She snuggled in, smiling. “Try not to kill him.”

“No promises.” Grabbing the pajama bottoms, I pulled them on and made my way to the door. Stopping, I looked back at her. Seconds. I’d been seconds away from pure heaven. Seconds. I sighed. “Dammit.”

Andrew was leaning against the wall across from my bedroom when I opened the door. The look on his face was knowing, sly. I smacked him upside the head as I walked past him.

“Ouch,” he yelled. “What in the hell was that for?”

“Your timing sucks on an epic level,” I shot back.

“Hey, not my fault, man.” He fell into step beside me. “More like your brother has bad timing.”

The moment I walked into the living room and saw Dawson’s determined expression and Dee’s concerned grimace, my libido was officially cooled. “What are you doing, Dawson?” I demanded. “It’s now past one in the morning and—”

“I don’t care what time it is.” Dawson’s eyes flashed an intense white. “Beth is still at Mount Weather, and we’re here, doing nothing.”

Dee shook her head. “You and Kat were injured. You—”

“We are fine,” he shot back, stepping to the side, but I blocked him in. “There’s no reason for us not to go back.”

I stared at him. “Are you insane?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” muttered Andrew.

Struggling not to shake sense into Dawson, I forced my voice even. “Think about this, Dawson. You can’t just waltz into Mount Weather now. Besides the fact that the onyx will take you out again, Luc only took down the cameras and security functions for fifteen minutes. They are back up again. You will get busted the moment you near the gate.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t say you don’t care,” Dee argued, her eyes filling with tears. “You do care! You have to care about what happens to you. You have to care about us.”

Before he could say something that would traumatize my sister, I jumped in. “You have to care about Beth. If you go back now, if you go back without us being more prepared, you’re not going to help Beth escape. You will be captured, and she’ll still be in danger.”

“You don’t get it,” he seethed. “You can’t understand. You have Katy. She’s safe, upstairs right now, in your bed. You have her. You’ll be able to go right back to her, but me? I don’t even know”—his voice cracked—“if I’ll ever see Beth again.”

I drew back, stiffening. “I know I can’t possibly fully understand all that you’re feeling, but give me some damn credit here. You will see Beth again.”

Dawson opened his mouth, but then snapped his jaw shut. He turned sideways, thrusting his hands through his hair. Desperation crept into the lines of his face.

“We’re not giving up. I told you that. I promised that.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and sidestepped him so I could meet his gaze. “We will find a way to get her out.”

He lifted his chin. The harsh white light faded from his eyes, leaving nothing but pain and sorrow behind. “How? How are we going to get to her now?”

Damn, that was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer for, because even if we got Luc to take security down again, how would we get past the onyx?

“I don’t know,” I said finally, “but we will figure something out. We’re not going to leave her in there. We will figure something out.”

His stare held mine for a long time, and then he nodded. Bone-deep weariness filled the void the anger and panic had left. Dawson settled down after that, but I stayed with him for a while, just keeping an eye on him. Eventually, he went to bed. Andrew stayed even though we had school in a few hours, crashing out on the couch. I was so done with today by the time I climbed the stairs.

Kat was out when I neared the bed, and while I would have loved to rekindle what we’d started, I didn’t have it in me to wake her.

Carefully climbing back into bed next to Kat, I worked one arm under her and pulled her back against my chest without waking her. Still asleep, she wiggled her bottom and settled in against me. She hadn’t pulled my shirt back on, so it was difficult to ignore the fact that she was gloriously, perfectly naked.

Really difficult.

It was hard shutting down, especially after everything, but I forced my eyes closed and I held Kat close. The feeling left behind by Dawson’s words, by the fear of losing her, haunted me even in my sleep.

Chapter 15

Blake was waiting for us Monday morning when we pulled into the parking lot of the school. He was leaning against a truck of few spaces down, and the moment he saw us, he pushed off the side and trotted over as we climbed out.

I groaned. “He is not who I want to see as soon as I get to school.”

“Agreed.” She wrapped her hand around mine. “Just remember we are in public.”

“No fun.”

Blake slowed as he reached us. “We all need to talk.”

I kept walking. “Talking to you is the last thing I want to do.”

“I can understand that.” He caught up to us. “But I seriously didn’t know about the onyx shields in the doors. I had no idea.”

“I believe you.”

Blake’s step faltered. “You punched me.”

“That’s because he wanted to,” Kat explained, and I winked at her. “Look, I don’t trust you,” she continued, “but maybe you didn’t know about the shields. It doesn’t change the fact that we’re not going to be able to get in there.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stopped in front of us. “I talked to Luc last night. He didn’t know about the shields either. He’s willing to do it again—take down the cameras and stuff.”

That was good to hear, since we needed to get back there, but that didn’t really help us. I glanced around. We were huddled by the fence circling the track and no one else was around us, but I kept my voice low. “And what good does that do us? We can’t get past those doors.”

“Or if every door is set up like that,” Kat added.

“Well, I was thinking about that,” Blake said, shifting from one foot to the next. “While I was with Daedalus, they used to expose us to this stone each day. Our forks and silverware were encased in it. A lot of stuff was, almost everything we came into contact with. Burned like holy hell to touch, but we didn’t have any other choice. I’ve walked through the doors before and recently. Nothing happened.”

I barked out a dry laugh as I looked away. “And you just now thought this was a good thing to tell us?”

“I didn’t know what it was. None of us did,” he said. “I didn’t think much about it.”

Part of me didn’t know what to believe, but it didn’t take a leap of logic to think that maybe Daedalus had been conditioning Blake. Exposing him and others repeatedly to onyx, in doses, to build up tolerance. But why? Why would they want him to be able to pass through onyx, a weapon that could be used to keep them under control?

“You can’t tell me you never knew about the onyx and what it could do,” Kat challenged.

“I didn’t know that it could incapacitate us.”

Kat pressed her lips into a thin line. “You know, there’s so much we have to just trust you with. That you really are working against Daedalus and not for them. That Beth and Chris are where you’re saying they are, and now, that you didn’t really know about onyx.”

His shoulders tensed. “I know how this looks.”

“I don’t think you do.” Letting go of Kat’s hand, I leaned against the fence. “We have no reason to trust you.”

“And you’ve blackmailed us into helping you,” Kat added.

Blake exhaled roughly. “Okay. I don’t have a glowing history, but I want nothing more than to get my friend away from them. That’s why I’m here.”