other life her twisted hands had touched.
I didn’t get off on the idea of snuffing out someone’s life, even someone like her. But damn if I wasn’t looking forward to the moment when I paid her back tenfold for everything.
“Why did you bring us here?” Dawson demanded.
Nancy kept walking at a rapid clip. “You’ll find that the base is wired to deal with your kind.”
Meaning there was weaponized onyx and diamond and a ton of other delightful little things that Daedalus had whipped up over the years.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Dawson replied.
Nancy stopped in front of double steel doors. We obviously weren’t going in through the main entrance. She turned to the side, looking back at us, and for the first time since I’d known the woman, I saw something in her dark eyes I’d never seen before.
I saw fear.
What the . . . ?
The steel doors opened, metal grinding as they spread wide, revealing the brightly lit tunnel and one person standing in the center. Hands shoved in the pockets of faded, ripped-up jeans.
Kat recoiled in surprise, bumping into me.
“It’s about time you guys got here. I was getting really bored.” Luc rocked back on the heels of his boots, grinning widely. “But I think you’re missing one, Nancy.”
Nancy stiffened as she drew in a deep breath through her nostrils. “Dee left with the Luxen. She’s under their control.”
The smile slipped off his face. “Well, that sucks.”
“Sucks” didn’t begin to cover it, but I had no idea what to do with any of this. I shook my head as I stared at him. “What the hell is going on, Luc?”
He arched a brow. “How about a thank-you first? Maybe? I mean, I did get your asses out of trouble, didn’t I? I really would like a thank-you. Maybe a hug? I’m feeling kind of needy.”
“Where’s Beth?” Dawson stepped forward, seeming to forget that Nancy was right there. Not that he appeared to care. “Please tell me she’s not—”
“Calm down,” Luc replied, pulling his hands out of his pockets. “She’s doing well. She’s actually here. I’m sure one of these helpful . . . people”—he gestured at the soldiers in fatigues outside the doors—“that I really don’t know what the hell their job is can take you to where she’s at.”
Dawson started to turn as one of the soldiers stepped up. I lurched forward, grabbing his shoulder. “Wait a minute,” I cut in before my brother could run off blindly. “What in the hell are you doing here with her, Luc?”
Luc’s smile returned. “It’s okie dokie smokie, Daemon. No need to Hulk out on anyone. You’re safe here. Nancy won’t be a problem. Will you?” he asked the tight-lipped woman.
She looked like she had something really uncomfortable shoved up a really awkward place.
Her lack of response didn’t soothe me, but even if she had said no, I wouldn’t have been convinced. I didn’t budge. Neither did Kat, but Dawson was ready to go Road Runner on us.
Luc sighed as he raised his hands. “Look, this is not a trap, a test, or a drill. Archer’s here, too. He’s waiting for us, actually, and I’m more than willing to explain everything to you, but I’m not doing it standing here. Not when I found a Lunchables just a few minutes before you guys showed up, and I’m ready to make myself a delicious buffet of ham and cheese on crackers.”
I stared at him.
“What? It’s the kind that has Oreo cookies included,” he replied. “That shit is banging.”
“God, you had so much potential,” Nancy muttered under her breath.
Luc turned violet eyes on her and spoke in a voice that was barely audible to those around us. “And you are really wearing on my last nerve. I don’t think you want that, do you?”
Holy crap if that woman didn’t turn as white as a sheet of brand-spanking-new paper. I glanced back at Kat, seeing if she’d noticed, and her wide eyes told me she had.
I still hesitated.
“The Lunchables also comes with a Capri Sun,” Luc added. “Fruit punch. That Lunchables of Awesome isn’t joking around.”
Man, no matter what I did or decided from here on out, there was a risk, and I never knew where I stood with Luc. I don’t think anyone did. The fact was that we really didn’t have much of a choice.
My gaze settled on Luc. “If you’re screwing with us, I swear to—”
“God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost that you’re going to kill me or whatever,” he cut in. “Got it. And although I might not appear appropriately threatened, I am. So, kids, can we move this group along?”
Drawing in a shallow breath, I let go of Dawson’s shoulder. The soldier waited until Dawson joined him. Nancy stepped aside, allowing them both to pass through. I didn’t like it, but he had one focus—Bethany. He didn’t look back, not once.
Just like Dee hadn’t looked back.
Thinking of my sister slammed weight down on my shoulders, and I let out another breath as I reached for Kat’s hand. She was already there, threading her fingers through mine.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
Luc clapped his hands together as he pivoted on his heel. We headed down the tunnel, veering off to the right, when Dawson had gone in the other direction. The place reminded me of Area 51. Wide halls. A lot of closed doors. Strange antiseptic smell.
In some ways, it was better than being with the other Luxen. At least this was the enemy we knew and all that jazz.
Luc kneed open a set of double doors and caught one side with his hand. Nancy followed him in, and like he’d claimed, at one side of a long table was a Lunchables. Archer sat at the other side, his legs kicked up, arms folded behind his neck.
When the door shut behind us and only Nancy had come in, I knew something really strange was up. Before, the woman had traveled with an entourage.
“You’re okay,” Kat breathed out as she broke free, limping around the side of the table. “I’ve been so worried.”
Archer pulled his long legs off the table and rose. A second later, he enveloped Kat in a hug. “I told you to stay where you were. But oh no, you didn’t listen.” He looked over her head at me. “I totally told her to stay.”
Luc scowled. “Why didn’t I get a hug?”
He was ignored.
“Sorry.” Kat’s voice was muffled. “I had to, you know?”
“I get it. But damn, girl, it might not have worked out so well,” Archer replied. “Could’ve all gone to shit, and then who would take me to Olive Garden so I can try out the endless breadsticks?”
Kat laughed, but the sound was thick and choked.
I stood where I was, telling myself that the ugly heat invading my veins was indigestion and not jealousy. Totally not that, because Archer had nothing on me.
But did he need to hug her that long? And that hard? Come the hell on.
Archer’s purple gaze met mine over her shoulder. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do.
My eyes narrowed. I still don’t like you.
Grinning, he pulled back, relinquishing his embrace, and then reached for a chair. “You look like you’re about to fall down. Why don’t you grab a seat?”
Kat did look worn out as she eased into one of the metal folding chairs. “What’s going on, guys? Why are you all here and with her?”
Archer glanced at me again as he sat. “Where’s Dee?”
The pressure increased as I moved to the seat beside Kat. As I sat, tension flickered across Archer’s face, gathering around his eyes. “She . . .” I shook my head, at a loss as to how to explain what was up with her.
His hands clenched together atop the table. “She’s not . . . she’s not gone, is she?”
“No,” Kat spoke up. “She’s not the same. She’s kind of batting for the other team right now.”
Archer opened his mouth, but as he sat back, he snapped it shut. I wasn’t sure how much they knew about everything, but I couldn’t get into that stuff until I knew what the hell was going
on here.
I turned to Luc, arching a brow as I watched him stack slices of cheese and ham on a cracker. “What’s going on?”
“Nancy’s going to play nice,” he said, nudging the cheese onto the center.
She had sat next to Luc and looked like she wanted to start breaking things. Her gaze met mine. “Trust me, if I had a choice right now, you’d all be dead.”
Luc tsked softly. “Now, that isn’t very nice.”
I didn’t understand. As Luc chomped down on his snack, I leaned forward. “What’s stopping you from taking us out?”
“Let’s just say everyone has an Achilles’ heel, and I found hers.” Luc set about making another cracker. “It’s not pretty. Not something even I wanted to stoop to. But oh wells.”
That didn’t tell us jack.
Kat shifted closer. “How did you all end up together?”
“I made it back to the cabin. And after I told Luc what went down at the store, we considered hitting the road,” Archer explained. “But we didn’t get the chance before Daedalus showed up.”
Nancy’s lips formed a tight line.
“She thought she had us.” Luc plopped a mini Oreo on top of his ham-and-cheese cracker, and well, that was just sick. “But—”
“You said you were working on that,” Kat said, glancing at a silent Nancy. “A way to deal with Daedalus? You found something?”
“I’m a very well-connected person,” Luc said around a mouthful of junk. “When they kicked down our door and Nancy strode in as if she was the biggest, baddest thing this side of the country, I proved just how well connected I am.”
“How?” I watched Nancy.
“Like I said, everyone has an Achilles’ heel. Nancy’s is pretty obvious.” Luc stabbed a straw through his Capri Sun. “There’s only one thing that she cares about in this whole entire world, that she’d throw her family in front of a tank for—if she even has a family, because I’m pretty sure she was hatched from an egg—and it’s those baby Origins.”
“Baby Origins?” I repeated.
“Micah? Those?” Kat asked.
Luc nodded. “Yep.”
“Fun fact is that most of the hybrids and older Origins, the ones who left with her to retrieve you guys, aren’t really thrilled with the Daedalus treatment.” Archer smiled, but there was no humor. “The ones who were loyal, well . . .”
“Bastards,” Nancy hissed. “Do you know how long it took to cultivate something that was so loyal and so tested—?”
“Something?” Kat’s voice rose. “See, that’s why you’re so messed up. The hybrids and the Origins, they aren’t a something. They are living, breathing people.”
“You don’t understand.” Nancy turned a dark look on Kat. “You’ve never created anything.”
“And you have? Just because you forced two people to have children and then ripped them away doesn’t mean you created anything.” Anger tightened Kat’s lips. “You’re not their mother. You aren’t anything but a monster to them.”
Something akin to pain flickered across Nancy’s face.
“Either way, they mean a lot to her, and I know where they’re being kept,” Luc explained, finishing up his last cracker. “Tell them what the bigwigs wanted, Fancy Nancy.”
She gripped the edges of the table. “After the arrival of the Luxen, I was told to dismantle the Daedalus project.”
“Dismantle?” whispered Kat, and I already knew what she meant. I think Kat did, too, but didn’t want to believe it.
“I was told to clear out the program, erase everything,” Nancy explained.
“Oh my God,” Kat murmured.
I closed my eyes. Dismantle. Erase everything. In other words, she’d been given an order from someone higher up than her in the food chain to wipe out any proof of the program. “They wanted you to kill them?”
She exhaled noisily as she nodded. “Plausible deniability, they said. That the public couldn’t know that we had not only been aware of alien life-forms but had been working with them for decades.”
“Jesus.” I rubbed a hand across my brow. “Not just the kids, right? Every Luxen who was in there of their own free will? The ones who were allowing you to do tests? And even the ones who hadn’t assimilated to your standards?”
“Yes,” she responded.
“Of course, she had no problem wiping them out. They are expendable after all, at least according to her. But those Origins?” Luc shook his head slowly. “She couldn’t do it.”
My brows rose. Did the woman have a heart somewhere in her chest?
Luc laughed as he picked up on my thoughts. “No, Daemon, she doesn’t have a heart. Not in the way a normal person would grow attached to a classroom full of little freaky, and yet oddly adorable, kids. She didn’t want all of her work to go to waste, so she moved them out of Area 51, and she thought she had them hidden.”
“But she didn’t?” Kat tucked her hair behind her ear.
He shook his head. “As I said, I’m pretty damn well connected. I know where they are and I know how badly Nancy wants to return to them when this is all over, given that any of us are still alive, and cultivate the little freaks into big freaks.”
“Like I did with you?” Nancy asked.
Luc flipped her off. “Nancy knows that if she harms one hair on any of our bodies, even looks at us in a way that I find annoying . . .”
The casual indifference that he always rocked slipped off his face like a mask falling away. He leaned forward, his eyes glowing like purple diamonds, as Nancy turned to him.
In that moment, I was seeing the Luc who caused grown men to piss themselves, the Luc I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of, and that Luc was downright disturbing-looking as his features sharpened.
“She knows I will have every single one of them killed in seconds,” he said, his voice low. “And if my people don’t hear from me, even if I can’t make it to a phone in time, they are all going to die. And then Nancy has nothing.”
Good God.
Kat stared at the kid like she’d never seen him before.
There was no doubt in my mind that Luc was capable of doing something like that. As messy and wrong as it was, he’d do it, but I also didn’t believe that he’d ever let those kids fall back into Nancy’s hands.
And I wondered if she really believed that. Then again, what choice did she have? “Why didn’t you just kill her?” I asked.
“We kind of need her,” Archer explained. “At least, we need the government, someplace safe until . . . well, hopefully there’s an ‘until’ and not a forever. We also needed to get you all out and we—”
“As freaking awesome as we are,” Luc threw out, slipping back into the not-so-disturbing Origin mafioso.
Archer sent him a bland look. “Going up against that many Luxen would prove difficult. Right now, she’s a necessary evil.”
“And boy, do we mean evil.” Luc grinned.
Sitting back, I thrust my hand through my hair. Looked like Luc had Nancy on a leash. There was so much running through my head.
“What now?” Kat asked, drawing my stare. “We need to get Dee away from them.”
That made me want to get her name tattooed on my freaking forehead.
“And we need to find a way to stop what is happening, what—”
And that made me want to lock her in a closet or something.
“What you need is rest and probably something to eat,” Archer jumped in, glancing at me. “Both of you. That is the priority.”
“There are things that are going down. Stuff I’m sure Nancy will be happy to share with you, but that’s for a different day.” Luc reached over, patting Nancy’s hand like she was a small child. “But there’s something else she does need to tell you.”
Nancy’s jaw jutted out.
I smirked. “I doubt there’s anything she can tell me I’ll give a crap about.”
“Actually.” Luc drew out the word. “I think you and Katy will care about this.”
Kat tensed. “What now?”
“Tell them,” he goaded, and when Nancy didn’t speak, he said in a hard voice, “Tell them the truth.”
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