“I guess not.” Daemon sat beside me. “And I guess Luc didn’t, either.”

Paris raised a slender shoulder. “And I guess you didn’t enjoy being their perfect, little mutant-maker?”

“Oh, yeah, and Nancy was totally loving you.” Archer folded his arms. “You were her all-star Luxen. How many humans did you mutate in the short period of time there? More than any other Luxen has.”

Daemon stiffened. “That really has nothing to do with this. Why are you helping us, and why are you with Paris?”

“And where is Luc?” I piped in, figuring he couldn’t be too far.

Paris smiled. “He’s around.”

“We don’t have a lot of time for questions, but I can give you the short and dirty version,” Archer said. “I owed Luc a favor, and Paris is right. You were right, Katy. Being in Daedalus means not having a life. They controlled every aspect. It doesn’t matter how I came into creation.” He spread his arms out, palms up. “What matters, always matters, is living.”

“Why now?” Daemon asked, a hard edge of distrust to his tone.

“And that’s the question of the year, huh?” Paris chimed in, grinning like he ingested some happy pills or something. “Why would Archer pick right now to risk everything—his life, what little life he had?”

Archer sent the other Luxen a dark look. “Thanks, Paris, for adding that. Escaping Daedalus is not easy. Besides Luc and a handful of others, no one has ever succeeded. Yeah, I could’ve run a hundred times over, but they would’ve found me. I also needed a diversion.”

It hit me then. “You used us as a diversion.”

He nodded. “Nancy and Sergeant Dasher are going to be more concerned about finding Daemon and you. I’m not going to be at the top of their priority list.”

Some of the tension eked out of Daemon’s frame. “Nancy had said that there were other origins out in the world pretending to be normal humans.”

“There are some,” Archer confirmed. “I doubt they’ll be a problem right now. They have high-profile lives, so they won’t come within ten miles of any of us.”

There was still something I didn’t understand. “Why didn’t Luc just have you get him the LH-11? He could’ve hidden you.”

Paris laughed softly. “Do you think there’s a method to Luc’s madness?”

“I hoped there would be,” Daemon muttered, running a hand through his hair.

“Actually, there is a method. Besides the fact that I could play spy to keep Luc…and a few others up to date on what Daedalus was doing, I knew that they changed the LH-11 strain, and that’s what Luc wanted, the new version—Prometheus. I was never around the new drug. No one was. Not until they brought you in,” Archer said to Daemon. “It was sort of the perfect storm for everyone. But I don’t know why Luc wants the drug.”

“And I wouldn’t ask him,” Paris said ominously.

I shivered at his tone, but then I thought of what Archer had told me. “What about the Luxen—the ones Sergeant Dasher claimed wanted to take over? Was that true?”

Archer slid a look at Daemon. “It’s true, and your boy toy over here seems to know one of them.”

Daemon’s eyes narrowed. “Stay out of my head.”

I turned to him. “What is he talking about?”

“It’s just something Ethan White said. Remember him?” he asked, and I nodded. I’d met the Elder Luxen briefly. “When I left the colony to come looking for you, he said something about Earth not belonging to the humans forever, but I really didn’t give it much thought, because come on… I’m sure there are Luxen out there who want to be in control, but it would never happen.”

Archer didn’t look convinced, and neither was I, but then the origin cocked his head to the side. “Speaking of the devil…”

A moment later, the hotel door opened. Daemon shot to his feet, eyes turning all white as I started for the gun, my heart leaping into my throat.

Luc strolled in, holding a plastic bag and a pink box. His hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, a big grin plastered across that angelic face. “Hey, guys!” he said cheerfully. “I brought doughnuts.”

I blinked slowly as I settled back down. “Good God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“I’m pretty sure I locked that door,” Daemon growled.

Luc set the box of doughnuts down, and I eyed them like they held the answer to life. “And I’m pretty sure I let myself in. Hey, Katy!”

I jumped at my name. “Hey, Luc…”

“Look at what I got.” He dug into his bag and pulled out an extraterrestrial highway shirt. “We can be soul twins now.”

“That’s…um, really nice.”

Paris’s lip curled. “Are you actually going to wear that shirt?”

“Yeah, I am. Every day of my life. I think it’s ironic.” Luc’s amethyst gaze circled the room, landing back on me. “Now, I think you two have something for me?”

Daemon let out a low breath and picked up the glass case. He tossed it over to Luc, who snatched it out of the air. “There you go.”

The kid popped open the small and narrow case, exhaling slowly. He closed it reverently and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Thank you.”

I had a feeling that, like Daemon, he didn’t say thank you a lot. “So…what do we do from here?” I asked.




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