Chase didn’t flinch at Griff’s bluntness. “In exchange, I get to study you, observe you, help you.”
“You want to become immortal yourself?” Hunt asked. He remained standing in the center of the room even while the rest of us sat. He tracked every one of Chase’s movements for sign of a new threat.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t given the choice.”
“True. But I’ve given you a great gift.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Brady said.
Meeting each of our stares in turn, Chase then said, “You may not like me now, but I think you’ll soon see I’m the one who offers you the most benefits.” He chuffed. “By far. You may be thinking now that you’ll never trust me.”
“We are,” Brady said.
Chase shrugged, the crisp shoulders of his shirt rising to accentuate his total lack of concern. “Trust me or don’t, time will reveal that, but realize, I’m the devil you know. I’m not hiding my motivations from you, and I won’t hide information from you either, once we come to an agreement.”
“So you keep mentioning,” Layla said. “What about our parents?”
He leaned back, his hands coming to his thighs. “Again, not your parents. Not a single one of you were carried in the wombs of those you believe to be your mothers. I paid surrogates quite handsomely to do the job.”
My mom’s smiling face flashed into my mind. The many photos she and my dad had shown me of her with a swollen belly, him hugging her, and the two of them beaming as they celebrated the baby soon to come.
Me.
“Bullshit,” I snarled.
“No. They might have stolen from me, but I have my resources. Of this, I have plenty of proof.”
“Show us,” Layla whispered, her volume alone suggesting her disbelief likely rivaled my own.
“I’ll show you everything. I’ll share the truth. It might not be pretty, and you might not like it, but I’ll never lie to you.”
None of us said anything. If we couldn’t even trust our supposed parents, like hell were we going to just start trusting this guy. A man who’d proven he had no qualms about justifying murders—ours and who knew how many others.
“What would you prefer? The liars and thieves who deceived you for your whole lives? Or me? At least with me, I don’t claim to love any of you. I don’t even like any of you yet; I only like what I can get from you. With me, you’ll always know my motivations, which are predictable. Can you say the same about the scientists who stole their lab rats and pretended to be their parents?”
Brady whistled. “Man, you are one stone-cold sonofabitch, aren’t you?”
“I am. And that alone makes me more trustworthy than them.”
“Show us the proof,” Layla said, “and then we’ll see.”
“I could. But I won’t. I know how to play the game of leverage and I play it quite well. My many business associates can attest to that.
“At this moment, the people you believed to be your parents are scouring the area, searching for you. By now, they’ve probably figured out I’m behind the fire at the school and the disappearance of their precious ‘children.’” He scoffed. “What a ruse. All to have continual access to up-to-date data. Before long, they’ll find us. After all, I hired them because they’re the best in their fields, which makes them at the very least smart enough to follow a few breadcrumbs. You agree to come with me and I give you the truth. All of it.”
“And if we refuse?” Hunt asked while Griffin squeezed my hand.
Chase looked at Hunt, his face relaxed and unapologetic. “I take you anyway, by force, and then we don’t get to be friends. And you don’t learn the truth yourparentswill never give you because they don’t want you to know what they’ve done. You won’t like what you find out about them, I’ll warn you.”
With that, even though it was maybe stupid and definitely reckless, I was in.
“Where would you take us?”
“To a special school I’ve been building just for those like you.”
“There are others like us?” Griffin asked softly.
