it doesn't hurt. We do it out of habit now more than anything else." Another memory tugged loose. "So you don't need to breathe?"
"No, not really." He looked sort of sheepish.
"We do out of habit, but there are times we forget. Like when we're swimming." Well, that explained how Daemon had stayed underwater for so long. "Go on." He watched me for a few moments, then nodded. "We were too young to know what the name of our galaxy was. Or even if our kind felt the need to name such things, but I do remember the name of our planet. It was called Lux. And we are called Luxen."
"Lux," I whispered, recalling one of my freshman classes. "That's Latin for light." He shrugged. "We came here in a meteorite shower fifteen years ago, with others like us. But many came before us, probably for the last thousand years. Not all of our kind came to this planet. Some went farther out in the galaxy.
Others must've gone to planets they couldn't survive on, but when it was realized that Earth was sort of perfect for us, more came here. Are you following me?" I stared blankly. "I think.
You're saying there're more like you. The Thompsons - they're like you?"
Daemon nodded. "We've all been together since then."
That explained Ash's territorial nature, I guessed. "How many of you are here?"
"Right here? At least a couple hundred."
"A couple hundred," I repeated. Then I remembered the strange looks in town - the people at the diner and the way they'd looked at me...because I was with Dee - an alien. "Why here?"
"We...stay in large groups. It's not...well, that doesn't matter right now."
"You said you came during a meteorite shower? Where's your spaceship?" I felt stupid for even saying that.
He raised a brow at me, looking like the Daemon I knew. "We don't need things such as ships to travel. We are light - we can travel with light, like hitching a ride."
"But if you're from a planet millions of light years away and you travel at the speed of light...It took you millions of years to get here?" My old physics teacher would be proud.
"No. The same way I saved you from that Mack truck, we're able to bend space and time.
I'm not a scientist, so I don't know how it works, just that we can. Some better than others."
What he said didn't sound sane at all, but I didn't stop him. Like he pointed out, what I saw earlier did not make any sense so maybe I was no longer the judge of what did make sense.
"We can age like a human, which allows us to blend in normally. When we got here, we picked our...skin." He noticed my wince with another shrug. "I don't know how else to explain that without creeping you out, but not all of us can change our appearances. What we picked when we got here is what we're stuck with."
"Well, you picked good then."
The corners of his lips twitched up as he ran his fingers over blades of grass in front of him.
"We copied what we saw. That only seems to work once for most of us. And how we grew up to look alike, well, our DNA must've taken care of the rest. There are always three of us born at the same time, in case you're wondering. It's always been that way." He paused, lifting his gaze. "For the most part, we're like humans."
"With the exception of being a ball of light I can touch?" I let out a low breath, blown away.
His lips twitched again. "Yeah, that, and we're a lot more advanced than humans."
"How advanced is a lot?" I asked quietly.
He smiled a little then, running his hands over the grass again. "Let's say if we ever went to war with humans, you wouldn't win. Not in a billion years."
My heart turned over heavily and I scooted back again, not even realizing I'd been leaning forward, toward him. "What is some of the stuff you can do?"
Daemon's eyes flicked up to mine briefly.
"The less you know is probably for the best." I shook my head. "No. You can't tell me something like this and not tell me everything.
You...you owe that to me."
"The way I see it, you owe me. Like three times over," he replied.
"How three times?"
"The night you were attacked, just now, and when you decided Ash needed to wear spaghetti." He ticked them off on his fingers.
"There better not be a