Opal

Daemon returned to the couch. “I’ll be waiting.”

I went to the kitchen just as Mom was getting off the phone, her features pinched. The weight on my shoulders increased. “What’s wrong?”

She blinked and forced a smile. “Oh, nothing, honey.”

Grabbing a towel, I wiped up the spilled sugar. “Doesn’t look like nothing.” In fact, it looked like a whole lot of something.

Mom grimaced. “It was Will. He’s still out west. He thinks he came down with something traveling. He’s going to stay out there until he feels better.”

I froze. Liar , I wanted to scream.

She dumped her coffee and rinsed out her cup. “I didn’t tell you this, honey, because I didn’t want to drag up bad memories, but Will

well, he was sick once, like your father.”

My mouth dropped open.

Mistaking my surprise, she said, “I know. It seems cosmically unfair, doesn’t it? But Will has been in remission. His cancer was completely curable.”

I had nothing to say. Nothing. Will had told her he’d been sick.

“But of course, I worry.” She placed the cup in the dishwasher, but she didn’t close the door all the way. I shut it out of habit. “Useless to worry over something like that, I know.” She stopped in front of me, placing her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Are you feeling better?”

The change in conversation threw me. “Yeah, I feel fine.”

“Good.” Mom smiled then and it wasn’t forced. “Don’t worry about Will, honey. He’ll be fine and back before we know it. Everything will be okay.”

My heart tripped up. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

I came so close to telling her everything, but I froze. Daemon was right. What could I say? I shook my head. “I’m sure

Will’s okay.”

She bent quickly, kissing my cheek. “He’d be happy to know you were concerned.”

A hysterical laugh crept up my throat. I was sure he would be.

Later that day, after Mom had left for work, I stood beside the lake, staring at a pile of glittering onyx.

Matthew and Daemon hadn’t said much since we arrived, and even Blake was abnormally quiet. They all knew what had happened last night with Carissa. Daemon had spoken to Blake earlier in the day; the entire conversation had gone down between the two without fists being thrown and I’d missed it. Apparently Blake had never witnessed an unstable hybrid with his own eyes. He’d only heard about them.

But Dawson had.

He’d seen people who’d been brought to him, had been normal Joes before the mutation and then snapped days later. Violent outbursts were common right before they went into self-destruction mode. All of them had been given the serum I’d been given. Without it, according to Blake, the mutation could hold, but it was rare and in most cases, the mutations faded.

Since I arrived at the lake, Dawson had stayed close to my side while Daemon and Matthew handled the onyx carefully.

“I had to do it once,” Dawson said quietly, focused on the overcast sky.

“Do what?”

“Watch a hybrid die like that.” He took a breath, squinting. “The guy just went crazy, and no one could stop him. He took out one of the officers and then there was a flash of light. Sort of like spontaneous combustion, because when the light faded, he was gone. Nothing was left. It happened so fast, he couldn’t have felt a thing.”

I remembered how Carissa was shaking, and I knew she had to feel that. Feeling nauseous, I focused on Daemon. The onyx was in a hole, and he knelt in front of it, talking quietly to Matthew. I was glad the rest of the group wasn’t there.

“Did the people they brought to you know why they were there?” I asked.

“Some did, like they signed up for it. Others were sedated. They didn’t have a clue. I think they were homeless people.”

That was sickening. Unable to stay still, I headed toward the bank of the lake. The water wasn’t frozen over anymore, but it was still and calm. Completely at odds with how I felt inside.

Dawson followed. “Carissa was a good person. She didn’t deserve this. Do we even know why they chose her?”

I shook my head. I’d spent a good part of the day thinking about everything. Even if Carissa had known about the Luxen and had been healed by one, Daedalus was involved. I knew it. But the hows and whys were the mysteries. As was the stone I’d seen around her wrist.

“Did you ever see anything on the hybrids there? Like a weird black stone that looked like it had fire inside it?”

His brows knitted. “None of mine made it except Beth. They didn’t have anything like that on them. I never saw the others.”

Terrible

It was just terrible.

I swallowed thickly, but my throat felt tight. A soft breeze stirred the lake, and a wave rippled from one bank to the next. Like a shock wave

“Guys?” Daemon called, and we turned. “Are you ready?”

Were we ready to step into the house of pain? Uh, no. But we walked over to them. Daemon stood, holding a circular piece of onyx in his gloved hand.

He turned to Blake. “This is your show.”

Blake took a deep breath and nodded. “I think the first thing to test out is if I do have a tolerance to onyx. If I do, then that gives us a starting point, right? At least then we know that we can build up a tolerance.”

Across from him, Daemon glanced down at the onyx he held and shrugged. Without preamble, he shot forward, placing the onyx against Blake’s cheek.

My jaw hit the ground.

Matthew stepped back. “God.”

Beside me, Dawson laughed under his breath.

But nothing happened for several moments. Finally, Blake knocked the onyx away, his nostrils flaring. “What the hell?”

Disappointed, Daemon tossed the rock in the pile. “Well, apparently you have a tolerance to onyx and here I was hoping you didn’t.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling a giggle. He was such an asshole, and I loved him.

Blake stared. “What if I didn’t have a tolerance to it? Good God, I kind of wanted to prepare myself for that.”

“I know.” Daemon smirked.

Matthew shook his head. “Okay, back on track, boys. How do you suggest doing this?”

Stalking over to the pile of onyx, Blake picked one up. There was a slight ripple of unease this time, but he held on. “I suggest Daemon goes first. We hold it to the skin until you drop. No longer.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” I muttered.

Daemon took off his gloves and held out his arms. “Bring it.”

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation. Blake stepped forward and pressed that onyx against Daemon’s palm. Immediately, his face contorted and he appeared to try to step back, but the onyx held him in place. A tremor started in his arm and traveled through his body.

Dawson and I both stepped forward. Neither of us could help it. Standing here, watching the pain harshen his beautiful face, was too much. Panic shot through me.

But then Blake pulled back and Daemon dropped to his knees, slamming his hands onto the ground before him. “Crap

”

I rushed forward, touching his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“He’s fine,” Blake said, placing the onyx on the ground. His right hand shook as our eyes met. “It started to burn. There must be a limit to my tolerance

”

Daemon stood unsteadily, and I followed. “I’m okay.” Then he said to his brother, who was eyeballing Blake like he wanted to toss him through a window, “I’m fine, Dawson.”

“How do we know this will work?” Matthew demanded. “Touching onyx is completely different than being sprayed all over with it.”

“I’ve walked out of those doors before and nothing happened. And it’s not like they’ve sprayed onyx in my face before. This has to be it.”

I remembered how he said everything he touched had been encased in the shiny jewel. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Daemon opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a glare. He wasn’t going to talk me out of this.