Zoe waited for me by my locker at the end of the day as I switched out my books, grabbing my bio textbook so I could prepare for an exam tomorrow.
“Are you heading home?” she asked, resting her head against the locker next to mine.
“I should.” I grinned when Zoe lifted her brows. “But it’s so nice outside and I was thinking about heading out to the park.”
“Taking pictures?”
I nodded. The weather was perfect for taking photos, cooling down so the leaves were changing colors. Impromptu photo sessions were why I always kept my Nikon with me from the moment Mom had surprised me with it last Christmas. “Mom didn’t say I was grounded.”
“Sure,” Zoe drew the word out. “Good luck with that.”
I closed the locker door and then hitched my bag up on my shoulder. “What are you up to?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Need to study, but I’m probably going to just sit on the couch and marathon old episodes of Family Guy.”
I laughed as we headed down the hall toward the parking lot. Zoe’s parents, both of them, had died before the invasion in some kind of freak plane accident, so she had been shipped off to live with her uncle, who was never home. I only saw him once from a distance. They used to live closer to DC, but had ended up here after everything.
“So, I only heard bits and pieces about your trip with Heidi to that club.” Zoe caught the door, holding it open as we stepped out into the bright afternoon sun. “She was telling me it got raided while you guys were there?”
I pulled my sunglasses out of my bag and slid them on as we followed the mass of people going toward the parking lot. “Yeah, it was wild. I’ve never seen anything like that. At all.”
“There’s a reason why Heidi didn’t ask me to go with you guys. I would’ve told her no.”
“I couldn’t tell her no. She’s been going there by herself for a while now, and I just wanted to, you know, for her not to be alone.” I stepped around a couple who looked seconds away from either making out or screaming at each other. “I didn’t even get a chance to meet Emery.”
Zoe was quiet for a moment and then she nudged me with her elbow. “So I heard there was this guy there. . . .”
Groaning, I rolled my eyes as we climbed the small hill. What did Heidi not tell her? “There was a Luxen guy there who was a complete ass. Is that who you’re talking about?”
“That’s the guy who showed up at your house?” When I nodded, she let out a low whistle. “I bet your mom freaked.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered dryly. Out of all my friends, Zoe was the most . . . logical one, the calmest one. There was very little we kept from each other, so keeping everything from her felt wrong.
Honestly, she should’ve been at the club Friday night. She would’ve made sure I didn’t end up in that hidey-hole with Luc. “So, I didn’t tell anyone else this, but when he showed up at my house, Mom pulled a gun on him.”
“What?” She let out a shocked laugh.
“Yep.” I kept my voice down as we neared Zoe’s car. Since I hadn’t gotten to school super-early that morning, I had to trek all the way to the back of the parking lot, near the football field.
“Wow,” she said, laughing again. From the field, a whistle blew. “What did he do?”
“He melted the barrel.” I shivered at the reminder. To have that kind of unchecked power was unbelievable.
“That . . . was all he did?” Zoe reached the door of her car.
“I think that was enough.” Of course that wasn’t all that Luc had done. “He actually . . .”
“What?”
My cheeks started to burn. I wanted to tell her—tell someone—but at the same time, telling someone felt like that meant I was thinking about it. That I cared about it.
I wasn’t thinking about the non-kiss. Well, except for last night, when I couldn’t sleep, and the night before that.
Zoe nudged my arm.
“He wasn’t wearing a Disabler,” I said instead, shoving thoughts of kissing aside. “I don’t think he’s registered.”
Leaning against the back door of her car, Zoe crossed her arms. “I think there probably are a lot of them who aren’t registered.”
“Yeah.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Anyway, what April brought up at lunch was so wrong.”
“Which part?”
She rolled her eyes. “All of it, but especially bringing up your dad like that. It was messed up.”
“It was.” I dug a thick bobby pin out of the pocket of my jeans, then bent over and gathered up my hair. “But that’s April.”
“I don’t know.” Zoe squinted as she stared out over the football field. “Sometimes she worries me.”
Twisting my hair into a bun, I managed to keep my sunglasses on and shove the bobby pin into the thick mass. “She always worries me.” I straightened. “There are days when I don’t even know why I’m friends with her.”
“There are days I wonder how I haven’t pushed her in front of a bus,” Zoe admitted.
My smile faded as I thought about the conversation with Mom. If April had known my dad had done bad things, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything she’d said, because my father’s death fit her narrative—her agenda when she talked about the Luxen.
“You okay?” She moved several curls out of her face.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “Why?”
Her brows lifted. “You had a pretty interesting weekend.”
And she didn’t even know all of it. “Yeah, I did, but I’m okay. Totally.”
She studied me a moment and then pushed away from the car. “All right, I’ve got to run. Text me later?”
“Yep.” I waved good-bye to her, then headed behind her car and started rooting around for my keys. I made a promise that I would get to school earlier from now on, because this hike sucked. I found my keys just as my car came into view. I unlocked it, opened the back door, and tossed my bag onto the seat.
I didn’t even know how it happened.
I must’ve left my bag half unzipped, because the next thing I knew, a rainbow of notebooks slide out, slipping onto the gravel. My camera inched out next. Gasping, I dropped my keys and lurched forward, catching the camera before it hit the hard ground.
Closing my eyes, I let out a ragged breath. “Oh, thank you, baby Jesus.”
“Here you go.”
Startled by the deep voice, I lost my precarious balance and fell backward, plopping onto my butt. My head jerked up as I clutched my camera to my chest. A guy stood next to my car. Brown hair brushed dark sunglasses. A warm smile curved his lips as he picked up my notebooks. My gaze flew back to his face.
“These are yours, right?” he asked.
I eyed the notebooks. “Yeah. They are.”
His head tilted to the side. “Do you . . . want them back?”
For a moment I didn’t move and then I snapped forward, onto my knees. I grabbed the notebooks. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He stepped back as I got up. A dimple appeared in his right cheek. “See you later.”
Holding my notebooks, I watched him pivot. Some type of leather messenger bag thumped off his thigh as he cut around the back of my car, walking through another row of cars.
“Huh,” I murmured. I didn’t recognize the guy. Granted, the sunglasses had shielded half his face, but he had to be a student. From what I could see of his face, he looked pretty cute. I really needed to start paying more attention to who I had class with.
Shaking my head, I shoved my notebooks back into my bag, zipped it up, and then shoved the door closed. I bent over, snatching up my keys. Still holding on to my camera, I opened the driver’s-side door and the came to a complete stop. A weird feeling hit me. The tiny hairs along the back of my neck rose.
It felt like . . . like someone was watching me.
Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I scanned the parking lot. There were people, lots of them, and no one was paying any attention to me, but the feeling didn’t go away. Even when I got into my car and turned it on, the sensation lingered like summer’s heat.
As I was walking the path along the still waters of Centennial Lake, I lifted my camera and stepped back. Composition of a photo pretty much came down to the rule of the thirds. Of course, it didn’t work for all photos and I didn’t follow the rule for outdoors ones. I always liked photos where the object was slightly off-centered.
I snapped a picture of one of the largest trees, loving the contrast of its leaves against the deep blue of the sky. Then I zoomed in on the burnt gold and red leaves.
I didn’t like to look at my pictures until I got home and was able to load them onto my computer. If I got caught up in checking them out, I’d end up just focusing on one image and miss everything else around me.
Keeping to the edge of the pathway, I was careful not to bother the joggers and people walking their dogs. There were a lot of people out, and as the day progressed, the park would be packed. I could already hear childlike shouts and giggles coming from the playground.
I came to Centennial Lake often, at least once a week for the last year or so. I loved being outside, taking pictures even though I knew I probably wasn’t that good at it. Mom said my film was great and that I had talent. So did Zoe and Heidi. James wasn’t interested unless the photos were of hot chicks in bikinis. Usually April laughed at my pictures. That was if she was paying attention when I shared them.
I doubted Mom or Zoe would tell me I was terrible. Sucking didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t why I took pictures. I did it because of how it made me feel.
Or how it didn’t make me feel.
My brain just sort of emptied out while I had a camera in my hand. I didn’t think about anything—about how scary the invasion had been. I didn’t think about the surreal quality of the last four years or what had happened the night at the club. I sure as hell didn’t think about the kiss that didn’t even count as a real kiss. Or everything my mom had told me.
The camera put a wall up between the world and me, and it was an escape, one I looked forward to. I cut off the pathway and trekked up a small mound that overlooked the playground, then sat down. Laughter and squeals drew my attention and I lifted the camera, catching a small girl darting from the slides to the swings, her pigtails bouncing. Another kid, a little boy, nearly belly-flopped off the swing, letting the seat spin back. I caught the empty seat swinging, snapping a picture of it floating, the seat cockeyed in flight.
I sucked in a shallow breath, feeling a sudden burn in the back of my throat.
I slowly lowered the camera and watched kids race back and forth from one playground set to another. Everything about them was carefree and happy. Innocent. They were lucky. None of them remembered that utterly all-consuming fear. None of them remembered what it was like to go to bed wondering what kind of world we were going to wake up in come morning, if there would even be a world. They had the freedom the rest of us had had the minute and second before our lives had imploded.
The invasion had been so traumatic that I had a hard time remembering anything before it. I mean, I could remember things, but those memories were fuzzy and faint compared to that night the Luxen came and the days afterward. I’d looked it up once, to see if that was common, and it was. These kids, though, they’d never have—
Stop.
Closing my eyes, I forced a long, deep breath out. When I held the camera, I didn’t think. When I took a picture, I didn’t feel.
Today was not going to change that and ruin it.
Pressing my lips together, I shook it out—shook my shoulders and arms, wiggled all the way down to my butt planted in the grass. It probably looked weird, but I pictured all the fears and worries being rattled right off me, and it worked. I opened my eyes again, and the unwanted knot of emotion was gone.
Once I got myself in check, I lifted the camera again, moving away from the playground and over the walkway. I started to get a long shot of the lake, but my attention was snagged. My finger slipped over the zoom button before I even knew what I was doing.
Blue Mohawk?
What the hell?
It was the guy from the club. It was so him standing on the edge of the pathway, hands shoved into his pockets. In the daylight, his blue hair was even more striking against his pale skin. I bet he was a redhead. He wore a black shirt with some kind of symbol on it. Two snakes, mouth to end.
What was his name? Kent. Yeah, that was his name.
He turned toward the hill I sat on. Sucking in a sharp breath, I jerked the camera away from my face. There was no way he could see me. He was human, but God, it was almost like he’d looked right at me.
I thought about the feeling I’d had in the school parking lot.
Well, now I was being paranoid, because those two things had nothing to do with each other.
I shook my head and then scanned the pathway down below. No Kent. Frowning, I craned my neck to see if he’d gone around the bend. It shouldn’t be hard to see him. He kind of stuck out. And what was he doing here? Yeah, this was a public park, but what was the likelihood of seeing him at the Lake, especially when I’d never seen him here before, and right after—
“Fancy seeing you here.”
Instantly I recognized the deep voice coming from behind me. My stomach dropped at the same time my heart rate kicked up. Twisting, I looked up . . . and up some more. I nearly dropped my poor camera.
Luc.
He crouched so we were face-to-face. Somehow I’d forgotten how striking his eyes were up close. A purple so intense, it reminded me of the most vibrant of wolfsbane. “Surprised to see me?”
“Yeah,” I said, checking out his wrist. Still no Disabler. Just that leather cuff and weird stone. “A little.”
One dark brow lifted. “You probably thought you were never going to see me again. You probably even hoped for that.”
I laid my camera down in the grass, figuring it was better to have my hands free at this point. “Honestly? After my mom pointed a shotgun at you, I figured I would never see you again.”
He laughed, but it made every muscle in my body tense. “Yeah, usually that would deter people, but then again, I’m not like most people.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.”
Letting his hands hang between his knees, he nodded slowly. “True.”
Mouth dry, I glanced around, but I didn’t see Kent anywhere. Actually, it seemed like no one was near us. Luc gave off this vibe, like an invisible barrier that kept people back from him. “I didn’t tell anyone about what I saw Saturday.”
“I know.” His gaze flickered over my face. “I make you so incredibly nervous, don’t I?”
Warmth crept into my cheeks. It was true. He made me nervous on nearly every level, even ones I didn’t quite understand, and the fact that he noticed this ticked me off to no end.
I rose to my knees, meeting his stare head-on. “Yeah, you make me nervous.”
“Because you think I’m a Luxen?”
“It has nothing to do with what you are.” I pressed my palms into my thighs. “You make me nervous because the last time I saw you, you unlocked the doors and entered my house without permission, and before that, you tried to kidnap me.”
“We’re still disagreeing on what kidnapping involves, I see.”
“You tried to kidnap me, Luc.”
“Hmm,” he murmured. “That means I like you.”
I arched a brow. “Okay. That’s messed up on about a thousand different levels.”
“Probably. I don’t people well.”
“Gee, really,” I replied dryly.
He seemed to consider that for a moment and then said, “I have good reasons for why I thought it would be better for you to stay there.”
Both of my brows lifted now. “And I’m sure most serial killers have ‘good reasons’ for cutting up their victims and eating them too.”
Luc’s lips twitched. “That’s a bit extreme.”
“You’re a bit extreme.”
His gaze lowered, his thick lashes shielding his eyes. “You’re a bright girl. I know that. You saw more than one Luxen without a Disabler. You also saw frightened Luxen hidden. You were there when we were raided. I know you can put two and two together.” Those lashes lifted. “Obviously that knowledge you possess is dangerous, and it requires me to be a bit extreme to protect what I’m doing.”
As much as I hated to admit it even to myself, I understood. Reluctantly. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Besides . . . hiding them?”
He gave a little shake of his head. “You’re not ready for that.” A sigh shuddered through him. “I’m not ready for that.”
That didn’t make much sense. “Why?”
“Because I can’t trust you. Not like that.”
I was kind of offended by that. “We’re talking about trust? When you entered my locked home and proceeded to melt a shotgun barrel with your bare hands?”
A small grin appeared on his lips. “I did do that.”
I gaped at him. “And I’m also pretty sure the last time I saw you illegally in my house, I tried to knock your head off with a candleholder, so I would think you’d realize I didn’t want to see you.”
Luc laughed.
Anger rushed over the confusion and fear, squelching out the nervousness. “Do you think I’m funny?” I demanded.
“Well.” His gaze moved to the sky like he was really thinking hard about this. The sun glanced off his angular cheekbones, creating shadowy hollows under them, and my fingers itched to capture the moment with my camera. “Yeah, I kind of do think you’re funny.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re funny,” I snapped. “At all.”
He arched a brow again, and when he spoke, there was a playful quality in his tone. “If I thought everyone who wanted to knock my head off didn’t want to be my friend, then I’d be friendless.”
My jaw clenched down. “Wow. That’s something to be proud of.”
“I like to think so.” The curve of his smile said he knew how much he was getting to me. “You take pictures?”
I almost answered his question. The “yes” was burning on the tip of my tongue, but I shut that right down. “Why are you here?”
“I just happened to be around and I saw you.”
“Oh, just like you happened to be outside my house on Sunday and you just happened to have my ID with you? Which, by the way, you could’ve given back to me on Saturday.”
“Yeah.” He bit down on his lower lip, and it was ridiculous how much that drew my attention, so I forced my gaze up. “How much trouble did you get in for that?”
“A lot,” I gritted out.
“Not exactly surprised.” He focused on the lake. “Sylvia is . . . she’s a hard-core woman.”
It was still super-weird that he knew my parents. Part of me knew I should get up and get the hell away from him, but nope. I was still perched on my knees. For some reason, as I stared at him, I thought about that guy who’d been hurt. “How is he? Chas?”
A muscle flexed along his jaw. “Better. He woke up this morning.”
“That’s good news, right?” When he nodded, I bit down on my lip. “Did he tell you what happened?”
“He was jumped. Didn’t see the person.”
My brows creased. “It’s got to be hard to jump a Luxen.”
“It is. Really hard,” Luc agreed. “Which is very concerning.”
I looked away, thinking about Colleen. “Do you know that one of my classmates has gone missing? I saw her Friday night at the club, and her purse and shoes were found in that alley.”
“I’d heard that.”
My gaze crawled back to his. “Do you think what happened to Chas is related to Colleen?”
“I wouldn’t see why.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “Have you contacted the police or anything, about what happened to Chas?”
“No.” He laughed as if I’d suggested the most ridiculous thing possible. “No way.”
I looked back at him, eyes narrowing. “I get that you—”
“You don’t get anything, Evie.”
I sat back on my legs and lifted my hands in surrender. “Whatever, dude.”
“The police aren’t going to care about an unregistered Luxen nearly being beaten to death.” Those eyes churned a restless purple. “If anything, they’d immediately blame Chas for the girl’s disappearance.”
“And you’re sure he had nothing to do with it?” I asked.
A smirk formed as he laughed under his breath. “Oh, because he’s a Luxen, he’s automatically responsible for some human girl—”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I argued. “Maybe he saw something and that was why he was hurt.”
“He didn’t see anything.”
I drew in a shallow breath. “Well, I’m glad he’s okay.”
Luc was quiet as he watched me. “Me too.”
I looked away then, drawing in a shallow breath, and then I refocused on him. “You know, Mom told me.”
Shock splashed over his face as his gaze flew back to mine. “She did?”
I nodded. “She told me about . . .” I glanced around, but there was still no one near us. “She told me about how you guys were here long before the invasion.”
His expression smoothed out. “Oh, really?”
“She also told me about my dad.”
Everything about Luc changed in that moment. His features hardened and his shoulders tensed. His gaze was glacial as it locked on to mine. “She did?”
“She said he was responsible for you losing someone . . . close to you?”
His pupils seemed to stretch, and wow, that was . . . different. “He was.”
Feeling a little out of my element, I rose from my haunches and my mouth just started running. “I didn’t know my dad was like that. I didn’t know my dad at all, it seems. Obviously. But I mean, he wasn’t around a lot, and now I think maybe Mom and Dad weren’t getting along—” What in the world was I telling him? I shook my head, refocusing. “None of that is important, but what I’m trying to say is . . . I’m sorry.”
His eyes widened slightly as he stared at me. “Are you apologizing for him?”
“I . . . think so? I don’t even know why, which would usually mean that’s a crappy apology, but mainly because I don’t know exactly what he did, but I just know that my mom wouldn’t lie about something like that—”
Luc’s laugh was harsh.
My lips started to turn down. “Are you laughing while I’m trying to apologize for my father?”
“Yeah, I am.” Straightening, he rose. “You don’t need to ever apologize for a damn thing that man did.”
“Oh.” I was still for a moment and then scrambled to my feet so he wasn’t some giant towering over me. “That still doesn’t—”
“I’m not here to talk about Jason Dasher,” he cut in.
I took a tiny step back. “Then why are you here?”
His head tilted to the side, and a slow grin tipped up one side of his lips. “I don’t know,” he said, pausing. “Maybe I was looking for you.”
My hands tightened on the camera as my stomach dipped and twisted. Good. Bad. Both. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
He chuckled as he leaned forward about an inch. “And here I thought I was in stealth mode.”
“Not exactly.” I glanced down at the camera. “So why were you looking for me?”
“Why aren’t you running away?”
My gaze shot to his. That was a good question, but whatever. “Is this how every conversation is going to go? You answer a question with a question?”
“You do realize you just did exactly that.”
Irritation prickled over my skin, as did reluctant amusement. “I think it’s weird to ask someone why they aren’t running away from them.”
“Maybe, but I—” His head swung to the left and his eyes narrowed. I followed his gaze, unsure of what I was going to see, but I expected something. I didn’t see anything. He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I need to go.”
“Uh, okay.”
Luc’s gaze slid back to mine. “Do you know how easy it was to find you? The answer is really easy. In a city that has—how many humans? A little over a hundred thousand? It took nothing for me to find you.”
My heart banged around in my chest. “Why should I be worried about how easy it is to find me?”
“You never considered that before?”
“That’s not something I’ve really ever thought about,” I answered truthfully, because seriously, who thought about that unless they were trying to hide? Or had something to hide?
His eyes held mine. “You should probably start doing that.”