The Replaced(80)

“But when I went to them . . . told them I was sick and had no other option on account of what you’d done to me, they gave me a chance anyway.”

My eyes lowered to his hand—his cast-free right hand, which was holding his gun perfectly. Precisely. “You weren’t hurt,” I accused. “Up at Devil’s Hole.” But it felt so lame to add lying to his list of offenses when there were so many more horrible things he’d done.

He shook his head. “No, I was hurt,” he corrected. “Just not as bad as you thought. I was mostly good as new by then, but I had to put on a good show.” He grinned, a shark-toothed grin. “One of my finer acts, if I do say so myself. Plus, it hurt like a . . .” His gaze narrowed on me as his words trailed off. “I don’t forgive you, by the way.” He grimaced. “Like I said, my body is older. One of the side effects is that I heal slower. And more painfully, so it seems.”

Suddenly so many things made sense. The way Natty and Jett and the others had told me he hadn’t fled when everyone else had, after I’d shot myself.

Why would he? He wasn’t afraid of the dreaded Code Red because he was one of us. His blood was just as lethal as ours. And what about that other thing, the way he’d disappeared that night at Devil’s Hole? Had he been taken at all, or had they let him get away, the way they had Simon and me?

“But you . . .” His dark expression grew even darker as he leveled his gaze on Griffin. I wondered if he could really go through with it, killing his own daughter. “You thought you got the best of me with that stunt of yours, but look who’s laughing now, daughter dearest?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and I had mine the instant he pulled the trigger.

Pulled it for real, and a bullet, the actual kind and not the beanbag kind—the ones that could most definitely kill us if fired into exactly the right place—ripped through Griffin’s right shoulder.

The sound blended into the backdrop of all the other shots being fired, and I gasped because I seriously hadn’t believed he’d go through with it.

I still couldn’t.

Griffin must have felt that same disbelief, because her eyes flew wide. She fell against the canvas wall behind her and then she slid to the ground, leaving a smear of blood on the dusty field of army green. He raised his weapon again, only this time, instead of pointing it at Griffin, he aimed it at me, training it right at the center of my forehead, and all I could think was that if he’d shot his daughter, he would definitely-absolutely-unequivocally shoot me.

I shook my head. I couldn’t help myself. Even as I stood there facing the barrel of his gun, I heard myself asking, “If you’re one of us, how can you work with them?”

He looked at me like the answer was obvious. “What else was I supposed to do? Go with Griffin? Be part of her army?” He pointed the gun at her again, to where she was struggling to get up. And then he fired, this time at her left shoulder, sending her flying against the tent all over again. He ignored her yelp as if it made no difference to him—and maybe it didn’t—as he continued, “I hardly think so. The Division gave me a chance to continue with my experiments. Most of those guys don’t even know who—or what—I am. That information’s on a need-to-know basis. Classified shit.” The gun shifted, so it was pointing at my head again. “You wanna know what else is classified?” His finger stroked the trigger.

I took a step back, trying to put some distance between him and me, my heart picking up by several beats.

“What’s that?” I asked, keeping his attention trained on me as I took still another step away from him, hoping he’d stay right where he was.

From where she was on the ground, Griffin muttered something about son-of-a-bitch, but both of us were ignoring her now as Agent Truman or Dr. Bennett or whatever the heck his name was concentrated on me, and I concentrated solely on creating distance between me and that gun in his hand.

“The information in those files you stole.”

It was his one big mistake, reminding me how different I was from the rest of them. In all the chaos, I’d nearly forgotten my worth, even if it was only as a science experiment.

I stopped backing away and lifted my chin. “You won’t do it,” I challenged. “I’m the one you’re after. I’m the one you’ve been after all this time.”

He flashed his teeth, and just like that he was the polar bear and I was a three-year-old girl. “Makes no difference to me.” His words hung there for a minute before he pushed on, “We have another one, just like you. Picked him up a couple hours from here.” His brows rose challengingly, his forehead bunching up. “Funny thing is, after running some tests, you know the ones, kid healed just as fast as you . . . maybe faster. Bet he can do all kindsa crazy shit, that one.”

Hearing him talk about Alex Walker that way turned my stomach.

I nodded then. Not at Agent Truman, but at the person waiting behind him. The one I’d really been backing away from this entire time.

When Willow swung the bat she’d been holding, I heard it whistle through the air. And when it struck the side of Agent Truman’s head, there was a moment when I thought I might actually lose my lunch. I had to keep reminding myself he could heal . . . even if, like he said, it was slower than the rest of us.

I hoped he hadn’t lied about that other part, though, and that it hurt him like a mother.