Oblivion

  wrong. Involving her didn’t feel any better.

  I pulled the baseball cap off my head and thrust my fingers through my hair as I stared at her house. She wanted to be involved—wanted to stand side by side with me, facing whatever came our way. Truth was, I hadn’t really let her.

  And Blake had.

  Wasn’t that why he was training her instead of me? He had enough…faith in her. Didn’t I?

  I slammed the cap back down on my head. It didn’t have anything to do with faith. I didn’t want Kat to be in danger, and because of that, there was a wedge between us. One that had evaporated the night I fell asleep in her bed, but it was there. I needed to trust that Kat could…handle herself. If I didn’t, there would be no chance for us.

  And there had to be a chance.

  “Shit,” I muttered, casting a dark look at the night sky.

  Mind made up, I stalked over to her house and up onto the porch. I knocked on the door and then stepped back, shoving my hands in my pockets so I didn’t punch myself in my face. If anything happened to Kat because of me—well, anything more—I wouldn’t be able to live with it.

  The door opened, and Kat poked her head out. Expectation filled her gray eyes as she looked me over. Not annoyance or anger. She was happy to see me. My lips tipped up in a crooked grin. “You busy?”

  She shook her head.

  “Wanna go for a ride?”

  There wasn’t even a pause. “Sure. Let me grab something warmer to put on.” Kat disappeared, returning wearing boots and a hoodie. She joined me outside, closing the door behind her. “Are we going to check on Vaughn?”

  “Not really. There’s something I’ve discovered.” I led her to my car and waited until we both were in. “But first, did you have a good Christmas? I was going to stop over, but I saw your mom was home.”

  “It was good. Will spent the day with us. That was weird.” Her nose wrinkled. “What about you?”

  “It was okay. Dee nearly burned the house down trying to make a turkey. Other than that, not very entertaining.” I pulled out of the driveway. “So, how much trouble were you in after Saturday?”

  “I got a lecture about not making my mom a grandmother.”

  I laughed.

  She sighed. “Now I have rules to follow, but nothing serious.”

  “Sorry about that.” I grinned as I slid her a sideways look. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “It’s okay. So where are we going? What have you found out?”

  “Vaughn came home Sunday night for about ten minutes. I followed him to just outside of Petersburg to this warehouse in an industrial park that hasn’t been used in years. He stayed there for a few hours and then left, but there were two officers who remained.” I slowed down as a deer dashed across the highway. “They’re keeping something there.”

  “You think they’re keeping Bethany…or Dawson?”

  I glanced at her, lips pressed into a tight line. God, I hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake. “I don’t know, but I need to get in there and someone needs to keep an eye on the outside while I go.”

  She nodded. The excitement that poured off her was palpable. “What if the guards are still keeping watch?”

  “They weren’t doing anything until Vaughn showed up. He’s home right now. With Nancy.” My lip curled. “I think those two really have something going on.”

  “Did you know my mom’s boyfriend is Bethany’s uncle?”

  “No.” I frowned as I focused on the road. Immediately my mind went to the shoe box full of prescription pads in Bethany’s old house. Was that the connection? “I didn’t really try to get to know her,” I said after a few moments. “Hell, I didn’t really try to get to know any human girl.”

  “So you’ve never…dated a human girl before?”

  “Dated? No.” The question knocked me off guard. I glanced over at her, deciding how to answer the question. “Hung out with? Yes.”

  Kat looked away quickly, and she didn’t respond.

  I let out a low breath and forged on. “Anyway, I didn’t know they were related.”

  A moment passed. “Do you think that’s weird? I mean, he’s related to Bethany, who’s sort of like me now, and he’s messing around with my mom. We know that someone had to have betrayed Dawson and Bethany.”

  I considered it. Even if he was the man the prescription pads belonged to, what did it mean other than him living there? That is, if he lived there and those pads weren’t for someone else. But then there was a stethoscope. Some doctors owned their own stethoscopes, but even if Will saw Bethany injured, how would he have known to put two and two together? How would he know about us, the Luxen, and what we could do?

  Again, there were more questions than answers, but some damn interesting new questions were raised. I was going to have to look into Will.

  “It’s weird, but how would he know what had happened?” I asked that question a lot. “He would’ve needed to have some inside knowledge of the whole healing process to know what to look for.”

  “Maybe he’s an implant.”

  I looked at her sharply, but didn’t say anything. Anger thinned her lips, and I knew if I told her what I’d found in Bethany’s house and the possible link to the man her mom was dating, she’d probably cut him the first chance she got.

  Wrong or right, her confronting Will without any concrete evidence was the last thing we needed. After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking about what Matthew told us—the whole marrying DNA thing.”

  She tensed as she stared straight ahead. “Yeah…?”

  “I talked to him later and I asked him about the connection, if it could make someone feel anything. He said no. But I already knew that. Thought you should know.”

  Kat nodded. “What about the whole you die, I die thing?”

  “What about it?” I kept my eyes on the road. “There isn’t anything we can do about that other than not get ourselves killed.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “We’re really joined together, you know. Like, forever…”

  “I know,” I said quietly.

  Neither of us really spoke after that, because what else could be said? We were joined together. Forever. And knowing that didn’t send me screaming off into the night.

  We arrived at the abandoned industrial park near midnight. We did a drive-by to make sure there were no cars around. There were three buildings nestled together near a field covered in white. One was a squat, one-story brick building and one in the middle was several stories high, and that was the one I wanted in. I pulled behind one of the buildings, parking the SUV between two large sheds with the front facing the only entrance.

  Killing the engine, I turned to her. “I need to get in that building.” I gestured at the tall one. “But you need to stay in the car while I do this. I need eyes on the road and I don’t know what’s waiting in there.”

  “What if someone is in there? I want to go with you.”

  Bringing her here was one thing, but I drew the line. “I can take care of myself. You need to stay in here, where it’s safe.”

  “But—”

  “No, Kat, stay here. Text me if anyone comes in.” I reached for the door. “Please.”

  She stared at me a moment and then nodded curtly. I hesitated, wanting to kiss her before I got out of the SUV, but figured I better not push my luck. Quietly closing the door behind me, I darted around the side of the building, past the padlocked, windowless steel bay doors, keeping an eye out for security cameras, and found none. I reached another door, the entrance I’d seen Vaughn head in and out of. This door would be way easier to manipulate than the others. Placing my hands on the door near the lock, I willed the internal gears to turn. The click was like learning a whole new season of Paranormal Hunters was starting sooner than expected.

  As I opened the door, I noticed something reddish-black, glossy and smooth, embedded in the center of the threshold. Having no idea what that was, I cl
osed the door behind me. I quickly scanned the first floor as I kept the brim of the cap low. I moved fast, so if I showed up on any security cameras, I would be nothing but a blur.

  I passed empty offices, following the scent of recently smoked cigarettes that hung thick in the air. I moved farther in, finding an office where metal folding chairs were spaced out. Full ashtrays sat on one of the metal tables, next to used coffee cups. There was nothing else. No paperwork or computers, not even a printer or a landline phone.

  Weird.

  Darting out of the office, I raced down a wide hall faintly lit by dull yellow light. A set of double doors was at the end, and when I pushed on them, they opened easily. I stepped into a large room and my heart nearly stopped in my chest.

  “Holy shit,” I murmured, feeling my cell vibrate in my pocket.

  Cages. There were cages in this room.

  There were about ten of them. All of the cages were empty. For a moment, I was frozen as I stared at them. Anger and horror swirled inside me. They kept people in those cages. They could’ve kept Bethany or my brother in one of these cages. Energy stirred inside me, and I wanted to let it go, blowing this building off the face of Earth.

  I finally moved to the cages and saw the chains. Chains. The same strange material I’d seen over the door encased the chains. In here, it looked like some reddish-black stone I’d never seen before. The cage in the middle looked recently used. A red rusty substance covered the cuffs. Blood. It took me a moment to realize it was blood, probably from someone pulling against the metal. The shackles were also covered with the same reddish-black material. In another cage, liquid had dried in the middle. It wasn’t blood—human at least. It looked sort of transparent. Luxen blood.

  Stepping back, I lifted my gaze. At the end of the room there was a door marked Stairs. God only knew what I’d find on the second floor. Maybe cages that weren’t empty. Purpose filled me. I prowled toward the door, stopping short when I remembered my phone had vibrated.

  I reached into my pocketed and pulled it out. It was a text from Kat. One word. Company. I spun around. “Shit.”

  Not going upstairs pissed me off, but if the officers or Vaughn had shown up, Kat was at risk. Whatever was up there had to wait. I raced through the building, and when I neared the entrance, my heart rate jumped erratically. Kat. It was due to Kat. Something was wrong. Her heart was beating way too fast.

  At the door, I heard an unfamiliar voice. “Christ. You’re right. She’s one of them.”

  “Told you,” another responded. “What’s in this barrel will do far worse. So you better think carefully before you answer the next question. Who are you?”

  I made a split decision. Holding the image of Vaughn in my mind, I mirrored his appearance. It wasn’t perfect. If anyone knew him well or got too close, they’d see that I didn’t look exactly like him. Stepping outside, my jaw locked down as I saw Kat on her knees, a man holding her arm with one hand and pointing a gun at her forehead with the other. Rage as potent as the Source exploded inside me. My hands curled into fists as I willed my voice to answer.

  “What’s going on out here?” I demanded.

  The one with the gun stepped aside, and he was still holding her arm. I did not like that, either. “We found her sneaking around back here. She’s one of them.”

  I frowned as I moved closer, not liking the grimace of pain tightening Kat’s face or the panic crowding her gaze as she stared up at me. “Good job. I’ll take this one.”

  “Are you sure?” asked the other officer, a shorter one.

  Nodding, I reached down and grasped her arm, hauling her to her feet. “I’ve had my eye on this one for a while.”

  “The cages should be prepped,” the one with the gun said, letting go of my other arm reluctantly. “It took a while for it to work on her. You might want to double it up.”

  My jaw ached.

  “Since we caught this one, shouldn’t we get a reward?” the shorter one asked.

  “Reward?” I repeated, voice low.

  The one with the gun laughed, and I felt Kat shudder. “Yeah, like with the other one. That was one hell of a reward. Husher won’t know any different as long as we don’t mess her up.”

  Like the other one? As long as they didn’t mess her up?

  I didn’t even stop to think.

  The rage inside me turned deadly. These people…these horrible human beings did not deserve to live. I pushed Kat aside as I lifted my hand. Lightning crackled around my arm, flaring red-white as it surrounded my body.

  “Dammit!” The one with the gun yelled, “It’s a trick!”

  Too late.

  The pulsing white light struck that bastard first, sending him several feet in the air. The light arched, smacking into the shorter officer. He flew into the side of the building with enough impact that it left a dent. Clothing smoked. Skin burned.

  A moment passed, and the Source pulled back into me. Both men, sprawled a few feet from each other, shuddered once and then turned to ash.

  “Oh my God,” Kat whispered.

  A cold breeze whipped down the building, stirring the piles of ashes, picking the flecks up and spreading them along the snow-covered ground. Within seconds, nothing remained of them.

  I returned to my human form and faced Kat. She was crouched on the ground, eyes wide. I reached down and took her hand, gently pulling her to her feet. “We need to get of here.”

  Before we could head back home, I needed to destroy the evidence. I had driven the officers’ car to the woods and then fried it. Eventually, questions would be asked about them, but with no car and no…no bodies, it would be hard to link back to us.

  Once we were in Kat’s house, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, and we sat on the couch, legs crossed, facing each other. I was keeping my head empty at the moment, not letting myself really think about what I’d done back there. Not allowing myself to ask if…if killing them had been necessary, if there hadn’t been another way.

  Kat’s hands tightened around her steaming cup. “Daemon…are you okay?”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

  She took a sip. “What was inside the building?”

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I briefly closed my eyes. “There wasn’t anything in the first couple of rooms. Just empty office space, but it’s obvious the place is used a lot. There were empty coffee cups, filled ashtrays everywhere. The farther I got in, there were…cages. About ten of them; one looked like it was used recently.”

  She blanched. “Do you really think they were keeping people in there?”

  “Luxen? Yes. And maybe others like you.” I dropped my hands onto my legs. “One of the cages had dried blood in it. All of them had chains and manacles encased in this dark red stone I’ve never seen before.”

  “I saw something outside the building, above the doors. It was shiny, looked black to me because it was dark.” Leaning to the side, she placed the cup on the coffee table “And he put something against my cheek, and God, that hurt like hell. I wonder if it was the same thing you saw.”

  Anger flashed through me, turning the corners of my lips down. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Perfectly fine,” she said. “Did you see anything else?”

  “I didn’t have time to go upstairs, but I had this feeling that something…something was up there.” I stood, clasping my hands behind my neck. “I need to get back in there.”

  “Daemon, it’s too dangerous. People are going to realize that the officers are missing. You can’t go back there.”

  I whirled, facing her. “My brother could be in there, or something that will tell me where he is. I can’t just walk away because it’s too dangerous.”

  “I understand that.” She rose, clenching her hands at the sides. “But what good are you to Dawson—or to Dee—if you get caught?”

  I stared at her for several long moments. “I have to do something.”

  “I know, but it needs to be more thought-out than any of yo
ur plans have been so far,” she pointed out. “Because you could’ve been captured tonight.”

  “I’m not worried about myself, Kat.”

  “Then that’s a problem!”

  My eyes narrowed, and the worse possible thing came out of my mouth. “I wouldn’t have involved you in this if I knew you were going to wimp out.”

  “Wimp out?” For a moment, I thought her head was going to spin. “I’m the one who involved you. I saw Bethany.”

  “And I agreed to let you come with me the first time.” I ran my hand through my hair. “If you’d stayed in that car, I could’ve had time to check the floors above.”