Oblivion

I sat down, taking a deep breath. “You’re family to us, too. And Dawson also considered you family, Matthew.”

Pain flashed in Matthew’s ultrabright eyes, and then he looked away. “I know. I know.” Turning, he walked over to his recliner and sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Honestly, it would be best if he weren’t alive, and you know that. I can’t even imagine…”

“But if he is, we need to do something about it.” I paused. “And if he’s truly dead, then…”

“You don’t understand, Daemon. The DOD would have no interest in Bethany unless…unless Dawson healed her.”

I stilled as I stared at Matthew, and I could feel Kat doing the same. I didn’t want him to know about Kat and me. Not yet. “What are you saying, Matthew?”

He rubbed his brow, wincing. “The Elders…they don’t talk about why we’re not allowed to heal humans, and they have good reason. It’s forbidden, not only because of the risk of exposure on our end, but because of what it does to a human. They know. So do I.”

“What?” I glanced at Kat, relieved that she knew to stay quiet. “Do you know what happens?”

He nodded. “It alters the human, splicing his or her DNA with ours. There has to be a true want for it to work, though. The human takes on our abilities, but it doesn’t always stick. Sometimes it fades. Sometimes the human dies from it or the change backfires. But if successful, it forms a co

A true want? What the hell did that mean?

“The co

Kat’s sharp inhale echoed in my head as I shot to my feet. Blake had not said that when he talked about Kat being changed. He never mentioned that the Luxen and the human were bonded on an unbreakable level. But that meant…

Oh my God.

I barely got the words out. “Then if Bethany is alive…”

“Then Dawson would have to be alive,” Matthew finished, sounding weary. “If he had in fact healed her.”

Flipping my gaze to the fire, that tiny spark of hope grew stronger. Dawson had to have healed Bethany. I knew it, deep in my core, and that meant that my brother was alive. He was alive, somewhere out there; he was alive.

“But you just said he couldn’t be alive,” Kat spoke up, and I looked at Matthew.

“That was my weakest attempt to persuade this one from getting himself killed,” he said.

It was like taking a punch to the chest. Raw emotion poured into me. “Did you…did you know this the entire time?” My form began to flicker. “Did you?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. No! I believed both of them to be dead, but if he did heal her—did change her—and she’s alive, then he has to be alive. That’s a big if—an if based on whether or not Katy really did recognize someone she’s never met.”

I slowly sat down, feeling so much I didn’t feel anything. “My brother’s alive. He’s…he’s alive.”

“What do you think they’re doing to him?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know.” Matthew stood. “Whatever it is, it can’t be…”

It wasn’t good.

“The DOD knows, Matthew. They know what we can do,” I said finally. “They’ve probably known since the begi

His lashes swept up, and he met my stare. “I’ve never truly believed they didn’t, to be honest. The only reason I never voiced my belief is because I didn’t want any of you to worry.”

“And the Elders—do they know this, too?” I asked, thinking of Lydia.

“The Elders are just grateful to have a place to live in peace and be basically separated from the human race. Stick-their-heads-in-the-sand kind of thing, Daemon. If anything, they probably choose to not believe our secrets aren’t safe.” He glanced at his empty glass on the fireplace. “It’s…easier for them.”

“That sounds incredibly stupid,” Kat said.

Matthew smiled wryly in response. “Dear girl, you do not know what it is like to be a guest, do you? Imagine living with the knowledge that your home and everything could be whipped out from under you at any moment. But you have to lead people, keep them calm and happy—safe. The worst thing would be to voice the darkest of your concerns to the masses.” He paused, eyeing that glass again. “Tell me, what would humans do if they knew aliens lived among them?”

Her cheeks flushed. “Uh, they’d probably riot and go nuts.”

“Exactly,” he murmured. “Our kinds are not that different.”

She squirmed next to me. “What about the Arum thing?”

“I don’t know.” Matthew refilled his glass. “I can’t even fathom a reason why the DOD would be working with them—what they could even gain. The Arum absorb our powers, but never healing—nothing of that magnitude. They have a different heat signature than we do, so with the right tools, the DOD would know they weren’t dealing with us, but to walk up to an Arum or a Luxen on the street, there would be no way to tell us apart.”

“Wait.” She tucked her hair back, glancing at me. “What if the DOD captured an Arum, believing it to be a Luxen, and you guys were studied, too, right? Forced to assimilate into the human world? I don’t know what assimilation entails, but I’m sure it was some kind of observation, so wouldn’t they have noticed eventually, especially with the heat-signature thing?”

Matthew walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner, going for something harder. “When we were being assimilated, they never saw our abilities. So if we work off the theory that they’ve known for some time, they studied our abilities on Luxen who could never tell us that the DOD is aware of what we can do.”

“You’re saying that those Luxen would be…”

“Dead,” he said, tossing back a mouthful of clear liquor. “I’m not sure how much Daemon has told you, but there were Luxen who didn’t assimilate. They were put down…like feral animals. No stretch of the imagination to believe that they used some Luxen to study their abilities, to learn about us, and then got rid of them.”

I was quiet, but I was listening, and I suddenly thought about Blake. What if the DOD was sending some of the Luxen—or ones like Kat—out to spy on others? Maybe that was paranoid. Maybe not.

“But that doesn’t explain why the Arum would work with the DOD,” Kat argued.

“It doesn’t.” Matthew moved to the fireplace. He propped his elbow on the mantel. “I am afraid to theorize over what that could mean.”

“Part of me doesn’t even care about that right now,” I said, feeling tired. “Someone betrayed Dawson. Someone had to tell the DOD.”

“It could be anyone,” Matthew said wearily. “Dawson didn’t try to hide his relationship with Bethany. And if anyone was watching them closely, they could’ve suspected something happened. We all watched them when they first got together. I’m sure some of us didn’t stop.”

Who in the hell could it have been?

We left Matthew’s house shortly after that, and she handed the keys to me without fighting when I asked for them. Snow was coming down heavier, and I needed…well, I needed something like driving to focus on. I turned to open the car door, but Kat walked back to me. Before I knew what she was doing, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We’ll figure out something. We’ll get him back.”

We’ll get him back.

After a moment of hesitation, I folded my arms around Kat and held her close. “I know,” I said, full of steely determination. “I’ll get him back if it’s the last thing I do.”

Over the next couple of days, we staked out Vaughn’s house after Kat finished her evening training with Blake. We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. No visiting Arum or Nancy. Each evening, we returned home, and my frustration grew.

My brother was out there, somewhere, and nothing I was doing seemed to be getting me any closer to finding him. When I wasn’t with Kat, I was staking out Vaughn’s home on my own. I began to realize that the man was barely there, and I wondered if he had another home. Though the times I managed to follow Vaughn on foot, he didn’t go anyplace else.