He was staring over my shoulder, focused on the trees behind me. “Dawson met Bethany, and I swear to you, it was like love at first sight. Everything for him became about her. Matthew—Mr. Garrison—warned him. I warned him that it wasn’t going to work. There was no way we can have a relationship with a human.” Pressing his lips together, he took a moment. “You don’t know how hard it is, Kat. We have to hide what we are all the time, and even among our own kind, we have to be careful. There are many rules. The DOD and Luxen don’t like the idea of us messing with humans.” He paused, shaking his head. “It’s as if they think we’re animals, beneath them.”
“But you’re not animals,” I said. They were definitely not like us, but they weren’t beneath us.
“Do you know anytime we apply for something, it’s tracked by the DOD?” He glanced at me, eyes troubled. Angry. “Driver’s license, they know. If we apply for college, they see it. Marriage license to a human? Forget it. We even have a registration we have to go through if we want to move.” I blinked. “Can they do that?”
He laughed humorlessly. “This is your planet, not ours. You even said it. And they keep us in place by funding our lives. We have random check-ins, so we can’t hide or anything. Once they know we’re here, that’s it.” Not sure what to say, I remained quiet. Everything about their life seemed controlled, chronicled. It was frightening and sad.
“And that’s not all. We’re expected to find another Luxen, and to stay there.”
Alarm trickled through my system. Was he obligated to Ash? It seemed the wrong time to ask. And it seemed even more wrong that I wanted to ask. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not.” Daemon sat up in one fluid motion, dropping his arms over his bent knees. “It’s easy to feel human. I know I’m not, but I want the same things that all humans want.” He stopped, shaking his head. “Anyway, something happened between Dawson and Bethany. I don’t know what. He never said. They went out hiking one Saturday and he came back late, his clothing torn and covered with blood. They were closer than ever. If Matt and the Thompsons didn’t have their suspicions before, they did then. That following weekend, Dawson and Bethany went out to the movies. They never came back.” I squeezed my eyes shut.
“The DOD found him the next day in Moorefield, his body dumped in a field like garbage.” His voice was low, rough. “I didn’t get to say good-bye. They took his body before I could even see him, because of the risk of exposure. When we die or get hurt, we resort back to our true form.” I ached for that—for him and Dee. “Are you sure he’s…dead then, if you’ve never seen his body?”
“I know an Arum got him. Drained him of his abilities and killed him. If he were still alive, he would’ve found a way to contact us. Both his and Bethany’s bodies were taken away before anyone could see. Her parents will never know what happened to her. And all we know is that he had to have done something that left a trace on her, enabling the Arum to find him. That’s the only way. They can’t sense us here. He had to have done something major.” My chest squeezed. I couldn’t imagine what he and Dee had to have felt. My father’s death had been expected. It hurt—it had felt like his sickness and eventual death was killing me—but he hadn’t been murdered.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know there’s nothing I can say. I’m just so sorry.”
He shifted slightly, lifting his head to the sky. In a second, the mask he wore slipped down. And there was the real Daemon. Still a total badass, but there was pain in him, a vulnerability in the lines of his face that I doubted anyone ever got to see. And suddenly, I felt like I was intruding, witnessing this moment. For it to be me, of all people, to see beneath the layers of attitude didn’t seem right. It should’ve been someone he cared about, someone important to him.
“I…I miss the idiot,” he said raggedly.
My heart clenched. The pain in his voice pricked at me. Not thinking, I turned and reached over, wrapping my arms around his all too stiff body. I hugged him, squeezing him as tightly as I could. And then I let him go before he overreacted and threw me off the rock.
Daemon still didn’t move. He stared at me, eyes wide, like he’d never been hugged before. Maybe the Luxen didn’t believe in hugs.
I lowered my gaze. “I miss my dad, too. It doesn’t get any easier.”
His breath expelled harshly. “Dee said he was sick but not what was wrong with him. I’m sorry…for you loss. Sickness isn’t something we’re accustomed to. What was it?”
I told him about my dad’s cancer, which was surprisingly easy. And then I told him about better things—things my dad and I shared before he got sick. How I used to garden with him and we’d spend Saturday mornings during the spring searching for new plants and flowers.
And he shared memories of Dawson. The first time they hiked the Seneca Rocks. And the time that Dawson had morphed into someone else and couldn’t figure out how to change back. We stayed there, somehow finding a peace in talking about them until the sun started to fade and the rock lost its warmth. And it was just me and him, in the dusk, staring at the stars filling the sky.
I was reluctant to leave, not because the water would be cold, but because I knew— I knew—that this little piece of the world we created, where we weren’t arguing or hating one another, wouldn’t last. It seemed that Daemon…needed someone to talk to, and I happened to be here. I asked the right questions. And it was the same for me. He was here. At least, that’s what I was telling myself, because I knew tomorrow would be no different than the week before.