The Brightest Night (Origin 3)

“I don’t need you to carry me.” I pulled my hand free. “Let’s do it. Where are we running to?”

That boyish grin of his surfaced, the one that made it feel like there was a nest of carnivorous butterflies in my chest. “Back to the house. You can find it from here?”

“If we cut through the field, yes.”

“Then let’s do it. On the count of three.”

There was no time to second-guess this or ask questions. Luc fired off the countdown, and when he hit three, he was already a blur of motion, racing into the knee-high weeds.

“Dammit!” I shouted.

His wild laugh echoed around me, and I cursed again as I broke out into a run. At first, I noticed nothing different. Luc was so far ahead, he was just a blip, and that was so unfair. How could I not be able to run fast? That would seem to make me a very inefficient Trojan.

I had to be able to run like Luc. I had to.

The hum of energy cranked, and then I wasn’t thumping through the field. I was racing.

I didn’t know exactly what second my speed picked up, but it did, and holy crap on a cracker, I was running fast—so fast that the little pieces of the grass and dirt pelting my cheeks and bare arms stung. There was no burning in my legs or seizing of the stomach and lungs. My heart was racing, but it didn’t feel like it was going to burst out of my chest. Up ahead, Luc came more into focus. I was catching up to him.

I moved so fast it was almost like flying.

And it was freeing. There was no room for thoughts as the wind whipped strands of hair from the knot I’d twisted the hair back into that morning. I wasn’t thinking about what I’d done, what it could mean, and what it might not. No space to think about Jason Dasher or the Daedalus. There was no room for the throat-clogging mixture of grief and anger that accompanied any thoughts of my mom. I didn’t worry about Heidi or Emery or James as I ran. I didn’t wonder if Nate would come back and how many more kids were out there, barely getting by. There was just the song of my pounding heart and the crunch of grass under my sneakers.

When I overtook Luc and blew past him, I knew I was going to beat him, and I did, slowing down only when I reached the front door and all but threw it open.

I spun, breathing fast but not heavy. Luc appeared in the doorway a heartbeat or two after me, hair blown back from his face in wild waves.

Laughing even as my heart still pounded, I backed up into the living room. “I can’t believe I beat you.”

“Me, either.” The door swung closed behind Luc as he stalked forward, his eyes shards of amethyst. My stomach fluttered at the intensity in his gaze.

“How does it feel to not be the best?” I asked, stopping when my calves hit the coffee table.

“I’m a sore loser.” His hands landed on my hips, and before I knew it, I was up in the air and then I was lying on the couch. Luc was prowling over me. “You’re going to need to make me feel better.”

“You’re going to have to suck it up.”

Dipping his head as his hands slid up my shirt, he whispered something in my ear that scorched my cheeks and a whole lot of other areas. “I’m sweaty,” I told him.

“So am I.” He kissed me, and an exquisite pulse shot through me.

I gripped his shoulder and fisted my other hand in the hair along the back of his head. “I’m dirty.”

“I don’t care.” His mouth came over mine again, and his body moved over and against mine. I felt it all in the sharpest, most delicious way. “Before everything, when you were feeling better, we’d run like that all the time. Used to drive Paris crazy, because we’d often be in the house, knocking everything over, and it always ended in an argument between us.”

Now my heart thundered for a whole different reason. “Why?”

“Because you’d get mad when I let you win,” he said, and I laughed at the absurdity of it. He kissed me again, an almost greedy clash. “I missed that.”

“You didn’t let me win this time.”

“No.” His lips curved into a smile against mine. “I didn’t, and hell, you have no idea how relieved I am to know that.”

I knew why he would be. My chest tightened. It was more proof I was no longer sick—no longer dying. Luc knew that, but I imagined it was a lot like me having a hard time believing that using the Source could be that easy. There was still a part of him that couldn’t believe I wasn’t sick.