Opposition

15

{ Katy }

“Did you know . . .” started Archer, and I closed my eyes, biting back a sigh. Here they go. Ten hours into the drive, my butt was starting to hurt and they bickered like an old married couple. “That typically there’s a speed limit on these roads?” he finished.

“Yep,” came Daemon’s reply.

“I’m just curious.” Archer was currently sitting behind us, but he might as well be in our laps. He’d positioned himself so he was right between our seats, his arms hanging off the back of them. “Because I’m pretty sure that sign over there reads fifty-five. Not eighty-five.”

“You can read?” Daemon looked into the rearview mirror. “Holy shit. I’m so surprised.”

Archer sighed. “Well, that was clever.” There was a pause. “I just don’t want to end up crashing into a fiery ball.”

“You’re an Origin. You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want to be a skid-mark Origin or a crispy Origin.”

“Mmm,” Daemon murmured. “Crispy Origin reminds me of fried chicken. I could go for some of that right now.”

“KFC?” Archer asked, and I was surprised that he even knew what KFC chicken tasted like. “Or Popeye’s?”

Huh. He also knew Popeye’s.

Daemon’s lip curled. “No. I’m talking homemade fried chicken. Dipped in egg and flour, fried up in a skillet. Dee can fry some bomb chicken.”

“I’ve never had homemade fried chicken before.”

His eyes rolled. “God, you’re such a freak.”

“I wonder if I can get Dee to make me some,” Archer replied casually, ignoring Daemon. “You know, when she’s not on Team Kill Everyone.”

“She won’t make you any chicken,” Daemon retorted.

“Oh, she’ll make me fried chicken.” Archer laughed deeply. “She’ll make me all the chicken I want.”

A low sound of warning rumbled from Daemon, and I couldn’t believe they were now arguing over the hypothetical situation of Dee making fried chicken or not. But I shouldn’t be surprised. An hour or so ago, they were in a heated discussion over whether or not Shane would’ve been a better father than Rick on The Walking Dead. Somehow that had digressed into Daemon arguing that the governor, sociopathic tendencies aside, was a better father figure. The fact that Archer had never eaten at Olive Garden but knew about The Walking Dead absolutely befuddled me.

Archer sighed like a petulant teenager stuck in a car for too long. There was a beat of silence. “Are we there yet?”

Daemon groaned. “I’m going to sew your damn lips together.”

I covered my smile with my hand as I stared out the window. That smile faded, though, as I took in the scenery. I had no idea what state we were in. Everything from about a hundred miles outside of Billings had all looked the same.

Wastelands.

Absolute destruction.

For the last two hours, we hadn’t seen another car on the major highway. Not a single moving car. There were a lot along the road. Some were abandoned with their backseats piled with personal items, as if the owners pulled over on the side of the road, got out, and left everything behind for the great unknown.

The others . . . the others were scary.

Burned-out shells of cars. A sad and twisted graveyard of wrecked and charred metal. I’d never seen anything like this. Read about it in books, seen it in movies, but viewing mile after mile of it in real life was something else.

“What do you think happened to them?” I asked when there was a lull in the arguing.

Archer pushed back from the seats, bending over so he could see out his own window. “Looks like some of them met up with unfriendly aliens. Others ran.”

We passed an SUV with its back open. Clothing was strewn about it. A small brown teddy bear lay forgotten on the road behind it. I thought about that little girl in the grocery store, and I wanted to ask if they thought those who’d run for it made it to safety, but I didn’t, because I was sure I already knew the answer.

Humans couldn’t outrun Luxen.

“While you guys were doing things I don’t want to know about in your room, some things were happening out here.”

Daemon didn’t look fazed by that statement, but my face turned into a ripe tomato. “Do tell.”

“You know how they were saying there were cities completely lost, under the Luxen control? Well, those cities are functioning—TV is up, internet is blasting, and phone lines are working. It’s like nothing happened there, except that more than half the population is made of human-hating aliens,” Archer said, returning to his perch between our seats. “But there are a lot of cities that just . . . have been destroyed.”

“Why would they do that?” I leaned back, shifting in the seat. “Wouldn’t they want the cities virtually untouched so they were livable?”

“They do.” Daemon glanced in the rearview mirror. “But if the humans found a way to fight back, even if the fighting back was pointless, then . . .”

“The cities get taken out in the process,” Archer finished. “Things are going to be rough afterward, even if we stop them. A lot of rebuilding. There’s going to be a lot of changes.”

“Not a lot,” I said as we coasted past a burned-out school bus that was more black than orange. I didn’t want to even think about if the bus had been full or not, but the backs of my eyes still burned. “Everything will change.”

We took the long way around Kansas City, since we didn’t want to get within a billion miles of the Luxen-controlled city, and we ended up stopping outside of a small, unknown town in Missouri for Daemon and Archer to switch off driving.

Sleep was fitful over the next couple of hours, and it wasn’t just the uncomfortable seating or Archer’s questionable taste in music. My body was a bundle of nerves stretched too thin. We were about to literally drive into an Arum stronghold, and while Luc swore up and down that Hunter was cool, I hadn’t met an Arum yet I didn’t want to run from. But it was more than that.

I missed my mom. I missed Dee and Lesa. I missed my books and my blog, and in the hours when I couldn’t sleep and Daemon had passed out in the backseat, I stared out the window and I couldn’t imagine what tomorrow would be like or what a month from now would look like.

“You okay?” Archer asked quietly.

I hadn’t realized that I’d been shifting restlessly. “Yeah.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Nope.”

“He doesn’t seem to be having any problems.”

Glancing behind me, I smiled. Daemon was stretched out on his back, one arm tossed over his face. His chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths. I flipped around. “He needs it.”

“So do you.”

I shrugged. “What about you?”

He passed me a knowing look. “I didn’t spend all my free time making out like the world was ending the next day.”

My cheeks flamed. “You really don’t need to keep reminding me that there’s no such thing as privacy around you.”

A quick grin flashed across his face as he focused on the dark road, but it disappeared as quickly as the star I’d been tracking in the sky earlier. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, the strong jaw and profile.

“Stop staring at me,” he huffed.

“Sorry.” But I looked at him fully, and I thought of—

“Yes.”

I frowned.

“Like I told you before, I worry about her and I think about her. A lot.” His fingers tapped the steering wheel. “I like her. The girl is . . . well, she’s special.”

Probably a good thing Daemon was passed out while we were having this conversation. “She likes you, too.”

“I know.” He chuckled under his breath. “Dee’s not really good at hiding her thoughts. Actually, I don’t even think she tries. That’s one of the things I like about her.”

“And she’s absolutely stunning.” I grinned.

“Yeah, that has something to do with it.” His hands tightened around the wheel.

I folded my arms and returned to staring straight ahead, remembering the garden Dee and I had created around the front porch of my house. A sad feeling pierced my chest.

“We’ll get her back,” he said in a way that brokered no room for anything other than that.

Neither of us spoke for a long while after that, and I must’ve dozed off a little, because when I opened my eyes, Daemon was awake and dawn had broken.

“Where are we?” I asked, voice scratchy, so I reached for a bottle of water.

“Just crossed into Kentucky.” Daemon’s fingers found their way between the headrest and seat. He squeezed my shoulders as I looked out the window.

The highway was chock-full of discarded cars, slowing us to a near crawl as Archer carefully navigated the road. I was clenching the seat-belt strap each time we neared another cluster of deserted vehicles. The farther we went, the worse it got. The cars weren’t just left there. Many were destroyed.

Daemon suddenly gripped my shoulders from behind. “Don’t look, Kitten.”

But it was too late. As we eased around a burned-out minivan, I had to, because there was something so innate, so human, that demanded you watch when everything inside of you was screaming no.

The van had been torched, most likely with the Source, but unlike the other ones I’d seen or could see, the van wasn’t empty. Oh God, no, it wasn’t empty at all.

There were four forms in the van. Two up front and two in the back. One was twisted over the steering wheel, the other pressed against the passenger door as if it had desperately tried to get out but had run out of time. The bodies in the back . . . oh God, they were small, so tiny.

All of them were burned beyond recognition.

And it wasn’t the only car like that. One after another, the vehicles were torched, and there were bodies inside.

Horrified, I pressed my hand against my throat like I was trying to stop the bile from rising. Out of everything I’d seen, this was the worst. This was horrific. Emotion swamped me, tightening my chest.

“Kitten,” Daemon said softly, tugging on my shoulders. “Kat. Stop.”

I forced myself to avert my gaze, and I saw a muscle pounding along Archer’s jaw. Daemon had his hand on my cheek as he passed Archer a dark glare. “Can we get around these cars a little faster?”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he replied. “Unless you want to take this Explorer off road, and I’m not sure how smart of an—”

“Crap.” Daemon suddenly withdrew his hand as he narrowed his gaze on the congested road ahead.

Archer cursed.

I stiffened. “What?” When no one answered, I about bounced in my seat. “What?”

“I feel it,” Archer said.

The only thing I felt was rising confusion and irritation. “I swear to God if you guys don’t share, I’m going to punch both of you.”

A wry smile twisted Daemon’s lips. “There are Luxen nearby.”

Oh no.

I leaned forward, planting my hands against the dashboard. Up ahead, there was an empty lane in the four-lane highway as far as I could see. “I don’t see anything.”

“You’re looking in the wrong direction, Kitten.”

My heart turned over heavily as I twisted around in my seat, peering out the back window. “Oh, holy alien butt crack.”

A huge-ass Hummer was speeding down the hill we’d just traveled, plowing through the wreckage of the discarded cars.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say they’re not friendlies.” My stomach tumbled over itself.

“What gave that away?” Archer asked, winging the Explorer around a truck.

Daemon cursed again. “Definitely not. I can feel them pecking away at my head. They’re calling out to me and I’m not answering.”

“Which is making them mad?” asked Archer, frowning as he slammed on the gas, causing the tires to squeal.

“Yep.”

“This whole Luxen two-way-radio thing is really weird,” I said, because someone needed to say it.

“You have no idea.” Daemon popped forward, stretching between the two front seats. Archer shouted and scowled at him, but he was a man on a mission. With his hands grasping my cheeks, he kissed me.

The contact was so sudden and unexpected that I sort of just sat there as he got all kinds of friendly with my mouth.

“Seriously? Kissing her right now is what we need to be doing when we have pissed-off aliens on us?”

“Kissing her is always the right thing to do.” He pulled back and gripped the seats. “We need to stop and take care of them. It’s not like we can outrun them, and we don’t need them following us right to the Arum.”

Archer sighed. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

I was still sitting there, lips tingling, like a dork.

“Oh, this is going to be tons of fun.” Daemon glanced at me. “You ready to play, Kitten?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Sure. Okay.”

Daemon chuckled. “Let’s do this.”

Archer jerked the steering wheel to the right, bringing it to an abrupt stop along the side of the highway. Car doors opened, and as much as it sucked, I was the last one to get my damn seat belt unbuckled and to scramble out of the SUV.

“Keep low,” Daemon ordered.

Huh? When he saw the look on my face, he motioned for me to crouch. I shot him a dirty look. “What? I’m not a freaking ninja.”

“I’ve seen you fight.” Archer strolled around the front of the Explorer like we were walking into a gas station or something. “You could be part ninja.”

I gave him a quick smile. “Thank you.”

“You’d be a hot ninja,” Daemon said, winking when I looked at him. “I need you two to stay back for a moment.”

Yeah. I so wasn’t going to listen to that, but before I could prance into the street, Archer grabbed my arm. “For real,” he said, holding me in place. “Stay here.”

I started to pull free, but the Hummer crashed through a vehicle and the deafening thunder of clanging metal forced me to stand still.

The Hummer was barreling down on us as Daemon walked right out to the middle of the road, head bowed as he stretched out his arm. Concentration marked his expression.

He made a striking image as he stood there, legs spread wide and shoulders squared. Like a god about to meet a Titan head-on.

A shimmer of white enveloped him, and from where I stood, I could see his veins light from within, a bright white that followed a network of lines across his cheeks and down his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt, and then reappearing along his arm.

I’d seen him like this before, not all out, but when he’d stopped the truck that almost turned me into roadkill.

Daemon was freezing time.

The Hummer halted suddenly, pitching the occupants forward as the air around the car hummed with power. He’d stopped the car—but he couldn’t freeze the Luxen inside. It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen him do that, I was awed by the ability. A lot of energy had to be sucked up to freeze time, and I’d only done it once by accident.

Daemon jerked his hand back, and it was like the Hummer was attached to an invisible string. He’d unfrozen time, and the force of the vehicle snapped back, but it was a little too much for a thing called gravity.

The Hummer went up on the front two wheels in a perfect handstand and hovered there for a second, and then tipped over with the force of an elephant. Metal crunched as the roof caved.

“Boo-yah,” Archer murmured.

The Luxen didn’t stay down long. The doors groaned, and then flew off in a burst of whitish-red light. They came out—five of them—rushing toward us in their human forms.

“I got this,” Daemon said as he crouched down, preparing for the massive impact of the five Luxen.

“What the hell?” I looked at Archer.

He nodded. “Yeah, we aren’t just standing here while he has all the fun.”

Archer let go, and I darted away from the SUV, toward the fray, just as a hood was ripped off a nearby sedan and shot across the wall like a giant knife. It hit one of the Luxen, cleaved him right in two, and there was no coming back from that, alien or not.

Damn.

I skidded to a stop when I saw Archer’s downright evil grin. “Score.”

“That was pretty cool,” Daemon said, catching one of the Luxen by the waist. Lifting him up, he literally power-bombed the sucker in the road. Asphalt cracked. Shimmery blue liquid splattered across the road.

Yuck.

One Luxen veered off, charging me. Summoning the Source, I lifted my arm and concentrated on what I wanted to happen. Back in the day, when I was first getting used to the Source, it involved a whole lot of stuff smacking me in the face or crashing to the floor.

Now?

Not so much.

When the Luxen was less than a few feet from me, I flung her against the side of a semi-truck. There was a sickening crunch that I wanted to forget, but I had to hold on to it. Lunging forward, before the tool got back on her feet, I let the Source whip through me. It slammed into her chest, above the heart, like a lightning bolt. The Luxen lit up like a firework that fizzled out quickly.

Daemon had the one he’d power-bombed by the shoulders. He brought his knee up, making contact in the chest. Bones snapped and the Luxen howled. I turned as Daemon’s arm cocked back, and the Source whipped down his arm.

I came face-to-face with Archer and the Glock he held in his hand. Our gazes collided, and fear exploded in my chest like buckshot. My breath caught in my throat as I froze. All I could see was the barrel of the gun, and then the spark as the trigger was pulled. I braced myself for the pain of metal ripping through my skin and bones.

Except it never came.

A body thunked on the ground behind me, and I spun around, gasping as I saw a Luxen facedown in the road in a pool of shimmery liquid.

“Bullet to the head,” Archer said. “Even they don’t get up from that.”

“That’s cheating,” Daemon said as he whirled around, taking out the last Luxen with a blast from the Source, pinning him against a nearby truck.

“Whatever.” Archer shoved the gun behind his back. “I’m all about conserving energy where I can.”

Pushing the hair out of my face, I surveyed the grim scene. “That’s all of them?”

Archer looked around. “I’m thinking it is for now.”

For now? I wasn’t sure I could go another round as I turned to where Daemon stood. My heart spasmed in my chest. Bluish-red liquid seeped out of the corner of his mouth. I jerked toward him, rocked. I hadn’t even seen him injured. “You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” he assured me, but the sight of him—of Daemon bleeding—rattled me to the core. “Took a hit, but it’s cool. In a couple of minutes it will be like nothing happened.”

That did very little to ease the panic building.

“He’s truly okay,” Archer threw in. “He’ll heal fast, especially since it’s daytime.”

I didn’t quite get what he was saying at first, but then I remembered Daemon explaining all that time ago how the sun did wonders for the Luxen, while copious amounts of sugar worked for hybrids.

“We’ve got to hurry.” Daemon grabbed my hand, tugging me back toward the Explorer. “More will feel us traveling, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure out what we’re doing.”

And that would be bad—really bad.