I’d tried to make them sound the way Tyler had, giving them the same inflection, but like before, they sounded strange coming out of my mouth—a foreigner testing the feel of a new and unfamiliar language.
Because it was a new language, I reminded myself. These were not words I was ever meant to speak.
Thom didn’t flinch. My hands trembled as I forced myself to stay focused on him.
When Agent Truman finally reacted, it wasn’t at all like I’d expected, although how was one supposed to behave when they heard an alien language?
Maybe not by reaching down and waving his hand back and forth in front of my face.
“What . . . are you doing?” I asked.
“Just making sure you’re still in there.” It wasn’t a question, he was simply stating a fact, and I knew what he meant: that my body—this body—hadn’t been hacked into the way Chuck’s had.
“It’s still me.”
Bonelessly, like this was all suddenly way too much, he fell to his knees, his gun dropping to the floor with a dull thud. He ran his hands through his hair.
I stayed where I was, my eyes darting to Thom, while Agent Truman processed it all.
Finally, he asked, “What about them?” Only he, unlike everyone else I’d ever talked to, didn’t look upward. “Are they here yet?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, not yet anyway. But I think they’re close.”
He nodded, as if pulling himself together at last. “We better get a move on then.”
Agent Truman locked the motel room’s door, then slid the security chain in place, and wedged the back of one of the metal chairs beneath the knob, testing it twice before he was sure it would hold.
And I thought my dad was paranoid.
“We’ll have to work fast,” he said while he pointed at one of the twin beds. “You lay down there,” he told Thom. “We need to get that GPS chip outta you, before they realize I’m not comin’ back and decide to send someone else after the signal.”
Thom reached up and rubbed the side of his neck, eyeing Agent Truman anxiously. “Why are you trusting him?” he asked me. And then to Agent Truman, “Why are you helping us?”
Agent Truman pulled out his keys and unhooked a small pocketknife from the ring. He inspected two of the blades, as if he were deciding between them, and then nodded, snapping one back in place. “I’m not. I assume you know what the message meant, that Ochmeel abayal dai garbage?”
I nodded. “The Returned must die.”
Thom jolted. “That’s what Chuck said. Right before . . .” He halted. “Right before the accident.”
“Chuck?” Agent Truman didn’t know about Chuck yet.
“We both know that was no accident,” I said, then turned to fill Agent Truman in. “Nice trucker. Gave us a lift and then blew his brains out, right after he delivered that message. He also said: ‘Time is running out.’” I pictured Chuck the way I’d last seen him alive, with his eyes glowing as he reached out and slammed my head against the window. That hadn’t been him, not really.
“Trucker, huh?” Truman said to Thom. “We wondered what happened. When we couldn’t get them on the horn, we thought they must’ve put you back on the auction block and sold you off to a higher bidder, so we activated your GPS to safeguard our investment. Had no idea we’d find you all the way out here.” He almost cracked a smile. “How the hell’d you get away from them anyhow? They guaranteed us their facility was locked down tight as a tick.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer him, but I couldn’t think of a reason to lie. “They’re dead.”
If I expected a reaction from Agent Truman, I didn’t get it. “I guess that explains the silence on their end.”
I frowned. “If he has a GPS tracker, how come I don’t?”
Agent Truman regarded me. “How do you know you don’t?” He lifted his shoulders. “If you do, it’s not one we were given access to.”
A tracker. If whoever bought me knew where I was that would change everything. My stomach convulsed.
I hated asking, but I needed to know. “Can you tell if I . . . if they . . . put one in me too?”
Agent Truman rolled his eyes. “Relax. The one in him is ours. We supplied it to them. And unless the folks who paid for you have access to highly classified government technology, like the device we put in your friend here, then you’re free and clear.”
He didn’t exactly set my mind at ease, but he had a point. What were the odds there were two government agencies bidding on hybrid alien teens?
I slipped closer to Thom, inspecting his neck. The skin was so smooth . . . as it would be, I supposed. He’d already healed around whatever they’d done to him. “So there’s something in there? And they put it there, Eddie Ray and Natty?”
Agent Truman scoffed. “Natty? I heard that was what she was goin’ by now. Cute.” He used the knife’s tip to point at the bed, indicating it was time to get started. Thom reluctantly settled down.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”