Daemon frowned. “She could’ve known a Luxen—known the truth and knew not to tell anyone. I mean, no one inside of the colony knows that you’re aware of the truth.”
“But there’s no other Luxen around our age,” I said.
His gaze flicked up. “None outside the colony, but there are a few who are only a couple years older or younger than us in the colony.”
It was possible that Carissa had always known and we didn’t. I’d never told her or Lesa, so it took no leap of the imagination to think that Carissa knew but never told anyone. But why did she try and kill me?
Entirely possible that I wasn’t the only person around here who knew what lived among us, but dear God, what went wrong? Had she been hurt and a Luxen tried to heal her? “You don’t think…” I couldn’t finish the question. It was too sickening, but Daemon knew where I was going with it.
“That Daedalus took her and forced a Luxen to heal her like with Dawson?” Anger darkened the green hue. “I seriously pray that’s not the case. If so, it’s just…”
“Revolting,” I said hoarsely. My hands shook so I shoved them between my knees. “She wasn’t there. Not even a flicker of her personality. She was like a zombie, you know? Just freaking crazed. Is that what instability does?”
Daemon moved his hands away and the healing warmth ebbed off. When it did, so did the barrier that had kept the truth of everything from really breaking free and consuming me.
“God, she…she died. Does that mean…?” I swallowed, but the lump was pushing its way up my throat.
Daemon’s arms tightened. “If it were one of the Luxen here, then I’ll hear about it, but we don’t know if the mutation held. Blake has said that sometimes the mutation is unstable and that sounded pretty damn unstable. The bonding only happens if it’s a stable mutation, I believe.”
“We need to talk to Blake,” I said, and a shudder rolled through me. I blinked, but my vision blurred even more. I took a breath and choked. “Oh…oh, God, Daemon…that was Carissa. That was Carissa and that wasn’t right.”
Another shudder racked my shoulders and before I knew what was happening, I was crying—those big, breath-stealing sobs. Vaguely, I realized that Daemon had pulled me over to him and cradled my head to his chest.
I’m not sure how long the tears came, but every part of me ached in a way that couldn’t by repaired by Daemon. Carissa was wholly innocent in all of this, or at least I believed her to be, and maybe that’s what made this whole thing worse. I didn’t know how deep Carissa was involved, and how would I ever find out?
The tears…they flowed, practically soaking Daemon’s shirt, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, he held me tighter and he whispered in that lyrical voice of his in a language I could never understand but felt drawn to nonetheless. The unknown words soothed me and I wondered if long ago someone, a parent maybe, had held him and whispered the same words to him. And how many times had he done it for his siblings? Even with all the bark and bite he carried, he was a natural at this.
It calmed the dark abyss, dulled the edges of the sharp blow.
Carissa… Carissa was gone, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. Or with the fact that her last act had been to try to take me out, which was so, so unlike her.
When the tears finally subsided, I sniffled and wiped at my face with my sleeves. The one on my right was charred from the energy blast and was rough against my cheek. The scratchy feeling poked a memory free.
I lifted my head. “She had a bracelet I’d never seen her wear before. The same kind of bracelet that Luc had on.”
“Are you sure?” When I nodded, he leaned back against the couch, keeping me in his embrace. “This is even more suspicious.”
“Yeah.”
“We need to talk to Luc without our unwanted sidekick first.” He tipped his chin up, letting out a long sigh. Worry touched his face, roughened his voice. “I’ll let the others know.” I started to speak, but he shook his head. “I don’t want you to have to go through telling them what happened.”
I lowered my cheek to his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll take care of your bedroom. We’ll get it cleaned up.”
Relief coursed through me. Cleaning up that room, seeing the spot on the floor, was the last thing I wanted to do. “You’re perfect, you know.”
“Sometimes,” he murmured, brushing his chin along my cheek. “I’m sorry, Kat. I’m sorry about Carissa. She was a good girl and didn’t deserve this.”
My lips trembled. “No, she didn’t.”
“And you didn’t deserve to have to go through that with her.”
I didn’t say anything to that, because I wasn’t so sure what I deserved anymore. Sometimes I didn’t think I even deserved Daemon.
We made plans to go to Martinsburg on Wednesday, which meant we’d be missing our second day of onyx training, but I couldn’t think about that right now. Finding out how Carissa ended up a hybrid and in possession of the same kind of bracelet Luc wore was paramount. If I could figure out what happened to her, then there would be some kind of justice.
I had no idea what I was supposed to say at school when Carissa never came back and the inevitable questions began. I didn’t think I had it in me to pretend to be clueless and tell more lies. Another kid missing…
Oh, God, Lesa… What would Lesa do? They’d been best friends since grade school.