I couldn’t believe either of those things.
Kat slowly lifted her head, her face pale as her eyes met mine. She pulled her hand free. “What…what are you doing here?”
I was grinding my jaw so hard my molars were going to crack. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
She glanced over at Douche Bag. “This isn’t what—”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two or whatever.” Douche Bag curved his hand around Kat’s elbow. “But Katy and I need to talk—”
That did it.
Shooting forward, I had him pinned against the window of the diner, my face so close to his, the bill of my cap pressed into his forehead. “You touch her again and I will—”
“You’ll what?” he shot back. “What are you going to do, Daemon?”
Kat grabbed my shoulder. “Daemon, come on. Let him go.”
“You want to know what I’m going to do?” I asked, voice low. “You know where your head and ass are? Well, they’re about to become well acquainted with each other.”
Douche Bag smirked. “I’d like to see you try.”
“You might want to rethink that.” I laughed low. “Because you have no idea what I’m capable of, boy.”
“See, that’s the funny thing.” He gripped my wrist. “I know exactly what you’re capable of.”
I tilted my head, hearing what he wasn’t saying. This little punk. Knew it. From the moment I’d seen him all up on Kat, I knew there was something off about him.
“Boys,” a man spoke. “You’re gonna wanna break this up right now before someone calls the—”
Douche Bag raised his free hand, and the man froze.
Son of a bastard.
I was starting to shift. I tightened my grip until he gasped. “I don’t care who or what you are, but you better give me a reason not to blast you into your next pathetic life real quickly.”
“I know what you are,” Blake choked out.
“That’s not helping,” I growled, letting more of my true form slip through, just enough for him to see exactly what he was dealing with. “Try again.”
“I just killed an Arum, and even though you’re an arrogant prick, we’re not enemies.” A choke cut off his next words, and Kat grabbed both of my shoulders. “I can help Katy,” he wheezed. “Good enough for you?”
“What?” Kat demanded, dropping her hands.
“Yeah, see, you saying her name alone makes me want to kill you. So, no, not good enough for me,” I told him.
His eyes darted to her. “Katy, I know what you are, what you will become capable of, and I can help you.”
Oh man, this…this was something else. I leaned in to him, my eyes pure white and glowing. “Let me ask you a question. If I kill you, will these people unfreeze?”
His eyes widened.
I smiled.
Kat was beside me. “Let him go, Daemon. I need to know what he’s talking about.”
“Get back, Kat. I mean it; get the hell back.”
“Stop it,” she said, and then screamed, “Stop! Just freaking stop for a couple of minutes!”
I glanced at her, and Douche Bag took advantage of the distraction. He swiped his arm across mine, breaking my hold. He scrambled to the side, putting distance between us.
“Jesus.” He rubbed his throat. “You have anger management problems. It’s like a disease.”
“There’s a cure,” I said. “And it’s called kicking your ass.”
He flipped me off. Boy had a death wish. I started forward, but Kat darted in front of me. She placed her hands on my chest. “Stop. You need to stop now.”
My lips curled into a snarl. “He’s a—”
“We don’t know what he is,” she cut in. “But he did kill an Arum. And he hasn’t hurt me or anyone else, and he’s had plenty of opportunity to do so.”
I exhaled roughly. “Kat—”
“We need to hear him out, Daemon. I need to hear what he has to say. Besides, these people have been frozen, like, twice now. That can’t be good for them.”
“I don’t care.” I glared at the boy, wanting to turn his skin inside and out, and I think he saw that in my eyes, because he actually took a step back. “He’ll talk. And then I’ll decide whether or not he gets to see tomorrow.”
Kat swallowed and then motioned at the man in a flannel shirt, the one who was frozen. “Can you, um, fix them?”
“Sure.” He flicked his wrist.
“…police,” Flannel Shirt Guy finished.
“Everything’s fine. Thank you.” Kat spun around. “My car—if you guys can get along in such an enclosed space?”
I stalked over to where her Camry was parked and slid into the passenger seat. Kat got behind the wheel, and Douche Bag made himself damn comfy in the backseat.
Kat turned the heat on and then looked back at him. “What are you?”
“The same thing I suspect you are,” he said to her.
“And what do you think I am?”
I cracked my neck, keeping my mouth shut. Nothing I was going to say at the moment was going to move this conversation along.
“I didn’t know at first,” he answered. “There was something about you that drew me to you, but I didn’t understand what it was.”
“Proceed with caution when it comes to your next word choices,” I growled.
Kat squirmed as she wrapped her hand around the obsidian necklace. “What do you mean by that?”
Douche Bag shifted forward in the backseat. “The first time I saw you, I knew you were different. Then when you stopped the branch and I saw your necklace, I knew. Only those who know to fear the shadows wear obsidian.” Seconds ticked by in silence. “Then our date…yeah, that glass and plate didn’t just fall into my lap on its own.”
I snickered as my hand curled into a fist. “Good times.”
“How much do you know?” she asked.
“There are two alien races on Earth: the Luxen and the Arum.” He paused as I twisted in my seat. He swallowed. “You’re capable of moving things without touching them and you can manipulate light. I’m sure you can do more. And you can also heal humans.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
There was a pause. “When I was thirteen, I was leaving soccer practice with a friend of mine—Chris Johnson. He was a normal kid like me, except he was super fast, never got sick, and I never saw his parents at any games. But who cares, right? I didn’t until I was goofing around and stepped off the curb, right in front of a speeding cab. Chris healed me. Turns out he was an alien.” His lips twisted into a wry grin. “I thought it was pretty cool. My best friend was an alien. Who gets to say that? What I didn’t know and what he never told me was that he lit my ass up. Five days later, four men entered my house.
“They wanted to know where they were,” he continued, hands clenching into fists. “I didn’t know what they meant. They killed my parents and my little sister right in front of me. And when I still couldn’t help them, they beat me within an inch of my life.”
“Oh my God,” Kat whispered.
“Not sure he really exists,” he said, letting out a dry laugh. “Anyway, it took me a while to figure out that when you’re healed, you take on their abilities. Shit just started flying everywhere after I was sent to live with my uncle. When I realized that my friend had changed me, I researched as much as I could. Not that I needed to. The Arum found me again.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The Arum in the diner, she couldn’t sense me because of the beta quartz—yeah, I know about that, too. But if we were outside of the quartz range, we are just like your…friend to them. We’re actually tastier.”
Tastier? My fist rested on my knee.
“When I realized how much danger I was in, I started training physically and working on my abilities. I learned about their weakness through…others. I survived the best I could.”