“You okay?” Archer asked quietly.
I hadn’t realized that I’d been shifting restlessly. “Yeah.”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Nope.”
“He doesn’t seem to be having any problems.”
Glancing behind me, I smiled. Daemon was stretched out on his back, one arm tossed over his face. His chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths. I flipped around. “He needs it.”
“So do you.”
I shrugged. “What about you?”
He passed me a knowing look. “I didn’t spend all my free time making out like the world was ending the next day.”
My cheeks flamed. “You really don’t need to keep reminding me that there’s no such thing as privacy around you.”
A quick grin flashed across his face as he focused on the dark road, but it disappeared as quickly as the star I’d been tracking in the sky earlier. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, the strong jaw and profile.
“Stop staring at me,” he huffed.
“Sorry.” But I looked at him fully, and I thought of—
“Yes.”
I frowned.
“Like I told you before, I worry about her and I think about her. A lot.” His fingers tapped the steering wheel. “I like her. The girl is . . . well, she’s special.”
Probably a good thing Daemon was passed out while we were having this conversation. “She likes you, too.”
“I know.” He chuckled under his breath. “Dee’s not really good at hiding her thoughts. Actually, I don’t even think she tries. That’s one of the things I like about her.”
“And she’s absolutely stunning.” I grinned.
“Yeah, that has something to do with it.” His hands tightened around the wheel.
I folded my arms and returned to staring straight ahead, remembering the garden Dee and I had created around the front porch of my house. A sad feeling pierced my chest.
“We’ll get her back,” he said in a way that brokered no room for anything other than that.
Neither of us spoke for a long while after that, and I must’ve dozed off a little, because when I opened my eyes, Daemon was awake and dawn had broken.
“Where are we?” I asked, voice scratchy, so I reached for a bottle of water.
“Just crossed into Kentucky.” Daemon’s fingers found their way between the headrest and seat. He squeezed my shoulders as I looked out the window.
The highway was chock-full of discarded cars, slowing us to a near crawl as Archer carefully navigated the road. I was clenching the seat-belt strap each time we neared another cluster of deserted vehicles. The farther we went, the worse it got. The cars weren’t just left there. Many were destroyed.
Daemon suddenly gripped my shoulders from behind. “Don’t look, Kitten.”
But it was too late. As we eased around a burned-out minivan, I had to, because there was something so innate, so human, that demanded you watch when everything inside of you was screaming no.
The van had been torched, most likely with the Source, but unlike the other ones I’d seen or could see, the van wasn’t empty. Oh God, no, it wasn’t empty at all.
There were four forms in the van. Two up front and two in the back. One was twisted over the steering wheel, the other pressed against the passenger door as if it had desperately tried to get out but had run out of time. The bodies in the back . . . oh God, they were small, so tiny.
All of them were burned beyond recognition.
And it wasn’t the only car like that. One after another, the vehicles were torched, and there were bodies inside.
Horrified, I pressed my hand against my throat like I was trying to stop the bile from rising. Out of everything I’d seen, this was the worst. This was horrific. Emotion swamped me, tightening my chest.
“Kitten,” Daemon said softly, tugging on my shoulders. “Kat. Stop.”
I forced myself to avert my gaze, and I saw a muscle pounding along Archer’s jaw. Daemon had his hand on my cheek as he passed Archer a dark glare. “Can we get around these cars a little faster?”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he replied. “Unless you want to take this Explorer off road, and I’m not sure how smart of an—”
“Crap.” Daemon suddenly withdrew his hand as he narrowed his gaze on the congested road ahead.
Archer cursed.
I stiffened. “What?” When no one answered, I about bounced in my seat. “What?”
“I feel it,” Archer said.
The only thing I felt was rising confusion and irritation. “I swear to God if you guys don’t share, I’m going to punch both of you.”
A wry smile twisted Daemon’s lips. “There are Luxen nearby.”
Oh no.
I leaned forward, planting my hands against the dashboard. Up ahead, there was an empty lane in the four-lane highway as far as I could see. “I don’t see anything.”
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, Kitten.”
My heart turned over heavily as I twisted around in my seat, peering out the back window. “Oh, holy alien butt crack.”
A huge-ass Hummer was speeding down the hill we’d just traveled, plowing through the wreckage of the discarded cars.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say they’re not friendlies.” My stomach tumbled over itself.
“What gave that away?” Archer asked, winging the Explorer around a truck.
Daemon cursed again. “Definitely not. I can feel them pecking away at my head. They’re calling out to me and I’m not answering.”
“Which is making them mad?” asked Archer, frowning as he slammed on the gas, causing the tires to squeal.
“Yep.”
“This whole Luxen two-way-radio thing is really weird,” I said, because someone needed to say it.
“You have no idea.” Daemon popped forward, stretching between the two front seats. Archer shouted and scowled at him, but he was a man on a mission. With his hands grasping my cheeks, he kissed me.
The contact was so sudden and unexpected that I sort of just sat there as he got all kinds of friendly with my mouth.
“Seriously? Kissing her right now is what we need to be doing when we have pissed-off aliens on us?”
“Kissing her is always the right thing to do.” He pulled back and gripped the seats. “We need to stop and take care of them. It’s not like we can outrun them, and we don’t need them following us right to the Arum.”
Archer sighed. “This isn’t going to be fun.”
I was still sitting there, lips tingling, like a dork.
“Oh, this is going to be tons of fun.” Daemon glanced at me. “You ready to play, Kitten?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Sure. Okay.”
Daemon chuckled. “Let’s do this.”
Archer jerked the steering wheel to the right, bringing it to an abrupt stop along the side of the highway. Car doors opened, and as much as it sucked, I was the last one to get my damn seat belt unbuckled and to scramble out of the SUV.
“Keep low,” Daemon ordered.
Huh? When he saw the look on my face, he motioned for me to crouch. I shot him a dirty look. “What? I’m not a freaking ninja.”
“I’ve seen you fight.” Archer strolled around the front of the Explorer like we were walking into a gas station or something. “You could be part ninja.”
I gave him a quick smile. “Thank you.”
“You’d be a hot ninja,” Daemon said, winking when I looked at him. “I need you two to stay back for a moment.”
Yeah. I so wasn’t going to listen to that, but before I could prance into the street, Archer grabbed my arm. “For real,” he said, holding me in place. “Stay here.”
I started to pull free, but the Hummer crashed through a vehicle and the deafening thunder of clanging metal forced me to stand still.
The Hummer was barreling down on us as Daemon walked right out to the middle of the road, head bowed as he stretched out his arm. Concentration marked his expression.