His eyes slid coolly, calmly, to the knife in his hand. “Haven’t you heard, sport? I’m a doctor.”
Thom closed his eyes as Agent Truman began probing his fingers over the surface of his neck, presumably searching for whatever had been planted inside. I shuddered—he may have been a doctor once, but he had a terrible bedside manner. To distract myself, I pushed for more information. “So you knew Natty?”
“I know . . . knew of her. She had an impressive reputation, that one. She and that partner of hers, Eddie Ray, worked the black market for years. Made a killing. No pun intended.” He winked, making it clear the pun was totally intended. Also, making it clear he had a cold, dead heart. He glanced up at me. “I never really trusted her.” His lips pursed. “Eddie Ray I got—his loyalty was all about the almighty dollar. Whoever had the deepest pockets, you know what I mean.” He pressed his finger over something and Thom grimaced. He seemed to have found whatever it was he was searching for.
Then he got the knife ready.
I spoke up before there was no going back. “Aren’t you at least gonna sterilize that or something?”
“He’ll be fine. That’s the beauty of healing at super-speed. It works to fight off bacteria too. Right, sport?”
Thom opened his eyes and gave me a he’s-not-wrong shrug. I couldn’t exactly argue. If Thom wasn’t freaking out, how could I?
“About this black market you mentioned, what’s that all about? How does that even work? What would anyone even do once they got us?”
Agent Truman gave me a quick but critical glance. “You’re not that naive, are you? You can’t tell me you’d be surprised to know how valuable you—we”—he corrected, because we all knew he was a Returned as well—“are on the open market. People pay big money for crazy shit. My division alone ponied up a crap ton for ol’ Tommy Boy here, all in the name of science.” He leaned over Thom and leered into his face, reminding me why I always thought of him as a shark.
“You’re the worst.”
“I doubt that. There are some sick SOBs out there, people who like to . . .” He jammed the tip of his knife into Thom’s throat, making Thom flinch. He didn’t actually cut him open or anything, but it left a nasty mark. “. . . experiment,” he finished.
“Like you?”
“You can’t have progress without sacrifice.” He shrugged as if it made no difference to him one way or the other, and I wondered if this indifferent attitude was all hot air—an act he put on to make me believe he didn’t give a crap. Or if he was really as cold and as unfeeling as he made it seem.
“There are some who just like to ‘collect’ us, like freaks in a zoo. Create their own little museums.” Another who-cares shrug. “And others who like to use our blood for sport. Stick some poor sap in a sealed container and expose them to it. Then they sit back and watch.”
“Until what?” But I had the sinking feeling I already knew the answer.
Agent Truman didn’t hesitate to fill in the blank. “The Code Red.”
My stomach rolled as I thought of Tyler—the way he’d suffered before I’d decided to take him to Devil’s Hole.
“What about me? If you were buying Thom, how come you didn’t buy me too?”
“Your friend ‘Natty’ never told me she had you. I mean, I knew they had a Replaced, that was why we attacked Blackwater in the first place—we intercepted that message she sent out.”
So the message Natty sent hadn’t been to the NSA.
He glanced down at Thom. “As much as I like my experiments . . . and I do like my experiments, kids like you . . . well, you’re chump change in the grand scheme of things.” He grinned. “No offense.” He offered it like it somehow absolved his vileness. Turning back to me, he explained, “Getting my hands on you would have changed everything.”
I felt dirty. To my very core I felt sick and dirty and like I was the real traitor. I was the one who’d gotten Blackwater attacked, not Natty . . . not really. I turned to glare at Agent Truman. How had I ever thought he could be trusted? How had I thought this was a good idea, asking him to side with us? “And now? Is that what this is—your big chance to capture me?”
“Jesus, girl, if I’d have wanted to haul you in, I’d’a done so by now.” There was an undercurrent of irritation in his voice, and I wondered if I’d struck a nerve. “If this is your way of thanking me for saving your friend here, then you’re welcome.”
“What about Alex Walker? When we were at Blackwater, you said you didn’t need me, because you had him?” A thick cloud of guilt twisted and churned in my stomach, becoming something dark, something stormy.
“Kid from Delta?” Agent Truman clarified. “Yeah, I thought he was like you, but I was wrong. Turns out, he was just garden-variety Returned.”
I let out a long, low breath. “What . . . what did you do to him?”