Okay, there was definite disgust in that answer. Did he think he was superior to humans? That was just…bigoted. Not that she cared. He could believe whatever he wanted. She still needed answers.
She refocused on what he’d told her. And thought of Jill’s phone call yesterday and the battery of tests awaiting her. Five hundred years. She was only twenty-seven. If she had the same cancer as her grandmother…
A lump formed in her throat. “Can you die before then?”
“Do you mean are we mortal?”
She nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “We are mortal. We can be killed just like humans. But our resistance to disease and our ability to heal are amplified.”
Thank God. She let out a relieved breath.
“I’d venture to guess that’s not the case for the Misos though.”
And there went her relief. No, she wouldn’t be that lucky, would she?
“Well,” she said with a frown, “I guess that explains your miraculous healing back at my house.” But it didn’t explain the vision he’d projected to her when he’d been asleep.
Brow creased, she said, “If that’s true, then why couldn’t your father be healed?”
“What?” For the first time since he’d opened his eyes and shot sparks across the room that had been lighting her up like a Christmas tree ever since, he looked dazed.
“Your father. Why couldn’t he heal from that gunshot wound? I watched you heal from something almost as bad. Was he too old?”
His dark eyebrows drew together in confusion. “How…do you know about his death?”
“You showed me.” When he only stared at her like she’d sprouted snakes in her hair, she added, “When you were asleep. I saw the daemons you were hunting and the boy across the river. He didn’t mean to shoot your father, did he? He’d tried to shoot the beast you both were fighting.”
The color drained from Theron’s face, and in a quiet voice he asked, “Acacia. Have you had dreams like this before?”
“I wouldn’t call them dreams. More like, I don’t know, visions. But yeah, I guess I have.”
“When?”
His change in tone sent alarm bells off in her head. The skin on her lower back near her birthmark tingled. “The first night we met. After I stitched you up and you were sleeping. I laid down on the couch and had a vision of you and your father standing in a field overlooking a battlefield.” Her gaze locked on his. “Oh, my God. That was the Civil War, wasn’t it? I saw blue and gray coats.”
He nodded slowly and rose to his feet. “Yes. When else? What other times did you have these visions?”
Okay, the crazed look in his eye wasn’t doing anything to ease her nerves. In fact, it was kind of freaking her out. She knew he had some kind of superhuman strength, she’d seen it in action, which meant the Argonauts had powers humans could only envy. But if she was reading him right, he hadn’t projected those images onto her the way she thought at all. And that meant somehow she’d conjured them herself.
That tingling intensified. “Yesterday. When we got here. That little girl who came running up to us? I…when I held her hand I had a flash of her family and the daemons attacking her home.” Theron stiffened. Apprehensive, Casey dropped her feet to the floor. “I figured I was just hallucinating. What with everything that had happened yesterday, you know?”
He stared at her with wide and very focused eyes, but didn’t speak.
“What?” she finally asked, easing out of her chair.
“You have the gift of hindsight.”
Hindsight? Well, that didn’t sound so bad. “That’s a good thing, right?”
He didn’t answer. But a look of great confusion passed over his features before he turned and surveyed the room as if seeing it for the first time. “I need to find Nick.”
Nick, the half-breed he couldn’t stand? Oh, this wasn’t sounding good at all.
He grabbed his shirt from the back of a chair and tugged it on, then his boots from the floor, and sat on the bed as he bent to lace them with swift fingers.
“Theron, what’s going on?”
A ruckus out in the hall brought both their heads up. Their eyes met briefly before he rose and jerked the door open, careful to keep her shielded from sight.
Helene rushed by. Theron grabbed her by the arm to stop her. “What happened?”
Helene looked through the doorway toward Casey. “Marissa’s missing. No one can find her. They’re talking about sending out a search party—”
“No,” Theron said fiercely.
Casey pushed past Theron to grip Helene’s hand. “Where was she last seen?”
“In her bedroom.” Fear rushed over Helene’s delicate features. “Her mother put her to bed last night, and when she got up this morning, Marissa was gone.”
Casey thought of the young girl she’d met yesterday, then of the young girl’s words: Minnie knew he’d bring you here to save us.
She squeezed Helene’s hand. “I’ll get my coat.”