The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,172

hear it from him, then I think I know who the others are who are here.”

“Then you know your shocking return from the grave is going to be really short term.”

“We didn’t come here to cause trouble,” the Luxen spoke up. “I swear we didn’t. We were just looking for a safe place, and we heard that there were areas where we could go. We had no idea who was here. They told us nothing more. If we’d known, we wouldn’t have come. I swear it. We would’ve risked it out there.”

“It doesn’t matter, Chris,” the hybrid said as he tipped his head back against the worn, faded white cabinets. “They wouldn’t believe us.”

“Can you blame them?” the Luxen whispered.

Tilting his chin in the Luxen’s direction, he shook his head. “No. I never blamed any of them.”

The Luxen started to shift onto his knees, but halted when Grayson looked at him. He sat back, facing the hybrid. “You did what you had to do to survive. We all did.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

Still staring at the Luxen, the hybrid pressed his lips together and then said, “Betrayed everyone. Everyone except Luc. He always knew. Can’t keep much from him. But he never told the others the truth about me. Wasn’t until later that I figured out why.”

None of what he was saying made a bit of sense. “I want to know how you know me,” I asked once more, ignoring the sharp look Grayson shot in my direction.

“Do you really?” The hybrid looked at me then with eyes haunted.

A world of unease settled over me like a thick, coarse blanket. “You knew me when I was Nadia.”

His brows knitted, one of them split in half by a faint scar. “They took your memories. Wiped them completely.”

Air halted in my lungs.

“That’s right. That’s what they’d said they would do. My memory is a bit spotty these days.” A sardonic twist curled his lips. “I didn’t know they did it. One day you were there. Then you were gone.”

Oh my God, he knew me when I was with the Daedalus. Shaken, I didn’t know what to say or do, because I felt split into two. Half of me wanted to launch into an interrogation, forcing him to tell me everything. The desire to learn about the missing time burned through me, making my skin itchy. But the other half? Based on the way Luc had paled when he’d realized I’d been Nadia at that time, how Kat and Zoe both said my lack of memory was a blessing, and from the brief memories I could grasp and hold on to, the other part of me wasn’t sure I needed to know what was done to me. Or what I’d most likely done to others.

“I saw you with Luc even though he tried to keep you hidden,” the hybrid said. “That was before the Daedalus.” His gaze lifted to me. “Before I understood why he wouldn’t tell the others who I was. It was because of you.”

“That’s enough.” Grayson removed the Blow Pop. “It’s quiet time.”

I wasn’t taking part in quiet time, not as I rapidly began to put what I did know together. Luc had used Daemon and Kat to get inside the Daedalus, to retrieve the serums he thought would heal me. Was this hybrid who claimed to be Blake involved, and were those he’d said he’d betrayed Daemon and Kat? If so, that meant …

Anger filled me. “You worked for the Daedalus?”

“Not by his choosing,” Chris answered with a nervous glance at Grayson. “We grew up together. Close. Like brothers. There was an accident when we were younger. A bad one, and I healed him. He mutated, and the Daedalus found out, and ever since then—up until we finally got away—the Daedalus used me to control him. It was like that for more years than it wasn’t.”

“Really thought I said it was quiet time,” Grayson said.

“They made him do terrible things—things he would’ve never done if they hadn’t been able to use me. They controlled us. You have to understand that,” Chris said—pleaded, really. “Everything he did, he did so that I lived, so that he survived. He did what anyone else would’ve done.”

“Some would’ve done worse,” the hybrid murmured, eyes meeting mine. “Have done worse.”

A cold air pressed to my back, and while his words were unnerving, I knew the sensation meant Hunter was near. Seconds later, he entered through the mudroom and headed straight for the two