Opal

My brain raced to keep up with what was happening. If Simon had a piece of opal, then that meant he had to have been mutated. He probably wouldn’t have gotten us if we hadn’t been so unprepared to see him. It was like with Carissa. He was the last person I expected.

Daemon was picking himself up several feet back down the hall, as was Matthew. Dawson had Beth pressed back against the wall. Blake was closer, using his body to shield Chris’s.

I pushed myself up, wincing as pain arced down my leg. I tried to stand, but my leg gave out. Blake was there, catching me before I hit the floor for the second time.

Simon stepped into the room and smiled.

Daemon staggered to his feet. “Oh, you are so dead.”

“Ah, I think that’s my line,” Simon responded. A burst of energy flew from his hand, and I yelled Daemon’s name. He narrowly avoided a direct hit.

Daemon’s pupils were starting to glow white. He reared back. Energy arced across the room, a whitish-red light. Simon dodged it, laughing.

“You’re going to wear yourself out, Luxen.” Simon sneered.

“Not before you.”

Simon winked and then spun toward us, throwing his hand out again. Blake and I skidded back. I started to fall and Blake grabbed me. Somehow his arm ended up around my neck. There was a tugging feeling and then Daemon was beside me, shoving me behind him.

“This is so not good,” Blake said, edging closer to Simon. “We’re ru

“No shit,” Daemon spat.

Dawson shot toward Simon, but he threw him back, laughing. He was like a hybrid suped up on steroids. Another blast of energy flew at Blake and then toward Matthew. Both of them dive-bombed the floor to avoid taking a hit. Simon kept advancing, still smiling. I looked up and our eyes locked. His were devoid of all human emotion. Unreal. Inhuman.

And they were so very cold.

How had he been mutated? How was it successful? And how had it turned him into this unfeeling monster. There were so many questions, and none of them mattered right now. The breath-stealing pain made it difficult to concentrate, to even keep standing.

Simon’s smile spread, and a shudder rolled through me as I pulled on the Source, feeling it spark deep inside me. Before I could release it, he opened his mouth. “Want to play, Kitty Kat?”

“Oh, screw this,” Daemon growled.

Daemon was just so much faster than me. He shot past Blake and Matthew, beyond Dawson and Beth. Moving so fast had to have affected him with all the onyx, but he was like lightning. Half a heartbeat later, he was in front of Simon, his hands on either side of Simon’s head.

A sickening crack echoed down the hall.

Simon hit the floor.

Daemon stepped back, breathing deeply. “I never liked that punk in the first place.”

I stumbled to the side, heart racing as the Source stirred restlessly inside of me. Eyes wide, I swallowed hard. “He’s

He was

”

“We don’t have time.” Dawson pulled Beth down the hall, into the waiting room. “They have to know we’re here.”

Blake scooped Chris up, casting a look at Simon as he passed the prone body. He said nothing, but what was there to say?

My stomach dipped as panic threatened to take hold. Forcing myself forward, I ignored the jagged pain racing up and down my leg.

“Are you okay?” Daemon asked, his fingers threading through mine. “You took a nasty hit.”

“I’m okay.” I was alive and I could walk, so that had to mean I was okay. “You?”

He nodded as we entered the waiting room. Taking the elevator filled me with so much dread I thought I’d hurl, but there were no doors to stairwells. Nothing. We had no other choice.

“Come on.” Matthew slipped into the elevator, his face pale. “We need to prepare for anything once these doors are open.”

Daemon nodded. “How is everyone?”

“Not feeling very good,” Dawson answered, his free hand open and closing. “It’s the damn onyx. I don’t know how much is left in me.”

“What the hell was up with Simon?” Daemon turned on Blake as the elevator pitched into motion. “He barely seemed affected by the onyx.”

Blake shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

Beth was babbling on about something, but I couldn’t pay attention. The ball of dread was building in my stomach, spreading into my limbs. How could Blake not know? I felt Daemon shift beside me, and then his lips brushed my forehead.

“It’s going to be okay. We’re almost out of here. We got this,” Daemon whispered into my ear, and more tension seeped out of him, out of me. Then he smiled. It was a real one, so wide and beautiful that my own lips curved to meet his. “I promise, Kitten.”

I closed my eyes briefly, soaking in his words and hanging onto them. I needed to believe in them because I was seconds away from freaking out. I had to hold it together. We were a tu

“Time?” Blake asked.

Matthew checked his watch. “Two minutes.”

The doors released with a suction-cup sound and the long narrow tu

“Stay behind me,” Daemon said.

Nodding, I kept my eyes peeled. The tu

Blake stood there, swathed in the darkness of the encroaching night. In his arms, the motionless Luxen was pale and seemed barely alive, but he’d be free in seconds. Blake had finally gotten what he wanted. Our eyes met from across the distance. There was something churning in those green flecks.

A great sense of foreboding took root and spread rapidly. Immediately, I reached for the opal around my neck and all I felt was the chain the piece of obsidian hung from.

Blake’s lips slowly curved up at the corners.

My heart stuttered and then my stomach fell so fast I thought I’d be sick. That smile

That smile felt like a big gotcha . A surge of unbridled terror turned my skin icy cold. But it couldn’t be. No. No. No. It couldn’t be

Blake cocked his head to the side as he stepped back. He opened his free hand. The thin, white string unraveled, slipping through his fingers. The piece of opal dangled there, in his grasp. “Sorry,” he said, and he truly sounded sorry. It was unbelievable. “It had to be this way.”

“Son of a bitch!” roared Daemon, breaking free from me. He launched forward, going after Blake in a way I knew would end in bloody violence.

Heat flared between my breasts, unexpected and just as terrifying as an army of DOD soldiers. I reached down, yanking the obsidian from my shirt. It glowed red.

Daemon drew up short, snarling.

The darkness behind Blake thickened and stretched out, creeping into the entrance of the tu

Arum formed all around Blake-seven of them. All dressed the same. Dark pants. Dark shirts. Eyes shielded behind sunglasses. One by one, they smiled.

They ignored Blake.

They let him go.

Blake disappeared into the night as the Arum flew forward.

Daemon met the first one head on, his human form flickering out as he slammed the Arum back into the wall. Dawson shoved Beth to the side as he closed line on an advancing Arum, taking him down.

Reaching down, Matthew grabbed a slender shard of Obsidian, sharpened into a fine point. He spun around, slamming it deep into the belly of the nearest Arum.