Blake blinked. “You know about Brian? Since when?”
I didn’t give him the benefit of my answer.
His grip on my wrists tightened until I could feel the bones rubbing together. “Tell me!”
“I saw the obituary for your parents! I put two and two together.”
“When?” He shook me, snapping my head back. “How long have you known? Who have you told?”
“No one!” I screamed, dizzy and faint. “I haven’t told anyone.”
For several seconds, he stared at me, and then his grip loosened. “I hope so, for their sake. Things are bigger than you realize. Not everything I told you is a lie. The DOD does want humans like us. That’s their ultimate plan.” He eased up a little, but I still felt like I was being smothered by his weight. “I know what you’re doing, Katy. Don’t call upon the Source. I’m stronger than you. Next time you won’t recover so quickly. I will hurt you.”
“I already know that,” I spat.
“I like you. I really do. And I wish things were different. You have no idea how badly I wish things were different, Katy.” He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, they glistened with tears. “Everything I told you about my friend was true, but I grew up knowing about the Luxen. My dad worked as liaison to the DOD, on genetic engineering. And, well, you know who my uncle is. I’m not even sure if the whole accident that changed me wasn’t staged.” He laughed grimly. “They knew how close Chris and I were, so maybe they expected him to heal me. And the Arum did find my family. None of that is a lie.”
“But after that? Everything else is a lie.”
“My family was gone, Katy. All I had was my uncle. They trained me and since I’m young, they sent me to areas where they suspected a human around my age had been mutated.”
“Oh my God…” I felt sick, and I wanted him off me. I wanted him to be gone. “So this is what you do? Go around, pretending to be someone’s friend? Setting up others?”
“My job is to discover if they are salvageable.”
“Salvageable?” I whispered, knowing what he meant. “And if they’re not, they get put down.”
He nodded. “Or worse, Katy… There are worse things than death.”
I shuddered. It made sense, his obsession with me being able to control the Source, his escalating recklessness.
“I came here to see if you could control the Source. If you would be an asset to the DOD or a waste, but they already checked you out before I arrived, watching you, following how close you are with the Blacks. I heard they even engineered the Arum attacks on you, hoping one of the Blacks would step in and save you, heal you.”
I gasped. Everything that happened to me had been some sort of experiment? What if I’d died? “What if no one had survived the Arum attack to heal me?”
Blake laughed. “What’s one more dead Luxen to these people? But when they suspected that you’d been healed, they made the necessary calls, and I was brought in.” He lowered his head, voice dropping. “They also want to know which one healed you. No guesses. No assumptions. You’re going to have to tell them.”
My heart tumbled over. “I’ll never tell.”
A sad smile appeared on his lips. “Oh, you will. They have ways of making you talk. They already have their suspicions. My guess is Daemon. It’s so obvious, but they want proof. And if you don’t play their games, they’ll find ways to make you play.” The smile faded from his lips, eyes growing dark and haunted. “Just like they found a way to make me play.”
I swallowed, unnerved by the pain in his eyes. “Like with Bethany and Dawson?”
Blake’s lashes lowered, and he nodded. “There are more, Katy. You…you have no idea…but it doesn’t matter. You’ll probably be seeing him soon enough. All I need to do is make one call, and Uncle Brian and Nancy will come. Nancy will be ecstatic.” He grunted out an ugly laugh. “Uncle Brian has kept her out of the loop. She has no idea how well you’re doing. And they’re going to take you away. They take care of you…as long as you behave. You just have to behave.”
For a moment, my brain emptied and panic replaced any calm I’d gained. I struggled wildly under him, but he held me down easily.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, and God, I believed that he was. “But if I don’t do this, they will hurt Chris and I can’t…” He swallowed thickly.
My fear knew no limits at that point. Blake really had no choice. It was his life and his friend’s or mine. No. No, that wasn’t right. He did have a choice, because I would never give up someone else for my survival.
But would I for Daemon?
My heart turned over heavily, and I knew the answer to that. Shades of gray…one big, giant gray area I couldn’t think about right now.
“No. You do have a choice,” I insisted. “You can go against them. Escape! We can find a way to free—”
“We?” He laughed again. “Who is we, Katy? Daemon? Dee? You and me? Hell, every one of us could try to go against the DOD and we’d fail. And the Blacks are going to want to help me? Knowing that I work for the people who took their brother?”
My stomach twisted. “You still have a choice. You don’t have to do this. Please, Blake, you don’t have to do this.”
He looked away, jaw clenching. “But I do. And one day, you’ll be in the same position as I am. You’ll understand then.”