The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,16

Daemon stepped forward. “What are we looking at?”

“You guys don’t see the…” I trailed off, gaze darting from one building to the next. The flashing lights were gone.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?” Luc asked.

“I saw…” I waited to see if the lights would appear, but they didn’t. “I saw lights flashing in the windows of those two buildings.” I pointed them out to them.

“I don’t see anything like that.” Luc’s brows furrowed. “Just the glare of the sun off the windows.”

“That wasn’t a glare. It was a steady flash in both windows at different times, almost like—” I cut myself off before I said, Almost like the lights were communicating with each other, because that sounded weird.

“Maybe the sunlight was catching something on the ground and it was bouncing off the windows. There’s a lot of debris left in the city, along with abandoned cars,” Daemon suggested. “And it’s windy, so God only knows what’s blowing around down there, but no one’s there. Not even scavenger teams. There’s nothing left of any value.”

Luc nodded. “That or aliens. It’s always that or aliens.”

Daemon snorted as I rolled my eyes, but no matter how long I stared at the buildings, no flashing light appeared, and neither did a weird reflective glare. Daemon and Luc had to be right. It was the glare of the sun or a trick of the eye.

Because what else could be responsible in a city abandoned and dead?

* * *

Luc did end up “feeding his girl” with the most amazing charbroiled hamburger from ground meat provided, interestingly enough, from Daemon. He cooked it out on the little firepit that sat in the backyard someone had put a lot of effort into. Pansies that almost matched Luc’s eyes flowed in abundance along the wooden privacy fence. Orangey-red marigolds bloomed in raised flower beds. Pale pink snapdragons blossomed along the flagstone pathway. There were other flowers, some red and some yellow that I didn’t recognize, but it was beautiful, and I wished I knew how to tend to flowers.

Once, I managed to kill one of those tiny cactus gardens.

The firepit and an outdoor couch with deep red cushions sat in a small patio situated along the back of the secluded property. Faded metal signs designed as weathervanes tacked to the fence. As I wandered through the garden while Luc fiddled with the pit, I wondered who was taking care of this. The flower beds were free of weeds, and heads of the dead plants had been plucked away. Even the grass here had been relatively trimmed, and I figured the old-school reel mower propped against the fence was responsible for that.

There had been a few fresh slices of homemade bread sealed in the kitchen pantry, and Luc and I ended up turning our burgers into bread tacos. They hit the spot.

So did half of the second burger I ended up sharing with Luc.

I kept expecting Zoe to show up, but she didn’t, and when I asked where she might be, all Luc said was, “I believe she is with Grayson.”

Despite the fact I wasn’t entirely sure Grayson was at all familiar with emotions like empathy or compassion, I knew Kent’s loss had hit him hard, and I hoped Zoe was able to comfort him …

Without causing him physical harm.

Luc didn’t head over to Daemon’s when we finished cleaning up after our late lunch like I’d thought he might. Not that I was complaining. The idea of being alone in this stranger’s house with only my own head for company wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to. He ended up coaxing me into the bedroom and into the bed, his arms settling around me and holding me close to his side, my cheek resting on his chest. Thoughts of the strange light I’d seen in the city fell into the background as we talked about what we’d learned from Eaton.

It was while we were lying there and there was a lull as I stared at Diesel, the pet rock Luc had given me, that I asked something that had taken up residency in the back of my mind ever since we’d left Eaton’s. “What do you think the Daedalus would’ve done if you hadn’t accepted me when Paris brought me to you? Like, if it didn’t work, would they have kept finding people to put in your path?”

“What?”

I wrinkled my nose against his chest. “I know it’s random, but Eaton made it sound like you and I meeting