Opposition

He was already at the sink, about to Houdini himself out the window, and I knew if he got outside we’d never find him. We’d have to start all over and he’d never pay for everything he had done.

I took aim at his head and pulled the trigger.

All of this happened within one or maybe two seconds, and the months and years leading up to it were over in a heartbeat.

Ethan toppled over face-first onto the kitchen floor.

Done.

Dead.

It was over for him in the span of time it took to move a finger. What had happened to my mom would’ve taken longer, would’ve been more painful. Ethan is lucky, I thought numbly. He was there one second and then gone in the blink of an eye.

My hand shook as I lowered the gun, and I was vaguely aware of Daemon staring at me and the strange men turned in my direction, their faces hidden behind shields, but I could feel their stares.

Ethan was dead.

It wasn’t the same with the Luxen. There was no light show before he died. Ironically, he left this earth like the humans he hated—like the humans he was actually a part of, and how messed up was that? His mother had been a hybrid—part human. Did he hate himself, too? Why was I even thinking about this? Because it didn’t matter.

I tried to take a breath, but it got stuck, and I felt cold and then hot, too hot.

One of the men turned, a gloved hand rising to the side of his helmet. There was a burst of static and he said, “They’re here.”

At first I thought he meant the Arum, but the pulses of light that suddenly lit up the outside told me that wasn’t the Arum.

“Go! Go!” ordered one of the SWAT-looking guys.

The men—five of them—went out the same way they’d come in, through the windows. Dumbly, I wanted to point out the door a mere few feet from them, but then Daemon was reaching for me, going for the gun I was still holding.

I jerked back from him, tightening my grip on the gun.

“Kat . . .”

My gaze swung over Ethan to the dead Luxen who had assimilated my mom, and as I stood there, shouts rose from the outside. Although it was daytime, it looked like lightning striking horizontally. Daemon cursed, his attention divided between me and where his sister was, and I made the decision for him.

“This is not over,” I told him in a voice that was pitched too high.

He took a measured step toward me, and his chin dipped as his gaze collided with mine. “It is for us, Kat. It is.”

“No.” It wasn’t over. There was too much building in me, a reckless amount of energy and anger and a thousand other emotions. “No.”

“Kat—”

I spun around and raced out of the kitchen, toward the front door. Daemon was right on my heels as I threw open the door.

Chaos.

A dozen or so Luxen had streamed out from the thick cluster of trees surrounding our homes, and with them were at least three Origins. I couldn’t see Dee or Archer, but there were bodies littering the ground, both human and Luxen. Blasts from PEP weapons and from the Source zinged back and forth across the yard. There were more Luxen than humans standing, and in their true forms, their light was as bright as the sun breaking through the clouds overhead.

It was an all-out war scene, very much like what had gone down in Vegas. The trees closer to the yard were singed, and a few of the bare branches were burning, billowing black smoke into the air. A distinctive burned smell lingered in the air, curdling my stomach.

The Luxen were lobbing bolts at the men in black like they were throwing baseballs, one after another. One struck a man in the chest, spinning him back and onto the ground near the porch. The PEP weapon hit the ground and fired, sending a deadly blast in our direction.

Daemon shoved me to the side as the blast from the weapon cracked into the storm door behind us, shattering the glass.

Out of the corner of my vision, I saw Archer dart across the driveway, firing off rounds from the gun he held in his hand—the same kind I’d used on Ethan. He hit the Luxen, taking shots like a total badass. One went down . . . and then another and another. Their forms flickered in and out while one hit the ground, light fading into the shell of something sort of human.

Then I saw Dee behind Mom’s car. Every couple of seconds, she stood and sent out a blast of the Source in the direction of the Luxen.

Daemon moved around me as an Origin raced toward the porch, rearing back as white light wrapped down his arm at an alarming rate. Daemon vaulted the railing, tackling the Origin before he could do a thing.

Damn, he was like a ninja, totally badass, too.

Unable to stand there and do nothing, I took aim with the gun and continued firing in the direction of the Luxen until I pulled the trigger and nothing came out of the barrel. I’d hit two, maybe three. They weren’t kill shots, but Archer was on them, finishing them off with the Source.

I hurried down the steps, tossing the gun aside as another Origin headed toward where Daemon and the other were fighting hand to hand. Daemon was on top, straddling the douche, arm cocked back before he delivered a blow.

My heart lodged in my throat as a flash of whitish-red light came from a different direction, over by Daemon’s house. I shouted his name, but it was too late. The energy smacked into his shoulder, knocking him off and onto his back. His face contorted with pain as he gripped his arm, his lips forming a string of curses.

Then he shifted into his true form and shot to his feet, his light white with vibrant red streaks through it. He was about to unleash a whole different level of badassery, but something deep and vicious was still building inside me.