Origin (Lux #4)(106)

Air stirred around me as I stumbled backward. Behind me, the palms shook and metal groaned. Wind roared, and at the last second I ducked. The trees were uprooted, spinning toward the Arum. The car slipped out of my grasp as if he were sucking it in. A tourist brochure rack spun in the air. Pieces of the road rose up, hovered for a second, and then flew to him. There was a sharp scream that pierced my ears.

A woman was flung past me, disappearing behind the Arum. Another crumpled body joined those on the ground.

He was like his own personal black hole, sucking up everything around and drawing it to him. I was no exception. No matter how hard I dug in, my feet dragged over the ground.

His icy fingers wrapped around my throat, and he lowered his head to mine. I couldn’t remember seeing an Arum’s eyes before. They were the palest shade of blue, like all the color had been leeched from them.

“What do we have here?” The Arum spoke out loud. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as if he could taste me. “A hybrid. Tasty.”

I was so not down with being an intergalactic late-night snack.

I threw my arm back, pulling on the Source, but the Arum’s free hand clamped down on my wrist, his grip punishing. My heart leaped in my throat as his cold cheek pressed against mine. His lips moved near my ear, sending a shudder of revulsion through me.

“This might hurt. A little,” he said, and then he laughed harshly. “Okay. It might hurt a lot.”

He was going to feed.

And that little part of my brain that still functioned thought this was a hell of a way to go out. After everything—Daedalus, the guns, the bullets, and everything else—I was going to be sucked dry.

Everything tightened inside me, a mixture of fear and rage, disgust and panic. It unraveled like a compressed Slinky, lashing out from the inside.

Energy roared through me, heightened my senses. I felt the Arum against me. I felt him align his mouth with mine, a scant few inches apart. I felt the breath he took, the deep shudder of power opening up inside him. And I felt the chilling, sucking pull that reached deep inside me, digging in with tiny hooks.

I placed my hand on the Arum’s chest, and that rush of energy left me like a sucker punch. There was no space between it and the Arum, nothing to lessen the effect. The Source exploded from me and immediately went into the Arum. The flare of light from me to him was intense. Energy imploded, throwing us apart.

The stars did cartwheels.

I hit the pavement on my side and rolled onto my back. The Arum was suspended in the air, his arms and legs spread wide. His body trembled once, then twice. A spot of light over his chest, the mark the Source had left behind, raced across his body in tiny fissures of white cracks, encompassing his entire body.

He burst into a thousand little pieces.

Holy alien babies…

As I staggered to my feet and twisted at the waist, my eyes met that of a young man. He looked like someone who was on autopilot, seeing everything but not really understanding what he was witnessing. I kind of sympathized with the dude. I was sure I’d had that same WTF look on my face when I saw Daemon stop the truck and realized I wasn’t dealing with something human.

I probably had that WTF look on my face right now.

My gaze dipped.

In his white-knuckled grip was a smartphone. Everything—he had captured everything on his cell phone. Namely my face. Such a stupid thing to worry about in that moment, especially considering everything else he must’ve captured, but I thought of this video being loaded on the Internet, going viral like those damn Hey Girl memes.

This wasn’t how I’d wanted my mom to discover that I was alive. Maybe not alive and well, but definitely kicking around.

But it was really too late.

I started toward the guy to get the phone, but he snapped out of it and took off. I could’ve run after him, but there were bigger problems to deal with.

The stench of smoke and death was everywhere. I staggered back to where I knew I had seen everyone last, using the red tourist bus as a destination, aching on a cellular level as I took in the damage. The guns—those PEP weapons—weren’t harmless if they didn’t hit a Luxen or hybrid. Lampposts were broken in two or melted, about to collapse. Pockets of fire lit up the entire Strip.

There were bodies littering the road.

I shuffled around them, grimacing at the melted and burned clothes, the ragged holes and scorched skin. It seemed unnecessary that there’d be so many innocent deaths. The Luxen were glowing like walking lightbulbs, and even we hybrids were pretty obvious. It was like the military didn’t care how many were taken out in friendly fire. Were they insane?

And I knew how the government would spin this—that it was our fault, that the Luxen were to blame, even though they had made the first strike, taking innocent lives.

Looking at all the bodies turned my stomach, but I kept picking my way through them until I felt the warmth skittering over the nape of my neck. Lifting my head, I saw Daemon in his human form fighting hand to hand with a soldier. My heart leaped when the soldier got a right hook in, but Daemon rebounded, taking him out with one punch.

He looked over, his gaze locking onto mine. His hair was damp, clinging to his forehead and temples. His eyes glowed like diamonds. Relief shot across his face, and he shook his head, the emotion in his eyes unbearable.

There was a flare of red farther down the Strip, reminding me of how incredibly dangerous the streets still were. I took another step forward, seeing Ash and Beth rounding an overturned Humvee. I was happy to see them still standing, even though tears were flowing freely from Ash’s eyes. Her brother…