A small grin appeared on his lips. “I did do that.”
I gaped at him. “And I’m also pretty sure the last time I saw you illegally in my house, I tried to knock your head off with a candleholder, so I would think you’d realize I didn’t want to see you.”
Luc laughed.
Anger rushed over the confusion and fear, squelching out the nervousness. “Do you think I’m funny?” I demanded.
“Well.” His gaze moved to the sky like he was really thinking hard about this. The sun glanced off his angular cheekbones, creating shadowy hollows under them, and my fingers itched to capture the moment with my camera. “Yeah, I kind of do think you’re funny.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re funny,” I snapped. “At all.”
He arched a brow again, and when he spoke, there was a playful quality in his tone. “If I thought everyone who wanted to knock my head off didn’t want to be my friend, then I’d be friendless.”
My jaw clenched down. “Wow. That’s something to be proud of.”
“I like to think so.” The curve of his smile said he knew how much he was getting to me. “You take pictures?”
I almost answered his question. The “yes” was burning on the tip of my tongue, but I shut that right down. “Why are you here?”
“I just happened to be around and I saw you.”
“Oh, just like you happened to be outside my house on Sunday and you just happened to have my ID with you? Which, by the way, you could’ve given back to me on Saturday.”
“Yeah.” He bit down on his lower lip, and it was ridiculous how much that drew my attention, so I forced my gaze up. “How much trouble did you get in for that?”
“A lot,” I gritted out.
“Not exactly surprised.” He focused on the lake. “Sylvia is . . . she’s a hard-core woman.”
It was still super-weird that he knew my parents. Part of me knew I should get up and get the hell away from him, but nope. I was still perched on my knees. For some reason, as I stared at him, I thought about that guy who’d been hurt. “How is he? Chas?”
A muscle flexed along his jaw. “Better. He woke up this morning.”
“That’s good news, right?” When he nodded, I bit down on my lip. “Did he tell you what happened?”
“He was jumped. Didn’t see the person.”
My brows creased. “It’s got to be hard to jump a Luxen.”
“It is. Really hard,” Luc agreed. “Which is very concerning.”
I looked away, thinking about Colleen. “Do you know that one of my classmates has gone missing? I saw her Friday night at the club, and her purse and shoes were found in that alley.”
“I’d heard that.”
My gaze crawled back to his. “Do you think what happened to Chas is related to Colleen?”
“I wouldn’t see why.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “Have you contacted the police or anything, about what happened to Chas?”
“No.” He laughed as if I’d suggested the most ridiculous thing possible. “No way.”
I looked back at him, eyes narrowing. “I get that you—”
“You don’t get anything, Evie.”
I sat back on my legs and lifted my hands in surrender. “Whatever, dude.”
“The police aren’t going to care about an unregistered Luxen nearly being beaten to death.” Those eyes churned a restless purple. “If anything, they’d immediately blame Chas for the girl’s disappearance.”
“And you’re sure he had nothing to do with it?” I asked.
A smirk formed as he laughed under his breath. “Oh, because he’s a Luxen, he’s automatically responsible for some human girl—”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I argued. “Maybe he saw something and that was why he was hurt.”
“He didn’t see anything.”
I drew in a shallow breath. “Well, I’m glad he’s okay.”
Luc was quiet as he watched me. “Me too.”
I looked away then, drawing in a shallow breath, and then I refocused on him. “You know, Mom told me.”
Shock splashed over his face as his gaze flew back to mine. “She did?”
I nodded. “She told me about . . .” I glanced around, but there was still no one near us. “She told me about how you guys were here long before the invasion.”
His expression smoothed out. “Oh, really?”
“She also told me about my dad.”
Everything about Luc changed in that moment. His features hardened and his shoulders tensed. His gaze was glacial as it locked on to mine. “She did?”
“She said he was responsible for you losing someone . . . close to you?”
His pupils seemed to stretch, and wow, that was . . . different. “He was.”
Feeling a little out of my element, I rose from my haunches and my mouth just started running. “I didn’t know my dad was like that. I didn’t know my dad at all, it seems. Obviously. But I mean, he wasn’t around a lot, and now I think maybe Mom and Dad weren’t getting along—” What in the world was I telling him? I shook my head, refocusing. “None of that is important, but what I’m trying to say is . . . I’m sorry.”
His eyes widened slightly as he stared at me. “Are you apologizing for him?”
“I . . . think so? I don’t even know why, which would usually mean that’s a crappy apology, but mainly because I don’t know exactly what he did, but I just know that my mom wouldn’t lie about something like that—”
Luc’s laugh was harsh.
My lips started to turn down. “Are you laughing while I’m trying to apologize for my father?”
“Yeah, I am.” Straightening, he rose. “You don’t need to ever apologize for a damn thing that man did.”
“Oh.” I was still for a moment and then scrambled to my feet so he wasn’t some giant towering over me. “That still doesn’t—”
“I’m not here to talk about Jason Dasher,” he cut in.
I took a tiny step back. “Then why are you here?”
His head tilted to the side, and a slow grin tipped up one side of his lips. “I don’t know,” he said, pausing. “Maybe I was looking for you.”
My hands tightened on the camera as my stomach dipped and twisted. Good. Bad. Both. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
He chuckled as he leaned forward about an inch. “And here I thought I was in stealth mode.”
“Not exactly.” I glanced down at the camera. “So why were you looking for me?”
“Why aren’t you running away?”
My gaze shot to his. That was a good question, but whatever. “Is this how every conversation is going to go? You answer a question with a question?”
“You do realize you just did exactly that.”
Irritation prickled over my skin, as did reluctant amusement. “I think it’s weird to ask someone why they aren’t running away from them.”
“Maybe, but I—” His head swung to the left and his eyes narrowed. I followed his gaze, unsure of what I was going to see, but I expected something. I didn’t see anything. He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I need to go.”
“Uh, okay.”
Luc’s gaze slid back to mine. “Do you know how easy it was to find you? The answer is really easy. In a city that has—how many humans? A little over a hundred thousand? It took nothing for me to find you.”
My heart banged around in my chest. “Why should I be worried about how easy it is to find me?”
“You never considered that before?”
“That’s not something I’ve really ever thought about,” I answered truthfully, because seriously, who thought about that unless they were trying to hide? Or had something to hide?
His eyes held mine. “You should probably start doing that.”
12
The house was too quiet when I got home, so like any other normal person out there, I turned on every light—and I mean, every light, even the hallway bathroom. And turned on the TV in my bedroom.