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.”
He cast me a sideways look. “I hope you didn’t give me cooties.”
I huffed. If anyone was spreading alien cooties, it was Daemon.
Mom’s cell went off, and she dug it out of her pajama pocket, sloshing coffee onto the floor. Her face lit up, the way it always did when Will called her. My heart dropped as she turned and headed into the kitchen.
“Will,” I whispered, standing before I realized it.
Daemon was right behind me. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“I do. It’s in her eyes—he makes her glow.” I wanted to barf, like, seriously. Suddenly, I saw Mom on the bedroom floor, lifeless, gone like Carissa. Panic blossomed and took root. “I need to tell her why Will got close to her.”
“Tell her what?” He blocked me. “That he was here to get close to you—that he used her? I don’t think that’s going to lessen any blows.”
I opened my mouth, but he had a point.
He placed his hands on my shoulders. “We don’t know if it was him calling or what’s happened to him. Look at Carissa,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Her mutation was unstable. It didn’t take long for it…to do what it did.”
“Then that means it held.” He wasn’t making me feel better about anything right now.
“Or it means it faded off.” He tried again. “We can’t do anything until we know what we’re dealing with.”
I shifted my weight restlessly, watching over his shoulder. Stress built in me like a seven-ton ball that settled on my shoulders. There was so much to deal with.
“One at a time,” Daemon said, as if he read my thoughts. “We’re going to deal with things one at a time. That’s all we can do.”
Nodding, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. My heart still raced. “I’m going to see if it was him.”
He let go and stepped aside, and I hurried to the door.
“I like your pajamas better,” he said, and I turned. Daemon grinned at me, that lopsided one that hinted at laughter.
My jammies weren’t much better than Mom’s. They had, like, a thousand pink and purple polka dots on them. “Shut up,” I said.
Daemon returned to the couch. “I’ll be waiting.”
I went to the kitchen just as Mom was getting off the phone, her features pinched. The weight on my shoulders increased. “What’s wrong?”
She blinked and forced a smile. “Oh, nothing, honey.”
Grabbing a towel, I wiped up the spilled sugar. “Doesn’t look like nothing.” In fact, it looked like a whole lot of something.
Mom grimaced. “It was Will. He’s still out west. He thinks he came down with something traveling. He’s going to stay out there until he feels better.”
I froze. Liar, I wanted to scream.
She dumped her coffee and rinsed out her cup. “I didn’t tell you this, honey, because I didn’t want to drag up bad memories, but Will…well, he was sick once, like your father.”
My mouth dropped open.
Mistaking my surprise, she said, “I know. It seems cosmically unfair, doesn’t it? But Will has been in remission. His cancer was completely curable.”
I had nothing to say. Nothing. Will had told her he’d been sick.
“But of course, I worry.” She placed the cup in the dishwasher, but she didn’t close the door all the way. I shut it out of habit. “Useless to worry over something like that, I know.” She stopped in front of me, placing her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Are you feeling better?”
The change in conversation threw me. “Yeah, I feel fine.”
“Good.” Mom smiled then and it wasn’t forced. “Don’t worry about Will, honey. He’ll be fine and back before we know it. Everything will be okay.”