Oblivion (Page 52)

Her stare was blank. “I think. You’re saying there’re more like you. The Thompsons—they’re like you?”

I nodded. “We’ve all been together since then.”

“How many of you are here?”

“Right here? At least a couple hundred.”

“A couple hundred,” she repeated. “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?” Her nose did that cute wrinkle thing.

I arched a brow. “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 billions of light years away and you travel at the speed of light… It took you billions of years to get here?”

Did she really just do that math in her head? “No. The same way I saved you from that 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.”

She nodded slowly, but I had a feeling that was just for show. She wasn’t freaking out, so that was good news at least.

I continued as I sat back down. “We can age like a human, which allows us to blend in normally. When we got here, we picked our…skin.” She winced, and I shrugged. What could I do? It was the truth. “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.”

I grinned as I ran my fingers over the grass. “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.” I watched her sit back down, no more than a foot or so in front of me. “For the most part, we’re like humans.”

“With the exception of being a ball of light I can touch?”

My grin spread. “Yeah, that, and we’re a lot more advanced than humans.”

“How advanced is a lot?” she asked quietly.

“Let’s say if we ever went to war with humans, you wouldn’t win. Not in a billion years.”

She was frozen, and then leaned back from me. Probably should’ve kept that little piece of knowledge to myself. “What is some of the stuff you can do?”

I met her gaze. “The less you know is probably for the best.”

Kat shook her 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,” I pointed out.

“How three times?”

“The night you were attacked, just now, and when you decided Ash needed to wear spaghetti.” I ticked them off my fingers. “There better not be a fourth.”

Confusion marked her expression. “You saved my life with Ash?”

“Oh yeah, when she said she could end you, she meant it.” I sighed as I tipped my head back. “Dammit. Why not? It’s not like you don’t already know. All of us can control light. We can manipulate it so that we’re not seen if we don’t want to be. We can dispel shadows, whatever. Not only that, but we can harness light and use it. And trust me when I say you don’t ever want to be hit with something like that. I doubt a human could survive.”

“Okay…” She twisted her hands together, a movement she appeared to be unaware of. “Wait. When we saw the bear, I saw a flash of light.”

“That was me, and before you ask, I didn’t kill the bear. I scared it off. You passed out because you were close to the light. I think it had an effect on you. Not sure why it affected you then and not now. Anyway, all of us have some sort of healing properties, but not all of us are good at it,” I continued, lowering my chin. “I’m okay at it, but Adam—one of the Thompson boys—can practically heal anything as long as it’s still somewhat alive. And we’re pretty much indestructible. Our only weakness is if you catch us in our true form. Or maybe cut our heads off in human form. I guess that would do the trick.”

“Yeah, cutting off heads usually does.” Her hands slid to her face and she sat there, cradling her head. “You’re an alien.”

I raised my brows at her. “There is a lot we can do, but not until we hit puberty, and even then we have a hard time controlling it. Sometimes, the things we can do can get a little whacked-out.”

“That has to be…difficult.”

“Yes, it is.”

She lowered her hands, pressing them to her chest. “What else can you do?”

I eyed her. “Promise not to take off running again.”

“Yes,” she said, and then nodded. Very cute.

“We can manipulate objects. Any object can be moved, animated or not. But we can do more than that.” I reached over and picked up a fallen leaf. I held it between us. “Watch.”

Tapping into the Source, I let the heat whip down my arm to the tips of my fingers. Smoke wafted from it, and then a tiny spark flew. Flames, bright and orangey, burst from my fingers, licking up over the leaf. In the time it took for the heart to beat, the leaf was gone.

Kat rose onto her knees and inched closer. I watched her, surprised. Flames crackled over my fingers. She lifted her hand, placing her fingers near the flames. When she pulled her hand back, her eyes were wide with wonder. “The fire doesn’t hurt you?”