“Yep, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Oh…oh, wow.” I curled my hand back to my chest, staring at him blindly. “So where are you from? Mars?”
He laughed. “Not even close.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m going to tell you a story. Okay?”
“You’re going to tell me a story?”
Nodding, he dragged his fingers through his tousled hair. “All of this is going to sound insane to you, but try to remember what you saw. What you know. You saw me do things that are impossible. Now, to you, nothing is impossible.” He paused, seemed to gather himself. “Where we’re from is beyond the Abell.”
“The Abell?”
“It’s the farthest galaxy from yours, about thirteen billion light years from here. And we’re about another ten billion or so. There is no telescope or space shuttle powerful enough to travel to our home. There never will be.” He glanced down at his open hands, his brow lowered. “Not that it matters if they did. Our home no longer exists. It was destroyed when we were children. That’s why we had to leave, find a place that is comparable to our planet in terms of food and atmosphere. Not that we need to breathe oxygen, but it doesn’t hurt. We do it out of habit now more than anything else.” Another memory tugged loose. “So you don’t need to breathe?”
“No, not really.” He looked sort of sheepish. “We do out of habit, but there are times we forget. Like when we’re swimming.”
Well, that explained how Daemon had stayed underwater for so long. “Go on.”
He watched me for a few moments, then nodded. “We were too young to know what the name of our galaxy was. Or even if our kind felt the need to name such things, but I do remember the name of our planet. It was called Lux. And we are called Luxen.”
“Lux,” I whispered, recalling one of my freshman classes. “That’s Latin for light.”
He shrugged. “We came here in a meteorite shower fifteen years ago, with others like us. But many came before us, probably for the last thousand years. Not all of our kind came to this planet. Some went farther out in the galaxy. Others must’ve gone to planets they couldn’t survive on, but when it was realized that Earth was sort of perfect for us, more came here. Are you following me?” I stared blankly. “I think. You’re saying there’re more like you. The Thompsons — they’re like you?”
Daemon nodded. “We’ve all been together since then.”
That explained Ash’s territorial nature, I guessed. “How many of you are here?”
“Right here? At least a couple hundred.”
“A couple hundred,” I repeated. Then I remembered the strange looks in town — the people at the diner and the way they’d looked at me…because I was with Dee — an alien. “Why here?”
“We…stay in large groups. It’s not…well, that doesn’t matter right now.”
“You said you came during a meteorite shower? Where’s your spaceship?” I felt stupid for even saying that.
He raised a brow at me, looking like the Daemon I knew. “We don’t need things such as ships to travel. We are light — we can travel with light, like hitching a ride.”
“But if you’re from a planet millions of light years away and you travel at the speed of light…It took you millions of years to get here?” My old physics teacher would be proud.
“No. The same way I saved you from that Mack truck, we’re able to bend space and time. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know how it works, just that we can. Some better than others.”
What he said didn’t sound sane at all, but I didn’t stop him. Like he pointed out, what I saw earlier did not make any sense so maybe I was no longer the judge of what did make sense.
“We can age like a human, which allows us to blend in normally. When we got here, we picked our…skin.” He noticed my wince with another shrug. “I don’t know how else to explain that without creeping you out, but not all of us can change our appearances. What we picked when we got here is what we’re stuck with.”
“Well, you picked good then.”
The corners of his lips twitched up as he ran his fingers over blades of grass in front of him. “We copied what we saw. That only seems to work once for most of us. And how we grew up to look alike, well, our DNA must’ve taken care of the rest. There are always three of us born at the same time, in case you’re wondering. It’s always been that way.” He paused, lifting his gaze. “For the most part, we’re like humans.”
“With the exception of being a ball of light I can touch?” I let out a low breath, blown away.
His lips twitched again. “Yeah, that, and we’re a lot more advanced than humans.”
“How advanced is a lot?” I asked quietly.
He smiled a little then, running his hands over the grass again. “Let’s say if we ever went to war with humans, you wouldn’t win. Not in a billion years.”
My heart turned over heavily and I scooted back again, not even realizing I’d been leaning forward, toward him. “What is some of the stuff you can do?”
Daemon’s eyes flicked up to mine briefly. “The less you know is probably for the best.”
I shook my head. “No. You can’t tell me something like this and not tell me everything. You…you owe that to me.”
“The way I see it, you owe me. Like three times over,” he replied.
“How three times?”
“The night you were attacked, just now, and when you decided Ash needed to wear spaghetti.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “There better not be a fourth.”
“You saved my life with Ash?”
“Oh yeah, when she said she could end you, she meant it.” He sighed, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “Dammit. Why not? It’s not like you don’t already know. All of us can control light. We can manipulate it so that we’re not seen if we don’t want to be. We can dispel shadows, whatever. Not only that, but we can harness light and use it. And trust me when I say you don’t ever want to be hit with something like that. I doubt a human could survive.”
“Okay…” I barely breathed. “Wait. When we saw the bear, I saw a flash of light.”
“That was me, and before you ask, I didn’t kill the bear. I scared it off. I’m not sure why you passed out. You were close to my light. I think it had an effect on you. Anyway, all of us have some sort of healing properties, but not all of us are good at it,” he continued, lowering his chin. “I’m okay at it, but Adam — one of the Thompson boys — can practically heal anything as long as it’s still somewhat alive. And we’re pretty much indestructible. Our only weakness is if you catch us in our true form. Or maybe cut our heads off in human form. I guess that would do the trick.”
“Yeah, cutting off heads usually does.” My mind was going completely blank, only capable of processing what he was telling me and about one line of coherent thought every minute or so. My hands slid to my face and I sat there, cradling my head. “You’re an alien.” He raised his brows at me. “There is a lot we can do, but not until we hit puberty, and even then we have a hard time controlling it. Sometimes, the things we can do can get a little whacked out.”
“That has to be…difficult.”
“Yes it is.”
I lowered my hands, curling them above my chest. “What else can you do?”
He watched me closely as he spoke. “Promise not to take off running again.”
“Yes,” I agreed, thinking what the hell. Not like I could get more freaked out.
“We can manipulate objects. Any object can be moved, animated or not. But we can do more than that.” He picked up a fallen leaf and held it between us. “Watch.”
Smoke immediately started wafting from it. Bright, orange flames erupted from the tips of his fingers, curling over the leaf. Within seconds it was gone, but his flames still crackled over his fingers.
I scooted forward, placing my fingers near the fire. Heat blew off his fingers. I pulled my hand back, looking at him. “The fire doesn’t hurt you?”
“How can something that’s a part of me hurt?” He brought his flaming fingers over the ground. Embers flew from his hand, but the ground remained untouched by the fire. He shook his hand. “See. All gone.” Eyes wide, I inched closer. “What else can you do?”
Daemon smiled and then he was gone. Pushing back, I looked around. He was leaning against the tree several feet away.
