The Burning Shadow (Origin 2)

“Wow.” Daemon grinned, and my eyes narrowed. “This is a first.”

“Anyway,” Archer drew the word out. “She wasn’t like this the last time we saw her.”

“It was April. This girl at my school. You remember Sarah?” I turned to Dawson, and he nodded. “We think April was like Sarah. Mutated into something we’ve never seen before. April was killing humans and framing Luxen for it. She nearly killed Heidi, our friend.” I looked over at Zoe while Luc moved to stand by my side, his hawklike gaze latched on to Daemon. “Anyway, she had this key fob thing. She pressed it, and it—I don’t know—unlocked something that was in the serum. It turned me into this assassin for like two seconds and made my eyes like this, but that’s all. I’m still Evie … or Nadia … or whoever. We don’t know what happened.”

“A key fob?” Daemon asked.

“Yes,” Luc answered. “This girl called it a Cassio Wave. I have the key fob. Was planning to see if Eaton had any insight.”

I had no idea who Eaton was; this was the first I was hearing that name.

Archer cursed under his breath as he looked over at the twins.

“What?” Luc gritted out. “I feel like you three know something that may explain Daemon’s overreaction.”

“It wasn’t an overreaction,” Daemon said, and Luc’s head jerked in his direction. The Luxen held his hands up. “Remember how I said we ran into trouble and that’s why we were delayed? We ran into this … thing near the border of Louisiana and Mississippi.”

Thing? I had a really bad feeling about this.

“It looked human, and it felt human,” Dawson said, glancing at me. “We saw it at a rest stop. Archer had to use the restroom.”

“Because he has the bladder of a two-year-old,” Daemon muttered, and Archer shrugged.

Dawson continued, “Thought it was just a normal human guy, but then he went right at me. Tried to take my head off.”

“Never seen anything like it, and you know I’ve seen a lot of stuff,” Archer said, sitting back down in front of Kent. “The guy was like a damn machine. Took all three of us to take him down, and we barely took him out.”

“Head shot,” Dawson said. “It was the only way we could kill him.”

“Like a zombie?” Kent quipped from where he stood with his box of doughnuts.

A brief grin appeared on Dawson’s face. “Yeah, like a zombie.”

“He had eyes like Evie’s. Black with white pupils.”

“Did he look like an Arum?” I asked. “Like he was made of smoke or anything?”

Dawson’s gaze found mine. “He looked like an Arum, but he wasn’t one.”

I sucked in an unsteady breath as I looked at Luc.

“Well, this just gets more and more interesting.” Kent, still standing by the door, opened the box and pulled out a doughnut. “Just so everyone knows, your eyes are really starting to freak me out, Evie Beanie.”

“Sorry?” I said. “I honestly have no control over it. I have no idea why they’re like this.”

Kent bit into the doughnut.

“The last time your eyes turned this way was after April used the sound wave thing,” Grayson spoke up, and it was the first time I realized he was even in the house. He was standing in the kitchen, and I had no idea how long he’d been there. “That wasn’t the only thing that happened.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I also turned into the Terminator.”

“Are you the Terminator now?” Kent took another bite of his doughnut.

“I … I don’t feel any different,” I said, turning to Luc as anxiety blossomed. “I mean, I feel normal except for the eyes.”

“Is your head hurting?” he asked. “Anything like that?”

I shook my head. “I was just really dizzy, but I feel normal now.”

Luc leaned down, brushing his lips over my forehead as his gaze met Grayson’s. “I want you out there. Make sure no one is near—”

There was a cracking noise as if a pebble had hit one of the windows, and the half-eaten doughnut slipped from Kent’s fingers.

A shiver coursed down my spine as a horrifyingly familiar scene played out before me. Red, bright red sprayed into the air as Kent’s entire body jerked backward. The twins and Archer spun around, the latter wiping a hand over his face. Red was there, too, on his cheeks and now on his hand, and Kent’s blue hair turned dark, and half his head was gone, completely—

Oh God.

Oh my God …

Kent was dead before he hit the floor.36I thought I was screaming, but it wasn’t me. It was Zoe. She burst past me with blinding speed, reaching Kent’s side as Grayson shot out of the kitchen, but it was too late.

“What the hell?” Daemon shouted a second before shifting into his true form. A second later, Dawson joined him. They were twin brilliant lights shaped like humans.