Her slender brows knit. “Do you mean if we’ve left a trace on the human? Would they then be able to feed off them?” When I nodded, she shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. I mean, even if we leave a trace behind on them, they don’t have our abilities.”
“True,” I murmured, rubbing my fingers under my mouth. “I guess it’s a good thing if a human was repeatedly exposed to a trace that it doesn’t do anything to them.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Yes, it is a good thing. If the humans became like us, then we wouldn’t have the upper hand, now would we?”
I thought it was kind of odd thinking we actually had the upper hand when the DOD controlled everything we did, but whatever. “Well, we can’t make humans like us, so there’s nothing to worry about then. I guess those Arum were just…playing with their snacks.”
Lydia stared at me a moment. “May I be frank with you, Daemon?”
Uh-oh. “Yeah.”
She pressed her lips together in a flat line and then nodded, as if she was preparing herself. “I know you’re not going to want to hear this, and I don’t expect you to either confirm or deny it, but you do realize we were keeping a close eye on your brother.”
I stilled. Didn’t even breathe.
“He was quite close to that human girl he…he died with. Now you know, I have no problems with our kind being friends with humans. I am not nearly as strict as some of the others,” she continued, expression open. “But many of the Elders suspected that your brother crossed the line with that girl.”
I didn’t ask what this had to do with what I was asking, because deep in my bones, I knew it had everything to do with it.
“There’s a reason why we keep a certain distance between us and humans,” Lydia went on. “Arum come looking for us and innocent humans are caught in the cross fire, but it’s…it’s more than that, Daemon.” She exhaled softly. “And that’s all you need to know.”
My jaw flexed. More than that? As I met her gaze, I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me, something probably along the lines of what was happening to Kat, but if I pushed it, she could get suspicious, and as much as I liked her, I knew she would go to the rest of the Elders if she thought I’d done something unforgivable, and I…
I would protect Kat if it came down to it.
Lydia left not too long after that, just before Dee returned home. It was close to nine when I left in my car, heading toward Smoke Hole, the conversation with Lydia playing over and over. What did I gain from it? Nothing much other than the fact that the Elders, or at least some of them, knew what could happen to a human. It didn’t take a leap of logic to figure out that was what she was hinting at, but all of that brought me back to a different question, one that had nothing to do with what was happening with Kat.
Why had she brought up Dawson and Bethany?
Did the Elders know just how far their relationship had progressed? And did they somehow suspect that something major had gone down between Bethany and Dawson? Something like what had happened between Kat and me? Had Dawson healed Bethany? If so, was that what had drawn the Arum to them the night they’d gone to the movies? Or had the Arum just spotted Dawson?
All I had was more questions than answers, which was pretty typical.
I drove past Smoke Hole and pulled into the near-empty parking lot of Rudy’s. Killing the engine, I leaned back in my seat and I waited.
Simon didn’t disappoint.
An hour later, he strolled out of the pool hall, heading toward a truck jacked up on four oversize tires. He was hunched down in a heavy jacket, chin tucked in. I opened my car door and slipped out. Moving as quietly as a ghost, I sneaked up behind him.
“Hey, Simon.”
He spun around, stumbling back a step. “Jesus,” he grunted. “Where in the hell did you come from?”
I prowled forward, smiling when he backed up. “That doesn’t matter. I need to talk to you, bud.”
Under the bright floodlight from the pool hall, blood drained, inch by glorious freaking inch, from his face. “A-About what?”
“Oh, I think you know what we need to chat about.”
His eyes widened. “I d-don’t know.”
“Kat.” I said her name, and he stiffened. “I know what you’ve been saying about her, and boy, I thought you were smarter than that. What did I tell you last time?”
He opened his mouth, gaping like a belly-up fish. No words.
“I told you not to look in her direction, to not even speak of her, and then you go, telling people you hooked up with her? Got half the school believing that she would even stoop to your level?”
Simon’s hands flew up. “I—”