Opal

“I’m as serious as they come.” He took a breath, and his chest rattled a death sound. “And then I’m going to sit here and wait for your pretty mom to come home. She’s going to see your dead body first and then she’ll see the business end of my gun.”

My heart tripped up. Ice water slipped over my skin. The buzzing roared now. Like a switch being thrown inside me, something else took over. It wasn’t timid, gullible Katy who followed him into a car. It wasn’t the one who stood in the kitchen seconds ago feeling sorry for him.

This was the girl who stood before Vaughn and watched the life seep out of him.

Maybe later I would be bothered by how quickly the change came over me. How easy it was for me to go from the girl who’d just bought her prom dress and flirted with her boyfriend to this stranger who now occupied my body, ready to do anything to protect those I loved.

But right now, I didn’t care.

“You’re not going to hurt Daemon. You’re not going to hurt me,” I said. “And you are sure as hell not going to hurt my mother.”

Will lifted the gun. The metal looked too heavy for his feeble hand. “What are you going to do, Katy?”

“What do you think?” I took a bold step forward, my brain and mouth propelled by this stranger. “Come on, Will, you’re smart enough to figure it out on your own.”

“You don’t have it in you.”

Calmness settled over me, and I felt my lips spread into a smile. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Up until then, I hadn’t known what I was capable of, not truly, but seeing Will, staring down the barrel of that gun, I knew exactly what I was capable of. And as wrong as it may be, I was okay with what I was going to have to do.

Completely accepting of it.

There was a part of me that was scared of how easy that acceptance was and I wanted to cling to the old Katy, because she would’ve had a problem with this. She would’ve been sickened by this and the words I was saying.

“You do look a little ill, Will. You might want to get checked out. Oh, wait.” I widened my eyes innocently. “You can’t go to a regular doctor because even though the mutation obviously didn’t stick, I’m sure it changed you and you can’t go to the DOD, because that would be like suicide.”

The hand around the gun trembled. “You think you’re so smart and brave, don’t you, little girl?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps, but I do know I’m completely healthy. What about you, Will?”

“Shut up,” he hissed.

Stepping next to the kitchen table, I eyed the gun. If I could distract him, then I could take him out. I really didn’t want to test the whole stopping-a-bullet theory.

“Just think of all that money you paid, and it didn’t even work out in the end,” I said. “And you’ve lost everything—your career, your money, my mom, and your health. Karma’s a tool, isn’t it?”

“You stupid bitch.” Spittle flew from between his chapped lips. “I’m going to kill you, and you’ll die knowing that your precious freak will be dead, too. And then I’m going to sit here and wait for your mother to come home.”

My humanity clicked off. I was so done with this.

Will smiled. “Where’s your smart mouth now?”

My gaze dropped to the gun, and I felt the Source soar over my skin. My fingers splayed, their tips already tingling. Drawing in the power, I focused on the gun. His hand shook again. The muzzle of the gun swayed to the left. The trigger finger twitched.

Will’s throat spasmed as he swallowed. “What… What are you doing?”

I lifted my gaze, and I smiled.

His bloodshot eyes widened. “You—”

I waved my hand to the left and several things happened next. There was a popping sound, like a cork being pulled from a champagne bottle, but the sound and everything else was lost in the roar of electricity that flowed outward and then the gun flew from his hand.

It was like a bolt of lightning—pure and raw.

The stream of whitish-red light arced across the room, slamming into Will’s chest. Maybe—maybe if he wasn’t so ill, it wouldn’t have done much, but the man was weak and I wasn’t.

He flew backward, bouncing off the wall next to the fridge, his head flopping on his neck like a rag doll. He made no sound as he hit the floor in a boneless heap. That was it—it was over. No more wondering about Will or where he was, what he was doing. This part of our lives was closed.

My house is like the killing fields, I thought.

I exhaled and something—I don’t know, something went wrong. Air was stuck in my throat, in my lungs, but when I dragged in a breath, there was this burning pain I hadn’t noticed before. But as the Source receded back into me, the burning grew across my chest, spread over my stomach.

I looked down.

A red inkblot had formed on the pale blue shirt and it spread…larger and larger, an irregular circle that bled.

I pressed my hands against the circle—it was damp, warm, and sticky. Blood. It was blood—my blood. My head swam.

“Daemon,” I whispered. 

Chapter 33

I don’t remember falling, but I was staring at the ceiling, trying to keep my hands pressed to the gunshot wound, because I’d seen people do that on TV, but I couldn’t feel my hands, so I wasn’t sure if they were there or by my sides.

My face was wet.

I was going to die in minutes, maybe sooner, and I’d failed Daemon and my mom. Failed them, because Daemon would die, too, and my mom—oh, God, my mom would come home to find this. She wouldn’t survive this, not after Dad.

A shudder rolled through my body and my chest labored for breath. I didn’t want to die alone on the cold, hard floor. I didn’t want to die at all. I blinked and when I reopened my eyes, the ceiling was fuzzy.

Nothing really hurt, though. Books got that right. There was a point where there was so much pain I couldn’t process it or I was beyond it. Probably beyond it…

The front door opened and a familiar voice called out, “Katy? Where are you? Something’s wrong with Daemon…”

My lips worked, but there was no sound. I tried again. “Dee?”

Footsteps crept closer and then, “Oh my God…oh my God.”

Dee was suddenly in my line of sight, her face fuzzy around the edges. “Katy—holy crap, Katy…hold on.” She moved my bloodstained hands away and placed hers over the wound as she looked up, seeing Will crumpled beside the fridge. “God…”

I worked to get out one word. “Daemon…”

She blinked rapidly, her form fading out for a second and then her face was in front of mine, her eyes glowing like diamonds, and I couldn’t look away. Her eyes, her words, consumed me. “Andrew is bringing him over. He’s okay. He’s going to be okay, because you’re going to be okay. Got that?”

I coughed out a response and something wet and warm covered my lips. It had to be bad—blood—because Dee’s face paled even more as she placed both of her hands over the wound and closed her eyes.

My lids seemed way too heavy and the sudden warmth radiating from hers ebbed and flowed through me. Her shape faded out and she was in her true form—bright and lustrous like an angel—and I thought if I were to die, then at least I saw something as beautiful as this before the end.

But I had to hang on, because it wasn’t just my life that hung in the balance. It was Daemon’s. So I forced my eyes open, kept them trained on Dee, watching as her light flickered over the walls, bathing the room. If she