The Brightest Night Read online

  It shouldn’t happen again. If Luc was concerned something like that would happen, it couldn’t. “I don’t think you should do it at all.”

  Luc was quiet for a long moment. “There are other ways I can lock you down, Evie, if it comes to that.”

  Sensing there was a reason why he didn’t use one of the other ways in the first place, I placed a hand over his. “Those ways would hurt me, wouldn’t they? That would be the only reason why you didn’t do that instead of taking my power.”

  “You know me so well.” He slipped his hand out from under me. “I can do things you’ve never seen me do.”

  I managed to suppress the shiver his words incited. I’d seen Luc do a lot of things that were impressively powerful, so what else could he do that I hadn’t seen?

  “If I wanted to, I could reach inside your mind and shut you down. It wouldn’t be painless. I imagine it would be like what you felt when the Cassio Wave was used,” he explained, and that had been the worst pain I’d ever experienced. “I could make you think and see things that weren’t there, just like the batch of Origins Micah was a part of could. That’s not all.”

  My heart was beating heavily. “There’s more?”

  He laughed, but it lacked his warmth and humor. “The serum used to create me is a part of the Andromeda serum. I know this, because there were things you did in the woods that only I can do. Things Micah and the others were only beginning to develop.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “What things?”

  “The way you broke bodies with your mind? How you did it with a curl of your fingers without touching them? Those are things I can do.” He lifted a hand, brushing his hair back. “But I’m nearly as fast and as powerful as you, and I couldn’t do what you did with the earth, turning it into a weapon.”

  He was talking about how I’d turned the soil into ropes of death, basically. I honestly had no idea how I’d even done that other than I’d thought it … and it had happened.

  “What about Archer?” And little Ashley and Daemon and Kat’s soon-to-be-arriving child. “What about Zoe?”

  “Neither Archer nor Zoe can do any of those things. I was a surprising fluke of perfection before they created the last batch of Origins,” he said, and it wasn’t said with a hint of arrogance. “Each Origin has its own unique abilities. At least that’s how it’s been. Ashley has a way of knowing things.”

  Like how she’d known I was Nadia?

  That was still kind of creepy.

  But I was also now kind of creepy.

  “In the woods, when it didn’t seem like I was going to reach you?” He shifted away from me, onto his back. Cool air immediately invaded the space. “I tried it.” He exhaled heavily. “I hated the idea of causing you pain even though I figured by that point it wouldn’t do lasting harm like it would with humans. Their minds can’t withstand it. Scrambles the brains quite literally. But I couldn’t get in. It’s like that ability was taken into consideration when the serum was perfected.”

  Could the Daedalus have been that proactive? The answer was a resounding yes. They’d taken all the successes and failures of the previous serums and worked with that knowledge, not against it.

  “I will just have to catch you before you tip over that ledge. It’s the only way.”

  His arm curled under my head, as if he wished to pull it away, and I knew why that bothered him. Catching me before he couldn’t get to me meant he would literally seize control of my mind. Luc hadn’t minced words. It would hurt badly, and that would be the last thing Luc would ever want to do.

  I rolled toward him, plastering myself to the side of his body as I threw one arm over his bare chest and a leg over his.

  “Um…?” Luc trailed off.

  “It’s okay. I give you permission.”

  Luc locked up against me. I don’t think he even breathed.

  “If I start to tip over, you have my permission to give me a mental bitch slap. It’ll hurt, but it won’t be your fault. You can’t feel guilt over it.”

  “I don’t think that’s really an option, Peaches.”

  “It has to be done, Luc, or we’re screwed. No one else can do what you can do.” I kept my voice level, because I knew he wasn’t being domineering or overprotective. If the shoes were on my feet, I would be drowning in guilt. So, I got it, but it didn’t change the fact that it was our only option. “Are you okay with us being screwed?”

  “I’m okay with us being the ones doing the screwing.”

  Rolling my eyes, I started to sit up, but Luc curled his arm around my back, keeping me against him. “No. You’re right,” he said. “It won’t be easy. I won’t like it, and neither will you, but it’s better than the alternatives.”

  There could be no other alternatives.

  A disquieting idea suddenly occurred to me. “What if the reason why it’s happening like this is because I’m not meant to control it?”

  Luc went very still. “What are you thinking?”

  “We know I was mutated four years ago and then trained. My memories were removed only then, when I was placed back with my mom like some sort of sleeper. There were no signs of my mutation until April used the Cassio Wave, and since then there hasn’t been any other sign, other than when I’m threatened or freaking out. Maybe that is just a defense mechanism and not something the Daedalus or Dasher planned.”

  “I’m not really following.”

  I wasn’t sure I was myself, because the memories I had of Dasher were too brief, disjointed, and seemed out of context, but then there was what Eaton said. “The Trojans were designed to answer only to Dasher. Maybe I can only either intentionally use the Source or control it under his control, and that’s why it feels like an entity instead of a part of me the same way the Source is a part of you or a hybrid. It’s only a part of me when the Daedalus allow it.”

  God, the moment those words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back, because they sounded crazy enough to be totally on point.

  “I refuse to accept that,” he bit out.

  “Luc—”

  “It also doesn’t make sense, Evie. There is only so much tinkering around with DNA anyone is capable of, and I don’t care how much coding is in a serum, you’re not a computer only capable of running one program,” he argued. “It also wouldn’t explain how your emotions could control it. Physical harm? Yes. That makes sense, because it would be a way for them to ensure you’re able to protect their asset. But emotions? That’s not an immediate physical threat.”

  Luc had a point there.

  “It just can’t be possible,” he stated as if he could simply make that the case because he didn’t want it to be.

  Neither did I, because if it was and I was on the right path, no amount of training would make a difference if Jason Dasher held the ultimate ace up his sleeve.

  I was nothing more than a walking liability or a possible bomb ticking down in the heart of what I suspected was the only place capable of forming any sort of resistance against the Daedalus.

  Just like a true Trojan.

  6

  “So, that was my night,” I said to Zoe as I finished chewing a handful of peanuts I’d shoved in my mouth—the fourth handful of peanuts. I was so freaking hungry it wasn’t even funny.

  Luc was currently having that “much-needed” conversation with Daemon. Zoe had shown up minutes afterward, almost like she’d been summoned for Evie babysitting duty, wearing jeans and a shirt that fit so well I knew the items weren’t borrowed but from a stash of her own clothing that had been held here.

  Sometimes it was still a shock to realize how much of Zoe’s life I’d had no clue about.

  When I first found out that Zoe was an Origin and that our friendship in the beginning had been engineered, it had been hard, because there’d been a part of me that had feared that our friendship was as fabricated as my life as Evie was, but I’d gotten past that. How Zoe and I became friends didn’t matter. What did was the fact that we had each other�
��s backs.

  We were currently sitting on the floor of the house that had temporarily become Luc’s and mine, the worn coffee table between us loaded with the kind of food I normally wouldn’t eat with a gun pointed at my head. Well, except for the small chunks of what Zoe had called farmer’s cheese. I’d eat cheese all day and night, but the rest of the stuff?

  Celery. Sliced apples. Carrots. Cucumbers and sliced tomatoes.

  Other than the cheese I’d splattered over crackers that might’ve been a wee bit past their expiration date, Mom would’ve been proud of what I was consuming.

  Mom.

  A sharp slice of bitter pain lit up my chest before I could shut down that train wreck of emotions. I drew in a shallow breath. “How was your night?”

  Zoe stared at me somewhat blankly, which was the expression on her face the entire time I told her what had happened last night. Granted, I hadn’t told her everything. She didn’t need to know what Luc and I had done, and I think she appreciated me leaving out those details, but I did tell her what Luc had done. I trusted her with my life, and I knew Zoe loved me like I was her sister, but I also knew Luc was something else entirely to her. She answered to Luc as a soldier would to their general. It wasn’t just because Luc had freed her from a Daedalus hellhole but more than that, a loyalty born out of respect, the same with Grayson and Emery, even Kent before he was murdered. My chest ached when I thought of him, and it made me think of Heidi and if she was okay, and if James was wondering what had happened to us.

  It made my heart ache even more because I then thought of Mom, and I didn’t know if grieving her was right. If all the terrible things she’d done meant she was no longer worthy of me or anyone mourning her.

  “Not nearly as interesting as yours,” Zoe said, pulling me from my thoughts. “I had no idea Luc could do something like that.” She shook her head as she dipped her apple in a glob of honey. “Actually, I didn’t know any Origin could do that, which just makes Luc all kinds of extra-special.”

  “I know,” I agreed, eyeing the golden goo dripping down the slice, wondering if that actually tasted good.

  “It kind of reminds me of how the Arum feed. It sort of looks like a kiss when they do it.” The slice of apple halted inches from her mouth. “Well, I guess they could do it while kissing, but they basically inhale, sucking out the Source.”

  “Luc didn’t do it like that. He just put his hand on my chest and yanked it out,” I said, mimicking what he’d done. “But yeah, he was super-weird until he absorbed it.”

  “Weirder than you eating healthy food?”

  I snorted. “I think the amount of salt I dumped on the tomatoes zeroes out the health benefits of what I’m eating.”

  “True story.”

  “But yeah, he was different. Like he was still Luc, but he was something … other,” I said. “He was colder and almost like, I don’t know, coldly logical, if that makes sense? There was emotion there.” There’d obviously been a lot of emotion there considering where the kiss had led. “But I could see where that wouldn’t be the case if he’d taken more.”

  “But he’s not going to do it again. Right?”

  Exhaling roughly, I nodded. “Right. Even he said he shouldn’t.”

  “And that’s the scary part.” Zoe nibbled on her honey-glazed apple, her expression thoughtful. “Like, if Luc thinks it’ll end badly if he does it again? That’s big. In a way, he’s admitting to a weakness there. He can’t control how he responds to the Source that’s in you, and other than you, I don’t think Luc has a weakness.”

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about being Luc’s weakness. Mainly because I knew it to be true. That was why Jason Dasher and my mom had been able to pull off what they had. They’d exploited his weakness.

  Leaning back against the faded cream-colored couch, I watched the ceiling fan churn lazily. The wind from the open windows was catching the blades, keeping them spinning and moving air. It was pleasant in the house, but if temps skyrocketed, no amount of shade or open windows would keep that heat at bay.

  My gaze flickered across the living room. I hadn’t really paid any attention to the house before. Part of me didn’t want to see the remnants of the previous owner’s life, but now I couldn’t stop myself from seeing it. A medium-size television sat uselessly on a wooden console, in the center of a row of dark brown bookshelves. Books of all shapes and sizes lined those shelves, broken up by random knickknacks like those white angel statues that looked like little kids. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what they were called. Some were praying, petting little dogs or cats, and others were on swings or looking up, their little wings spread wide.

  Those little figurines always creeped me out. Like, little kid angels were kind of wrong.

  The angel theme continued in paintings that adorned the walls. Two chubby thinking angels that also looked like children. A much more serious one of the archangel Michael battling demons hung above the television. Several smaller paintings of guardian angels watching over children and happy couples dotted the walls.

  My lips pursed as I eyed the framed photos of Labrador retrievers with furry angel wings sitting on the end tables.

  There were a lot of angels but no photos of who’d lived here. My gaze crawled over the walls, finding the outline of where pictures must’ve hung at one time.

  I wondered if Dee had done that to prepare the house for Luc and me or if a team of people had gone through the habitable homes, removing the traces of those who’d lived there before to make it easier for others to take their places.

  Either way, I couldn’t help but think that if I’d been a part of that team, I would’ve probably taken some of those angel paintings down and stored them where they wouldn’t be staring at the person moving in.

  I knew why I was staring at the apparent angel obsession on display. I was trying not to freak out over what Zoe had said. There was no reason to worry. Luc wasn’t going to do it again.

  “Are you going to tell me what Eaton had to tell you and Luc?” Zoe asked. “Actually, on second thought, I’m not sure my brain can handle much more.”

  “Well, get ready for your brain to implode,” I said, and then I told her what Eaton had told us. She was just as shocked and disturbed to learn that Dasher was alive and all the rest that I shared.

  “God.” Dropping the carrot, she plopped her elbows on the table. “Just when you think the Daedalus can’t get any worse, they show up just to prove you wrong.”

  “I know,” I murmured, hating the heaviness that settled over me. “I wish Heidi was here right now. She’d probably string together insults from five different countries in her anger—”

  “And it would make us laugh, because not only would she probably pronounce them wrong but she’d be so serious about it, too.” Zoe smiled.

  “Like when she called my ex a shitboot in Swedish?” I said, laughing. “God, I really do miss her. I hope she and Emery are okay.”

  “They’ll be here soon,” Zoe assured me. “Emery is smart. Both of them are. They’ll be okay. It’ll just take them a bit to get here.”

  I nodded, dropping my hands to my lap. “I know.” I couldn’t let myself think anything else.

  The humor faded as Zoe’s lips thinned, and I knew she had returned to thinking about what I’d shared. “Eaton might believe it all started somewhere good, but I don’t believe that for one second. He wasn’t on the inside like Luc and me.”

  I was more inclined to believe Zoe’s perception.

  “World domination.” She balled her hands into tight fists before slowly unclenching them. “Sounds stupid and cliché, like a plot of an Avengers movie, but it’s not when you really think about it.”

  I nodded. “You know I wouldn’t have believed any of this stuff—that our government was capable of this. And I like to think, pre-Luc, I wasn’t all that naïve, but I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “You weren’t naïve,” she agreed. “And you also weren’t on the Luxen-hat
ing bandwagon even though you’d believed your father had died in the war, killed by one of them.”

  Anger and disgust slithered like a viper through me. I hated that I’d wasted even a minute feeling guilty over not remembering what my father’s voice sounded like.

  “I think it’s just hard to really accept that people you trust—people you need to trust, who are supposed to be looking out for the health and wealth of their community—can be so evil,” I said finally. “Even when you see evidence of it and know that people are capable of anything.”

  “It’s just different when you see it happening with your own eyes. I think there’s a part of our psyche, the human part of us, that automatically wants to believe the best in people and in situations. Maybe because it’s easier or less scary. Maybe it’s even a survival tool. I don’t know,” Zoe said. “But the thing is, there are groups of people out there who believe the one percent control the world. Like some sort of shadow government is behind the wheel, and in a way, they’re right. The public doesn’t know the Daedalus exist, and that that organization has their hands in everything, but they haven’t been able to stretch their reach to seize absolute control on a global level, not to a point where the impact on ordinary people’s lives is no longer hidden and easy to overlook. To do that, they’ll need to get rid of anyone who can fight back and then move on to humans they find undesirable. They could reshape the law, the government, and society to what most benefits them.”

  Pressing her lips again, she shook her head. “But is that really their goal? There are a lot of people they’d need to take out if they didn’t want to spend every waking moment fearing a rebellion. And do we really know what their endgame truly is? We don’t, but I can’t figure out how they plan to accomplish any of this with a hundred or so trained Trojans and an army of recently mutated humans.”

  I mulled that over, thinking about how the world viewed Jason Dasher as a hero. “But if they make themselves out to be the heroes’ like Jason Dasher did, and they make those they want to get rid of the villains, it may be easy for them to take control.”