Next to him, Maya exhaled sharply and looked away.
Gray just managed not to flinch. A split second later, a wave of dizziness rocked him. He locked his knees, but he still might have stumbled if he hadn’t been leaning against the wall already. He clenched his teeth against the nausea that followed hard on its heels, burning up his throat like a line of accelerant that had been set aflame.
“Hey.” Maya lowered her voice and leaned closer. “You okay?”
If he turned his head too fast or opened his mouth, he’d puke. He managed a slight nod.
She vanished from his peripheral vision, only to return a moment later. The cool aluminum of one of their reusable water bottles brushed his fingers. “If you need it.”
He took the bottle and slowly turned to meet her gaze. She was gazing up at him, her brow furrowed with concern. He distracted himself from a fresh wave of nausea by cataloguing her features: smooth, dark skin, square jaw, full lips.
Then his gaze reached her eyes, and his body tightened with thwarted anger. A burgeoning bruise sat high on one cheekbone, courtesy of her encounter with the security patrol in the parking lot. It would turn into a full-fledged shiner soon. The rest of the team hadn’t needed him, not to extract one kid. He should have been out there, watching over Maya.
Or maybe not, not with the way his hands were shaking right now.
She stared at him, her frown deepening. Even with one eye swelling, she saw too much. If he didn’t say something soon, she’d start to freak out.
“Thanks,” he rasped, lifting the bottle to gesture toward the little girl. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Suspicion tinged her voice, but her frown smoothed a little.
Guilt gripped him. They were all so easy—to fool, to divert. To reassure.
Mace never would have stood for it. Their medic would have taken one look at the sweat beading on Gray’s upper lip and his dilated pupils and dragged him off to an exam room—by force, if necessary.
It had never been necessary. Every one of the Silver Devils had trusted Mace absolutely. They did as he asked, when he asked, and he rewarded that trust by literally preserving their lives.
But Mace was dead now. Gone. He wasn’t preserving anything, not anymore.
A strident buzz cut through Gray’s reverie, and Conall looked up from his tablet. “The Professor’s at the door.”
Nina nodded to Dani and Rafe. “Why don’t you two take our guest up to see Tia Ivonne? Go out through the front.”
Rafe swept up the plate of cookies and passed it to Dani. Then he held out a hand. After another tense moment, the small girl slipped her fingers into his. Rafe gave her a big grin and led her through the door to the main loft.
When they were out of earshot, Nina turned back to Conall. “It’s about time. Let him in.” The command given, she propped her hands on her hips and began pacing the width of the warehouse at the back of her building. “I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re going to kill him,” Gray’s captain—former captain—agreed readily.
“I mean it. I don’t care what we owe him, Knox. This is too much. Too far.”
Nina’s contact, the man they all simply called the Professor, had intervened when the TechCorps had been within days—hell, maybe even hours—of catching up to the Silver Devils and wiping them off the face of the fucking planet. That debt weighed heavy on her, so if she was ready to wash her hands of this guy …
The Professor had really screwed the pooch.
“I know, Nina.” Knox touched his lover’s arm, soothing rather than restraining. “After we find out about the girl.”
The man who walked in was dressed in clothes that had been old-fashioned even back when the Flares hit. His baggy, brown pants were topped with a sweater vest and a jacket with patches on the elbows. His collar was wrinkled, as if he’d been wearing a tie but had abandoned it.
“What took you so long?” Nina hissed. It had been hours since Nina had dashed off an angry but cryptic message to the man. The sun had come up and was nearing its zenith, and he’d left them all waiting. Stewing.
“It took me some time to get away. Where is she?” he demanded.
“Upstairs.” At least Nina had the mercy to answer the question. Gray would have made him squirm in retribution. “You should have told me, John. I won’t be a party to kidnapping.”
“I know,” the man answered mildly. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
She sucked in a harsh breath and turned to Knox, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d schooled his expression into something unreadable—flat and aloof, revealing nothing of the anger seething beneath the surface.
And he was angry. Long association with Garrett Knox had taught Gray that the angrier he got, the more he tried to hide it. When he shut down completely like this? Rage wasn’t a strong enough word to cover it.
Professor John Smith—the absolute fakest goddamn name Gray had ever heard—was in for a world of hurt if he couldn’t answer Nina’s questions to her satisfaction.
Nina took another breath, this one deep and bracing. “Who is she?”
The Professor stared back, unblinking. “She’s me.”
A low rumble, like muted thunder, came from Knox. “Don’t be cute. Answer the fucking question.”
“I did.” For the first time, the man looked a little peevish. “Run a DNA comparison, if you like.”
Nina’s eyes widened. “She’s a clone?”
“Come now, Nina. Think.”
Knox’s hands twitched into fists, but before he had a chance to dive across the room, Maya started laughing.
“Oh my God.” She jabbed a finger in the Professor’s direction. “It has been driving me crazy, trying to figure out who the fuck you are, because I should know anyone who has access to the sort of shit you do. Except you’re not just a good little TechCorps employee with access to all the sweet IP, are you? You are the IP.”
“Intellectual property? Not quite. Not for a long time. And I am merely employed by the TechCorps.” He paused. “I should start at the beginning.”
“Yes,” Nina whispered. “You should.”
For several long moments, he just looked around the room, as if he had all the time in the world. But when his gaze lighted on Knox’s still-clenched fists, he cleared his throat and focused on Nina. “You’re … what? Sixteenth generation? Seventeenth? The Franklin Center has almost perfected its techniques.”
Nina went still. “You know about me.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s not the cloning, mind you. They had that down from the start. But the engineering … That took them a while.” He laughed, a mirthless sound that made Maya shiver beside Gray.
Gray had to stop himself from echoing the gesture.
The man pulled off his heavy-rimmed glasses and tossed them aside. Their absence seemed to change more than the look of his face. He squared his shoulders and stood a little taller, his stance shifting into a posture more suited to combat than conversation.
Then he held out his hand. “I should introduce myself properly. JH-Gen2.”
Nina exploded into motion, slapping his hand away and drawing her pistol in one motion. “Designation?”