It was like taking a punch to the chest. Raw emotion poured into me. “Did you…did you know this the entire time?” My form began to flicker. “Did you?”
Matthew shook his head. “No. No! I believed both of them to be dead, but if he did heal her—did change her—and she’s alive, then he has to be alive. That’s a big if—an if based on whether or not Katy really did recognize someone she’s never met.”
I slowly sat down, feeling so much I didn’t feel anything. “My brother’s alive. He’s…he’s alive.”
“What do you think they’re doing to him?” Kat asked.
“I don’t know.” Matthew stood. “Whatever it is, it can’t be…”
It wasn’t good.
“The DOD knows, Matthew. They know what we can do,” I said finally. “They’ve probably known since the beginning.”
His lashes swept up, and he met my stare. “I’ve never truly believed they didn’t, to be honest. The only reason I never voiced my belief is because I didn’t want any of you to worry.”
“And the Elders—do they know this, too?” I asked, thinking of Lydia.
“The Elders are just grateful to have a place to live in peace and be basically separated from the human race. Stick-their-heads-in-the-sand kind of thing, Daemon. If anything, they probably choose to not believe our secrets aren’t safe.” He glanced at his empty glass on the fireplace. “It’s…easier for them.”
“That sounds incredibly stupid,” Kat said.
Matthew smiled wryly in response. “Dear girl, you do not know what it is like to be a guest, do you? Imagine living with the knowledge that your home and everything could be whipped out from under you at any moment. But you have to lead people, keep them calm and happy—safe. The worst thing would be to voice the darkest of your concerns to the masses.” He paused, eyeing that glass again. “Tell me, what would humans do if they knew aliens lived among them?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Uh, they’d probably riot and go nuts.”
“Exactly,” he murmured. “Our kinds are not that different.”
She squirmed next to me. “What about the Arum thing?”
“I don’t know.” Matthew refilled his glass. “I can’t even fathom a reason why the DOD would be working with them—what they could even gain. The Arum absorb our powers, but never healing—nothing of that magnitude. They have a different heat signature than we do, so with the right tools, the DOD would know they weren’t dealing with us, but to walk up to an Arum or a Luxen on the street, there would be no way to tell us apart.”
“Wait.” She tucked her hair back, glancing at me. “What if the DOD captured an Arum, believing it to be a Luxen, and you guys were studied, too, right? Forced to assimilate into the human world? I don’t know what assimilation entails, but I’m sure it was some kind of observation, so wouldn’t they have noticed eventually, especially with the heat-signature thing?”
Matthew walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner, going for something harder. “When we were being assimilated, they never saw our abilities. So if we work off the theory that they’ve known for some time, they studied our abilities on Luxen who could never tell us that the DOD is aware of what we can do.”
“You’re saying that those Luxen would be…”
“Dead,” he said, tossing back a mouthful of clear liquor. “I’m not sure how much Daemon has told you, but there were Luxen who didn’t assimilate. They were put down…like feral animals. No stretch of the imagination to believe that they used some Luxen to study their abilities, to learn about us, and then got rid of them.”
I was quiet, but I was listening, and I suddenly thought about Blake. What if the DOD was sending some of the Luxen—or ones like Kat—out to spy on others? Maybe that was paranoid. Maybe not.
“But that doesn’t explain why the Arum would work with the DOD,” Kat argued.
“It doesn’t.” Matthew moved to the fireplace. He propped his elbow on the mantel. “I am afraid to theorize over what that could mean.”
“Part of me doesn’t even care about that right now,” I said, feeling tired. “Someone betrayed Dawson. Someone had to tell the DOD.”
“It could be anyone,” Matthew said wearily. “Dawson didn’t try to hide his relationship with Bethany. And if anyone was watching them closely, they could’ve suspected something happened. We all watched them when they first got together. I’m sure some of us didn’t stop.”
Who in the hell could it have been?
We left Matthew’s house shortly after that, and she handed the keys to me without fighting when I asked for them. Snow was coming down heavier, and I needed…well, I needed something like driving to focus on. I turned to open the car door, but Kat walked back to me. Before I knew what she was doing, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We’ll figure out something. We’ll get him back.”