“Don’t be. It was a long time ago. We don’t even remember them.”
“God, I feel so stupid,” she said after a moment. “You know, I thought they worked out of town.”
“You aren’t stupid, Kat. You saw what we wanted you to see. We are very good at that.” I sighed. “Well, apparently not good enough.” When I looked at her again, she had this far-off look on her face. “You’re handling this better than I expected.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to panic and have a mini breakdown later. I will probably think that I have lost my mind.” She bit down on her lip. “Can…can you all control what others think? Read minds?”
I shook my head. “No. Our powers are rooted in what we are. Maybe if our power—the light—was manipulated by something, who knows. Anything would be possible.”
Anger sparked in her eyes, and she bristled up like a little angry kitten. “This whole time I thought I was going crazy. Instead, you’ve been telling me I’m seeing things or making shit up. It’s like you’ve given me an alien lobotomy. Nice.”
My eyes narrowed as I stared at her. “I had to. We can’t have anyone knowing about us. God knows what would happen to us then.”
Kat exhaled roughly, and I could tell she was struggling to let it go. “How many…humans know about you?”
“There are some locals who think we’re God-only-knows-what,” I explained. “There’s a branch of the government that knows of us, within the Department of Defense, but that’s about it. They don’t know about our powers. They can’t,” I nearly growled, meeting her eyes. “The DOD thinks we’re harmless freaks. As long as we follow their rules, they give us money, our homes, and leave us alone. So when any one of us goes power-crazy it’s bad news for several reasons. We try not to use our powers, especially around humans.”
“Because it would expose what you are.”
“That, and…” I rubbed my jaw, suddenly tired. I didn’t want to admit that I’d been putting her in danger. “Every time we use our power around a human, well, it leaves a trace on that person, enables us to see that they’ve been around another one like us. So we try not to ever use our abilities around humans, but you…well, things never went according to plan with you.”
“When you stopped the truck, did that leave a…trace on me?” When I didn’t answer, she started to put it together. “And when you scared the bear away? That’s traceable by others like you? So the Thompsons and any other alien around here know I’ve been exposed to your…alien mojo?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “And they aren’t exactly thrilled about it.”
“Then why did you stop the truck? I’m obviously a huge liability to you.”
Damn, wasn’t that a loaded question? Andrew and Matthew both would probably demand the same thing if I told them about Kat knowing what we were, and I was really hoping that conversation would never happen. I really didn’t know how to answer that question.
Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t want to speak it out loud.
Kat drew in a deep breath. “What are you going to do with me?”
I lifted my gaze. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Since I know what you are, that makes me a risk to everyone. You…can light me on fire and God knows what else.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I knew I’d been a dick to her, but come on. She had to sense there was something more between us. Didn’t she? Shit. Maybe not. Maybe I was so good at my douchebag skills, as she called them, she had no clue how I was really starting to feel about her. I pondered telling her everything. How just being around her made me smile more than I had in years. How I admired her spunk and the way she stood up for herself, and especially the way she stood up to me and my bullshit. As a warm feeling started to grow in my chest, I nipped that shit in the bud pronto, with an image of my dead brother and the human he’d fallen for squaring my jaw. No, it was still better if we went our separate ways, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t ease her fears at least. “Why would I have told you everything if I were going to do anything to you?”
Her lips pursed. “I don’t know.”
Moving toward her, I reached out, but stopped short when she flinched from me. My stomach sank as my fingers curled around empty air. “I’m not going to do anything to you. Okay?”
She nibbled on that lower lip. “How can you trust me?”
Another loaded question that was hard to answer. This time when I reached out, she didn’t pull away. I curved my finger under her chin, holding her gaze to mine. “I don’t know. I just do. And honestly, no one would believe you. Plus, if you made a lot of commotion, you’d bring the DOD in, and you don’t want that. They will do anything to make sure the human population isn’t aware of us.”