Arum dropped me as Daemon whirled, dodging the other one. I hit the cement floor for the umpteenth time as the Arum broke apart with such force it blew my hair back from my face.

Daemon grabbed ahold of the enemy closest to him by the shoulders, tossing it several feet behind me as I stood on shaky legs. My hand trembled around the heated obsidian.

“Go! We need to go!” Dawson grabbed Beth and started for the door, dodging an Arum. “Now!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. This was a battle we wouldn’t win. Not when we had no time left and there were four Arum still standing, obviously unaffected by the onyx.

Pushing past the pain, I started forward, taking a few steps before my leg was snatched from behind. I went down fast and hard, dropping the obsidian to save my face from smashing into the cement. The coldness of the Arum’s touch soaked through my sweats, traveling up my legs as its grip on my ankle tightened.

I twisted onto my side and kicked out with my good leg, catching the Arum in the face. There was a satisfying wet crunching, sound and the Arum let go. I scrambled to my feet, gritting my teeth from the pain in my leg as I headed for Daemon. He’d turned and was coming back for me as a low hum rumbled through the building, gaining and gaining until it was all that we could hear. All of us stopped. Light flooded the tunnel and down the hall, automatic locks slamming into place. The thump-thump-thump went on in an endless succession.

“No,” Matthew said, his eyes darting down from where we came. “No.”

Daemon’s gaze shot behind me. I turned, seeing light flaring in the tunnel, crackling and forming a wall of shimmering blue light. One after another, every ten feet or so, over and over…

The blue light came down on one of the Arum not too far behind me. It caught it, and the light flared. There was a loud cracking sound, like a fly caught in one of those traps.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

The Arum was gone—simply just gone.

Don’t go near the blue light, Blake had said. They’re lasers. Rip you right apart.

Daemon lurched forward, his hands reaching for me, but it was too late. Before he could reach me, and not even a foot from my face, a sheet of blue light appeared and heat blew off it, blowing my hair back. Daemon let out a startled scream, and I jerked back.

I couldn’t believe it. Not possible. I refused to believe it. Daemon was on the other side of the light, closer to the exit, and I…I was on the other side, the wrong side.

Daemon’s eyes met mine and the look in them, the horror in his extraordinary green eyes cracked my heart into a million useless pieces. He understood—oh, God, he understood what was happening. I was trapped with the remaining Arum.

Shouts sounded. Booted feet pounded on the floors. They sounded like they were coming from everywhere. In front of us, from behind, and all corners. I couldn’t turn, though, couldn’t look behind me or away from Daemon.

“Kat,” he whispered, pleaded, really.

Sirens blasted shrilly.

Daemon reacted so fast, but for once in his entire life, he wasn’t fast enough. He couldn’t be. Emergency doors started to slide from the top and bottom, and Daemon shot to the side, slamming his palm on a tiny control panel. Nothing was working. The doors kept sliding together. The blue light was like a stream of destruction separating us. Daemon whipped toward me. He launched toward the blue shield, and I let out a startled gasp. He’d be destroyed if he hit the lasers!

Pulling from the Source as much as I could, I held out my hand, ignoring the heat as I pushed at Daemon with the last of my strength and will, holding his straining body back from the blue lights until Matthew sprang into action, grabbing Daemon around his waist. I slid to the floor, my knees barely catching me. Daemon went wild, throwing punches and dragging Matthew as he struggled to move forward, but Matthew got him back from the light, managing to bring Daemon down to his knees.

It was too late.

“No! Please! No!” he roared, his voice cracking in a way I’d never heard before. “Kat!”

The voices and sounds of pounding feet were drawing closer, and so was the bone-chilling coldness of the Arum. I felt them along my back, but I couldn’t look away from Daemon.

Our eyes locked, and I would never, ever forget the terror in his, the look of pure helplessness. Everything felt surreal on my end, like I really wasn’t here. I tried to smile for him, but I’m not sure I managed one.

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered as tears filled my eyes. The doors were coming out of the ceiling and the floor. “It’ll be all right.”

Daemon’s green eyes held a glassy sheen. His arm reached out, fingers splayed. They never reached the laser or the door. “I love you, Katy. Always have. Always will,” he said, voice thick and hoarse with panic. “I will come back for you. I will—”

The emergency doors sealed shut with a soft thud. “I love you,” I said, but Daemon… Daemon was gone. Gone on the other side of the doors and I was trapped—with the Arum and Daedalus. For a moment I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth to scream, but terror poured into me, cutting off the sound.

I turned around slowly, lifting my head as a tear rolled down my cheek. An Arum stood there, head tilted to the side. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, and I was glad I couldn’t.

He knelt, and beyond him and the other Arums, I could see men in black uniforms. The Arum reached out, trailing an icy finger down my cheek, chasing the tear, and I recoiled away, pressing against the emergency doors.

“This is going to hurt,” the Arum said. He leaned in, his face inches from mine and his breath cold against my mouth.

“Oh God,” I whispered.

A burst of pain encompassed every cell in my body, and the air flew out of my lungs. Suspended there, I couldn’t move away. My arms didn’t work. Someone grabbed me from the side, but I couldn’t feel. It felt like I was still screaming, but there was no sound.

There was no Daemon.