“You don’t know what’s going to happen, Daemon.”
He nodded and then turned to the passenger window. One hand came up, rubbing along his jaw. “It’s hard. That’s all I can say about this. I’ll respect what you want to do, but it’s hard.”
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on a soft sigh and nodded. I knew he wasn’t going to say anything more about this. Respecting my decision was better than an apology. At least now, we were on the same page, and that was important.
I peeked at him. “Anyway, what are we going to do if we see Vaughn?”
“Haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
“Wow. This was a good plan.” I paused. “I really doubt Bethany is in one of these houses. That would just be too dangerous.”
“I agree, but why did they have her out in public like that?” He’d asked the million-dollar question. “Where anyone could see her?”
I shook my head. “I got the distinct impression that Vaughn wasn’t too happy. Maybe she escaped.”
He looked at me. “That would make sense. But Vaughn, well, he’s always been a punk.”
“You know him?”
“Not extremely well, but he started working with Lane a few months before Dawson disappeared.” The last word seemed to get stuck on his tongue, as if he were still getting acquainted with the possibility that Dawson wasn’t dead. “Lane had been our handler for God knows how long, and then Vaughn showed up with him. He was there when they told us about Dawson and Bethany.”
Daemon’s throat worked. “Lane seemed genuinely upset. Like Dawson wasn’t just a thing that had died, but a person. Maybe he grew attached to Dawson over the years. See”—he cleared his throat—“Dawson had that kind of effect on people. Even when he was being a smartass, you couldn’t help but like him. Anyway, Vaughn couldn’t have cared less.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I reached over the small space between us and squeezed his arm. He looked at me, his eyes bright. Beyond him, several large snowflakes fell with a quiet hush.
Daemon placed his hand on mine for the briefest moment. Something infinite flared between us—stronger than physical, which was weird because it really fueled all that physical stuff in me. Then he pulled back, watching the snow. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”
Why I hadn’t crawled over the center console and into his lap yet? Because damn if I was wondering that very thing, but the car was way too small for those kinds of shenanigans. I cleared my throat. “What?”
Daemon leaned back against the seat, watching the snow just like I was. “If the DOD knows what we can do, then none of us are really safe. Not that we’ve ever been safe, but this changes everything.” He turned his head toward me. “I don’t think I said thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling me about Bethany.” He paused, a tight smile pulling at his lips.
“You needed to know. I would—wait.” Two headlights turned onto the street. It was at least the fifth one, but it was from an SUV. “We’ve got one.”
Daemon’s eyes narrowed. “It’s an Expedition.”
We watched the black Expedition slow down and pull into the driveway of a single-story home two houses in. Even though the windows in our car were tinted, I wanted to slide down in the seat and hide my face. The driver’s door opened and Vaughn stepped out, frowning at the sky as if it dared to annoy him by snowing. Another car door closed and a figure moved into the light.
“Dammit,” Daemon said. “Nancy’s with him.”
“Well, you weren’t really planning on talking to him, were you?”
“Yeah, I kind of was.”
Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “That’s insane. What were you going to do? Bust up in his house and demand answers?” When he nodded, I gaped. “Then what next?”
“Another thing I hadn’t fully worked out yet.”
“Geez,” I muttered. “You suck at this whole spy thing.”
Daemon chuckled. “Well, we can’t do anything tonight. If one of them went missing it probably wouldn’t be such a huge deal, but two of them would raise too many questions.”
My stomach churned as I watched the agents disappear into the house. A light turned on inside, and a slender figure moved in front of the window, drawing the curtains closed. “Huh. Private bunch, aren’t they?”
“Maybe they’re getting some bow-chicka-pow-wow.”
I looked at him. “Ew.”
He flashed his teeth. “She’s definitely not my type.” His gaze dropped to my lips, and parts of me quivered in response to the heat in his gaze. “But now I totally have that on my mind.”
I was breathless. “You’re a dog.”
“If you pet me, I’ll—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” I said, fighting a grin. Smiling only encouraged him, and he needed no extra reason to be a terror. “And knock the innocent look off your face. I so know—”
The obsidian flared quickly, heating up my sweater and chest like someone placed a hot coal against my skin. I yelped and jerked in my seat, banging my head on the roof.
“What?”
“An Arum,” I gasped. “An Arum is nearby! You don’t have any obsidian on you?”
Alert and tense, he scanned the dark road. “No. I left it in my car.”
I stared at him, shocked. “Seriously? You left the one thing that kills your enemy in your car?”
“It’s not like I need it to kill them. Stay here.” He started to open the door, but I grabbed his arm. “What?”
“You can’t get out of the car. We’re right in front of their house! They’ll see you.” I ignored the rising fear that always came with the Arum. “Are we still close enough to the Rocks?”
“Yes,” he growled. “They protect us for about fifty miles in every direction.”
“Then just sit still.”
He looked like he didn’t understand the concept, but he took his hand off the door and sat back. A few seconds later, a shadow moved up the street, darker than the night itself. It glided to the curb, drifting over the lawns coated with a thin layer of snow, stopping in front of Vaughn’s house.
“What the hell?” Daemon placed his hands on the dashboard.
The Arum took form, right there, out in the open. He was dressed like the ones we’d faced in the past: dark pants, black jacket, but no sunglasses. His pale blond hair moved slightly as he stepped up to the front door and pressed his finger on the doorbell.
Vaughn answered the door and grimaced. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t make out what he said. Then he stepped to the side, letting the Arum enter his house.
“Holy monkey balls,” I said, eyes wide. “That did not just happen.”
Daemon sat back, his voice tight with fury when he spoke. “That did. And I think we’ve discovered how the DOD knows what we’re capable of.”
Mind reeling, I stared at him. “The DOD and the Arum are working together? Sweet alien baby… Why?”
His brows puckered, and he shook his head. “Vaughn said a name—Residon. Read his lips.”
This new development was so not good. “What do we do now?”
“What I want to do is blow up their house, but that would draw too much attention.”
I pursed my lips. “No doubt.”
“We need to go see Matthew. Now.”
Matthew lived farther out in the boondocks than we did, and if the snow kept coming down, I had no idea how I was going to get Mom’s car home. His house was a large cabin built into the side of a mountain. I carefully made my way up his steep, graveled driveway that my mom’s Prius wouldn’t dare conquer.
“If you fall and break something, I’m going to be irritated.” Daemon grabbed my arm as I started to slip.
“Sorry, not all of us can be as awesome—” I squealed as he slid an arm around my back and lifted me into his arms. Daemon zipped us up the driveway, wind and snow blowing at my face. He put me down, and I stumbled to the side, dizzy. “Could you give me a warning next time?”
He grinned as he knocked on the door. “And miss that look on your face? Never.”
Sometimes I seriously wanted to just punch him in the face, but it made me warm in all the right places to see this side of him again, too. “You’re insufferable.”
“You like my kind of suffering.”
Before I could answer, Mr. Garrison opened the door. His eyes narrowed when he saw me standing next to Daemon, shivering. “This is…unexpected.”
“We need to talk,” Daemon said.
Eyeing me, Mr. Garrison led us into a very sparsely decorated living room. The walls were bare log and a fire in the fireplace crackled, throwing off heat and the scent of pine. There wasn’t a single Christmas decoration. Needing to thaw out, I sat close to the fire.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Garrison asked, picking up a small glass full of red liquid. “I’m assuming it’s something I don’t want to know, considering she’s with you.”
I checked myself before I said something back. The man was an alien, but he was also in control of my bio grade.
Daemon sat beside me. On the way up here, we agreed not to tell Mr. Garrison I’d been healed, much to my relief. “I guess we should start from the beginning, and you’re probably going to want to sit.”
He moved his hand, swirling the ruby liquid in his glass. “Oh, this is starting out good.”
“Katy saw Bethany yesterday with Vaughn.”
Mr. Garrison’s brows shot up. He didn’t move for a long breath, and then he took a drink. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say. Katy, are you sure that’s who you saw?”
I nodded. “It was her, Mr. Garrison.”
“Matthew, call me Matthew.” He took a step back, shaking his head. I felt like I just completed some major task to move to a first-name basis with him. Matthew cleared his throat. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“It gets worse,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
“I know where one of the DOD officers lives, and we went there tonight.”
“What?” Matthew lowered his glass. “Are you insane?”
Daemon shrugged. “While we were watching his house, Nancy Husher showed up and guess who else did?”
“Santa?” Matthew said dryly.
I laughed out loud. Wow, he did have a sense of humor.
Daemon ignored that. “An Arum showed up and they let him in. Even greeted him by name—Residon.”
Matthew downed the entire drink and set the glass on the mantel above the fireplace. “This isn’t good, Daemon. I know you want to rush up there and find out how Bethany is still alive, but you can’t. This is too dangerous.”
“Do you understand what this means?” Daemon stepped forward, holding his hands out, palms up. “The DOD has Bethany. Vaughn was one of the Officers who came and told us that they were both dead. So they lied about her. And that means they could’ve lied about Dawson.”
