Oblivion

  I gave her a half grin. “Your clothing is soaked and cold. And there are probably traces of onyx still on them. You need to get out of them.”

  She smacked my hands away. “I can do that myself.”

  Leaning in, I spoke directly in her ear. “Where’s the fun in that?” I let go, though, and walked over to my dresser. “You really think we were doomed to fail?”

  The following rustle of clothing being stripped off really made it hard to not look.

  “Don’t…don’t turn around.”

  Considering I’d seen it before, I shook my head as I rooted around for something she could wear.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally. “It was a huge undertaking for trained spies. We’re in over our heads.”

  “But we were fine until we hit those doors.” I pulled out a shirt that would work like a gown on her, albeit a short gown. “I hate to say this, but I really don’t think Blake knew about them. The look on his face when you and Dawson went down—it was too real.”

  “Then why did you punch him in the face?”

  “I wanted to.” Placing a hand over my eyes, I turned around and offered her the shirt. “Here you go.”

  She grabbed it quickly and for a moment, I split my fingers, catching the shirt billowing around her thighs.

  “You were peeking,” she said.

  “Maybe.” I took her hand and led her to the bed. “Get in. I’m going to check on Dawson and I’ll be back.”

  Kat climbed onto the bed and made her way to what was turning out to be her side. She grabbed the comforter and tugged it all the way up to her chin. I headed out into the hallway, stopping at the top of the stairs. I could hear Dawson and Dee. Andrew’s voice was in the mix. Matthew had probably already left.

  I needed to go down and check on Dawson, but as I stood there at the top of the stairs, I told myself that Dee had it handled; so did Andrew. I wasn’t always…needed. I didn’t have to be the one to always take care of everything.

  Instead of going downstairs, I pivoted and walked to my bedroom. Slipping inside the room lit by silvery moonlight, I went back to the dresser and grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms. Quickly changing, I then made my way over to the bed. I pulled the covers back and slid in.

  Kat wiggled closer. “How’s Dawson?”

  “He’s doing okay. He’s not a happy camper, though.” I didn’t need to go downstairs to know that.

  “Thank you for getting us out of there.” She tilted her head back as I brushed the still-damp hair off her cheek.

  “I had help.” I pressed my lips against her forehead. “You feeling okay?”

  “I feel fine. Stop worrying about me.”

  I curled my fingers through her hair. “Don’t ever walk through a door first again, okay? And don’t argue with me about it or accuse me of being chauvinistic. I don’t ever want to see you in that kind of pain again.”

  I waited for her to argue with me, but she scooted over and placed a hand on my bare chest. Static jumped across her fingers as she kissed me. I returned the kiss with a soft one. The kiss was more of a benediction, sweet and tender, but the kisses changed. I don’t think either of us planned for that, but the residual adrenaline from tonight kicked back in, heightening our senses.

  Kat shifted onto her back, and I followed. There wasn’t a moment where we lost contact with each other. I settled over her, her softness welcoming me, undoing me. In mere seconds, our failure at Mount Weather was shoved out of this room, locked away.

  I smoothed my hand down, catching the borrowed shirt and baring her shoulder. I blazed a trail of kisses down her throat, shuddering when I heard her soft moan. When I kissed the smooth skin of her shoulder, Kat lifted up and raised her arms.

  There wasn’t a moment of hesitation for me. God. There never was, not anymore, when it came to Kat.

  I tugged her shirt off and I was struck motionless by the beauty of her.

  My hand trembled slightly. I shook as I stared down at her. Since all of her clothing had been soaked, there’d been nothing under that shirt. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that until now.

  Damn.

  Kat undid me in ways she’d never know.

  I was greedy with my hands. There wasn’t a part of her I didn’t want to touch, to explore, and she was the same. Her hands smoothed over my chest and my stomach, slipping under the loose band of the pants, and then they, too, were shed, and there was nothing at all between us.

  In the back of my head, I wanted our first time to be perfect. Corny. Hell, I knew it was corny. Kat was worth perfection, but there was nothing but sensations and wants and needs. Energy coursed over us, and I was ready. She was ready.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

  My heart freaking stopped at the sound of her plea. I kissed her deeply, and when I lifted up, electricity crackled over our skin. This was going to happen. Our breaths came in rough pants. Our hearts pounded in rhythm. We both were ready. Sitting up, I reached for the bedside table.

  Kat’s gaze met mine. She bit down on her lower lip, and then a giggle broke free. I smiled at the happy sound, and I spoke in the language rarely ever heard or spoken.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  I grabbed a foil package from the nightstand. “There’s really no translation for it, but the closest human words would be ‘you are beautiful to me.’”

  Kat sucked in a sharp breath, and our gazes locked. She reached up, sinking her fingers into my hair. I started to open the packet.

  A fist pounded on the door, and Andrew’s voice intruded. “Daemon, are you awake?”

  Disbelief thundered through me. “If I ignore him, do you think he’ll go away?”

  Her hands fell to the bed. “Maybe.”

  The pounding came again, so nope. “Daemon, I really need you downstairs. Dawson is ready to go back to Mount Weather. Nothing Dee and I are saying to him is making a bit of difference. He’s like a suicidal Energizer bunny.”

  Stomach sinking, I squeezed my eyes shut. “Son of a bitch…”

  “It’s okay.” Kat started to sit up. “He needs you.”

  Yeah, but I needed Kat, like real bad.

  I glared at the door. Cursing under my breath, I tossed the foil packet back into the nightstand. “Stay here and get some rest. I’ll talk—or beat some sense into him.” I kissed her briefly, and then gently pushed her back down. “I’ll be back.”

  She snuggled in, smiling. “Try not to kill him.”

  “No promises.” Grabbing the pajama bottoms, I pulled them on and made my way to the door. Stopping, I looked back at her. Seconds. I’d been seconds away from pure heaven. Seconds. I sighed. “Dammit.”

  Andrew was leaning against the wall across from my bedroom when I opened the door. The look on his face was knowing, sly. I smacked him upside the head as I walked past him.

  “Ouch,” he yelled. “What in the hell was that for?”

  “Your timing sucks on an epic level,” I shot back.

  “Hey, not my fault, man.” He fell into step beside me. “More like your brother has bad timing.”

  The moment I walked into the living room and saw Dawson’s determined expression and Dee’s concerned grimace, my libido was officially cooled. “What are you doing, Dawson?” I demanded. “It’s now past one in the morning and—”

  “I don’t care what time it is.” Dawson’s eyes flashed an intense white. “Beth is still at Mount Weather, and we’re here, doing nothing.”

  Dee shook her head. “You and Kat were injured. You—”

  “We are fine,” he shot back, stepping to the side, but I blocked him in. “There’s no reason for us not to go back.”

  I stared at him. “Are you insane?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” muttered Andrew.

  Struggling not to shake sense into Dawson, I forced my voice even. “Think about this, Dawson. You can’t just waltz into Mount Weather now. Besides the fact that the onyx will take you out again, Luc o
nly took down the cameras and security functions for fifteen minutes. They are back up again. You will get busted the moment you near the gate.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t say you don’t care,” Dee argued, her eyes filling with tears. “You do care! You have to care about what happens to you. You have to care about us.”

  Before he could say something that would traumatize my sister, I jumped in. “You have to care about Beth. If you go back now, if you go back without us being more prepared, you’re not going to help Beth escape. You will be captured, and she’ll still be in danger.”

  “You don’t get it,” he seethed. “You can’t understand. You have Katy. She’s safe, upstairs right now, in your bed. You have her. You’ll be able to go right back to her, but me? I don’t even know”—his voice cracked—“if I’ll ever see Beth again.”

  I drew back, stiffening. “I know I can’t possibly fully understand all that you’re feeling, but give me some damn credit here. You will see Beth again.”

  Dawson opened his mouth, but then snapped his jaw shut. He turned sideways, thrusting his hands through his hair. Desperation crept into the lines of his face.

  “We’re not giving up. I told you that. I promised that.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and sidestepped him so I could meet his gaze. “We will find a way to get her out.”

  He lifted his chin. The harsh white light faded from his eyes, leaving nothing but pain and sorrow behind. “How? How are we going to get to her now?”

  Damn, that was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer for, because even if we got Luc to take security down again, how would we get past the onyx?

  “I don’t know,” I said finally, “but we will figure something out. We’re not going to leave her in there. We will figure something out.”

  His stare held mine for a long time, and then he nodded. Bone-deep weariness filled the void the anger and panic had left. Dawson settled down after that, but I stayed with him for a while, just keeping an eye on him. Eventually, he went to bed. Andrew stayed even though we had school in a few hours, crashing out on the couch. I was so done with today by the time I climbed the stairs.

  Kat was out when I neared the bed, and while I would have loved to rekindle what we’d started, I didn’t have it in me to wake her.

  Carefully climbing back into bed next to Kat, I worked one arm under her and pulled her back against my chest without waking her. Still asleep, she wiggled her bottom and settled in against me. She hadn’t pulled my shirt back on, so it was difficult to ignore the fact that she was gloriously, perfectly naked.

  Really difficult.

  It was hard shutting down, especially after everything, but I forced my eyes closed and I held Kat close. The feeling left behind by Dawson’s words, by the fear of losing her, haunted me even in my sleep.

  Chapter 15

  Blake was waiting for us Monday morning when we pulled into the parking lot of the school. He was leaning against a truck of few spaces down, and the moment he saw us, he pushed off the side and trotted over as we climbed out.

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

  “Agreed.” She wrapped her hand around mine. “Just remember we are in public.”

  “No fun.”

  Blake slowed as he reached us. “We all need to talk.”

  I 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.”

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

  “That’s because he wanted to,” Kat explained, and I winked at her. “Look, I don’t trust you,” she continued, “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.”

  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stopped in front of us. “I talked to Luc last night. He didn’t know about the shields either. He’s willing to do it again—take down the cameras and stuff.”

  That was good to hear, since we needed to get back there, but that didn’t really help us. I glanced around. We were huddled by the fence circling the track and no one else was around us, but I kept my voice low. “And what good does that do us? We can’t get past those doors.”

  “Or if every door is set up like that,” Kat added.

  “Well, I was thinking about that,” Blake said, shifting from one foot to the next. “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.”

  I barked out a dry laugh as I looked away. “And you just now thought this was a good thing to tell us?”

  “I didn’t know what it was. None of us did,” he said. “I didn’t think much about it.”

  Part of me didn’t know what to believe, but it didn’t take a leap of logic to think that maybe Daedalus had been conditioning Blake. Exposing him and others repeatedly to onyx, in doses, to build up tolerance. But why? Why would they want him to be able to pass through onyx, a weapon that could be used to keep them under control?

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

  “I didn’t know that it could incapacitate us.”

  Kat pressed her lips into a thin line. “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.”

  His shoulders tensed. “I know how this looks.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Letting go of Kat’s hand, I leaned against the fence. “We have no reason to trust you.”

  “And you’ve blackmailed us into helping you,” Kat 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?” My patience was almost gone.

  “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, goody,” I 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?” As I clasped the back of my neck, I felt like I’d been asking that question a lot lately. “You want us to expose ourselves to onyx?”

  “Do you see any other option?” he replied.

  “Can we do this later?” Kat asked, watching me. “We’re going to be late.”

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

  “Maybe,” she replied. “We’ll talk later.”

  He didn’t look too happy with that answer, but he backed off, leaving us by the fence. Kat shook her head as she faced me. “Expose ourselves to onyx?”

  I huffed. “He’s insane.”

  “Do you think it would work?”

  “You’re not…?” I trailed off. Shit. She was seriously considering this.

  “I don’t know.” She switched her backpack to the other shoulder as 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.”

  Huh. I grinned. “I like the sound of that.”