Opal

I had no idea what I was supposed to say at school when Carissa never came back and the inevitable questions began. I didn’t think I had it in me to pretend to be clueless and tell more lies. Another kid missing

Oh, God, Lesa

What would Lesa do? They’d been best friends since grade school.

I squeezed my eyes tight and curled up against Daemon. The aches of the fight had long faded, but I was weary to the core, mentally and physically drained. It was ironic that I’d spent the last month avoiding the living room and now it would be my bedroom. I was running out of rooms to hide from.

Daemon kept up talking in his beautiful language, a streaming melody, until I drifted off in his arms. I was only a little aware of him placing me on the couch and drawing the afghan over me.

Hours later, I opened my eyes and saw Dee sitting in the recliner, legs tucked against her chest, reading one of my books. A favorite YA paranormal of mine-about a demon-hunting girl living in Atlanta.

But what was Dee doing here?

I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face. The clock below the TV, an old-fashioned windup one that my mom loved, read a quarter till midnight.

Dee closed the book. “Daemon went to Walmart in Moorefield. So that will take an absurd amount of time, but it’s the only place open that has throw rugs.”

“Throw rugs?”

Her features tightened. “For your bedroom

There weren’t any extra ones in the house and he didn’t want your mom looking for one and finding the spot, thinking you were trying to burn down the house.”

The spot

? Sleep faded away completely as the last couple of hours resurfaced. The spot on my bedroom floor where Carissa had basically self-destructed.

“Oh, God

.” I threw my legs off the couch, but they shook too much to stand. Tears welled behind my eyes. “I didn’t

I didn’t kill her.”

I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it was because deep down I wondered if Dee would automatically assume I was responsible for what happened to Carissa.

“I know. Daemon told me everything.” She unfurled her legs, lashes lowered, fanning her cheeks. “I can’t

”

“You can’t believe this happened?” She nodded, and I tucked my legs up, wrapping my arms around them. “I can’t, either. I just can’t even wrap my brain around it.”

Dee was silent for a moment. “I haven’t talked to her since

well, since everything.” She tipped her head down and her hair slipped over her shoulders, shielding her face. “I liked her and I was a complete bitch to her.”

I started to tell her that she hadn’t been, but Dee looked up, a wry smile on her lips. “Don’t lie to make me feel better. I appreciate it, but it doesn’t change the fact. I don’t think I even said two words to her since Adam

died, and now

”

And now she was dead, too.

I wanted to comfort her, but there was a gulf and a ten-foot wall topped with barbed wire between Dee and me. The electrical fence surrounding the wall had disappeared, but there wasn’t any level of ease between us, and right now, that hurt more than anything.

Rubbing a kink in my neck, I closed my eyes. My brain was sluggish and I wasn’t sure what I should be doing right now. All I wanted to do was mourn my friend, but how was I supposed to grieve someone who no one in the outside would knew had passed?

Dee cleared her throat. “Daemon and I cleaned up your bedroom. Um, there are a few things that weren’t salvageable. Some clothing that was burned or torn I threw away. I

I hung a picture over the crack in the wall.” She peeked up as if gauging my reaction. “Your laptop

It’s not

in functioning shape.”

My shoulders slumped. The laptop was the least of tonight’s causalities, but I had no idea how I was going to explain that to my mom.

“Thank you,” I said finally, voice thick. “I don’t think I could’ve done that.”

Dee twisted a strand of hair around her finger. Minutes passed in silence and then, “Are you okay, Katy? Like, really okay?”

Shock caused me to take a few seconds to respond. “No, I’m not,” I said truthfully.

“I didn’t think so.” She paused, wiping under her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I really liked Carissa.”

“Me, too,” I whispered, and there was nothing else to be said.

Everything that came before tonight and everything we’d been so focused on seemed almost unimportant, which those issues weren’t, but a friend was dead-another friend. Her death and her life was a mystery. I’d known her for six months, but I hadn’t known her at all.

Armentrout, Jennifer L.

Opal ( A Lux Novel)

Chapter 26

Playing sick on Tuesday, I stayed home and vegetated on the couch. I couldn’t do the school thing. See Lesa and know her best friend was dead and pretend I didn’t know a thing. I just couldn’t do it yet.

Every so often, I saw Carissa’s face. There were two versions: before last night and afterward. When I saw her and her funky glasses in my memories, my chest ached, and when I saw those vastly empty eyes, I wanted to cry all over again.

And I did.

Mom didn’t push it. For one thing, I rarely skipped school. And secondly, I looked like crap. Being sick didn’t take a leap of faith. She spent the better part of the morning coddling me and I soaked it up, needing my mom more than she could ever know.

Later, after she went upstairs to get some sleep, Daemon showed up unexpectedly. Wearing a black cap pulled down low, he came in and closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” It was only one in the afternoon.

He took my hand, pulling me into the living room. “Nice jammies.”

I ignored that. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.” He twisted his cap around.

“I’m all right.”

Daemon shot me a knowing look. Admittedly, I was happy that he was here, because I did need someone who knew what was really going on. All day I’d been ripped apart, caught by guilt and confusion, tossed around by sorrow I couldn’t really even grasp.

Wordlessly, he led me to the couch and stretched out, tucking me against his side. His heavy arm around my waist had a soothing weight. Keeping our voices low, we talked about normal things-safe things that didn’t slice through him or me.

After a while, I twisted in his arms so that our noses brushed. We didn’t kiss. There wasn’t one shenanigan going on between us. We held each other, though, and that was more intimate than anything else we could’ve done. Daemon’s presence eased me. At some point, we dozed off, our breaths mixing.

My mom had to have come downstairs at some point and seen us together on the couch, just the way we were when I woke: Daemon’s head resting atop mine, my hand balled around his shirt. It was the scent of the coffee that roused me just around five.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of his embrace and smoothed my hands through my hair. Mom stood in the doorway, one leg crossed over her ankle as she leaned against the frame. A steaming cup of coffee was in her hands.

Mom was wearing Lucky Charms pajamas.

Oh, holy Houdini. “Where did you get them?” I asked.

“What?” She took a sip.

“Those

hideous pajamas,” I said.

She shrugged. “I like them.”

“They’re cute,” Daemon said, taking off his hat and running his hand through his messy hair. I elbowed him, and he gave me a cheeky grin. “I’m sorry, Miss Swartz, I didn’t mean to fall asleep with-”

“It’s okay.” She waved him off. “Katy hasn’t been feeling well, and I’m glad you wanted to be here for her, but I hope you don’t get what she has.”