She watched him. Now that the shock was ebbing away, her mind was starting to put things together. At least now she knew how such a small town could have six insanely gorgeous people. Go figure they weren’t human in nature. Then it struck her—the whole episode in the icy parking lot. “What else can you do?”
His features pinched. “I really shouldn’t—”
“But I already know, right?” She slid off the bed, sitting in front of him so her knees pressed into his. He jerked as if surprised by the contact but didn’t move. “What harm can it cause now?”
His brows shot up. “It can cause a lot of problems.”
Dread inched up her spine, sending shivers over her shoulders. “Like what?”
He opened his mouth but shook his head. “It’s nothing. Uh, you want to know what else we can do? We can move fast. That’s how I caught you in the parking lot. We can also harness energy—our light. It’s pretty strong. A human wouldn’t survive a hit from us.”
Her eyes widened. That wasn’t good news, but she couldn’t picture Dawson hurting anyone. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t afraid. Or she was just naive. “What else?”
“That basically covers that side of things.”
She knew there was more to it, and she wanted to push the topic, but there were just so many more questions. “How many are here?”
“A lot,” he said, watching his hands. “Most of our kind live in colonies. The government is aware of us—the Department of Defense, that is. They monitor us.”
Okay, now she was getting visions of Men in Black. Sitting back, she let it sink in. A whole other world had just opened up in front of her. One she suspected not a lot of people were aware of, even if the government had something to do with it. Crazy as it sounded, she felt…privileged somehow.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m just soaking this up.” She paused. “Why Earth?”
Dawson’s smile was faint. “Our kind has been coming here since humans walked the Earth, or maybe longer than that. In a way, it’s familiar to us, I guess.”
“And your parents—”
“My parents are dead,” he said in a monotone. “So are the Thompsons’ parents.”
Her chest squeezed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She wanted to reach out, comfort him, but right now, he acted as if he was afraid of her, which was odd, all things considered. “I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay.” His chest rose unevenly. “They died when we were babies.”
“How…how do you get by without parents, though? Wouldn’t people suspect something?”
“That’s when the changing shape is handy. One of us pretends to be the parent,” he explained. “And the DOD keeps a roof over our heads and stuff.”
Fascinated, she started spouting off more and more questions. Hours went by as she practically interrogated him in-between her mom checking in on them. What about the colony? He wouldn’t talk about it, so she moved on. Did any other humans around here know? The answer was no. How involved was the DOD? From what she could gather from Dawson, heavily involved. They monitored every aspect of the Luxen’s lives, from where they chose to live, what colleges they went to, down to when they applied for a driver’s license. Another fun fact was they didn’t get sick. No flu. No common colds. No cancers or nerve diseases. There was no need for a doctor. If they were injured in their human form, they only needed to resort back to their true form to heal “most” injuries.
“Let me get this right,” Bethany said, leaning toward him. “You can’t be hurt, then? Not really?”
Dawson shook his head. “We can be hurt. The Arum are our greatest enemies.”
“The who?”
He rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple. “They are like us, sort of. Instead of three born at the same time, there are four. They are from our sister planet. And they are mostly comprised of shadows, but their DNA adapted like ours. They look human most of the time.”
“And they’re dangerous?”
“They hunted us into near extinction, destroyed our planet. They followed us here.”
Her throat felt dry. “Why do they hunt you?”
“For our abilities,” he explained. “Without them, they are weak. The more Luxen they kill, the more abilities they absorb.”
“That…that is messed up.”
He looked up then, meeting her eyes. “They are only one of the reasons why we have to be careful around humans.”
Knots formed in her stomach. She thought of the light—the intensity and heat. “Can you harm people in your true form?”
“No—I mean, we distort electromagnetic fields when we use our abilities. That increases them. Too much of it can make a human sick or nauseated and nervous, but nothing permanent. And sometimes we vibrate…or hum.”
“I’ve felt that before.” She smiled a little, remembering the way his hand had thrummed beneath hers.
Dawson’s eyes glittered. “But whenever we use our abilities or go into our true form, we leave a trace behind on the human. Like right now, you have a faint glow around you.”
“A trace?”
“Yes,” he said. “We stay here and in places like Petersburg, because there is a large concentration of beta quartz in the rocks. It disrupts the fields around us, blocking our detection from the Arum, but it doesn’t block traces.”