Monster Like You

Chapter 10

From the day his life changed forever, Nathaniel knew for sure: there is nothing scarier than the unknown. She was exhausting, crushing. With its help, it was easy to manipulate a person. Therefore, he understood that he had been deliberately kept in suspense for the last couple of hours.

Sitting in the small conference room, where he had participated in the meeting as a full-fledged member of the team in the morning, Nathaniel looked at the bracelets that bound his wrists and was angry. Partly on Corps, which used the same methods as Penn in his laboratory, but mostly on himself. It should have been guessed that a comparative DNA analysis would be carried out quickly enough. And be careful, but he wanted to deal with his tormentor so much that he did not think about caution. For which he paid.

However, Elsdon would have come out with his calculations anyway. The whole idea was initially doomed to failure. But what can he do? He didn't have enough time to come up with a better plan. All because the stupid girl refused to run away with him, as he suggested. No, I decided to wait for Corps. Wait for the one from whom she was made. A naive fool who believes that she will be helped. Apparently, Velvet was like that when they took her blood: an enthusiastic idiot.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement behind the transparent door and tore his gaze away from his hands. Vet was standing at the entrance to the conference room. Pale, but determined. A grin slid across Nathaniel's lips: wow, she came by herself after all. Who would doubt, but not him? He remembered well how she, trembling with fear, went to interrogate a serial killer when required. The eyes are afraid - the hands do. The other one, who he once was, admired it.

After hesitating for a couple of seconds at the threshold, Vet entered the conference room and closed the door, leaving the guards outside. After a quick glance at him, she gasped, closed her eyes, paling even more, but immediately pulled herself together.

When Vet sat down opposite and spoke, her voice sounded even. And that made Nathaniel angry for some reason.

"I want to inform you in advance that our conversation is being recorded and can be accepted in court as official evidence. If it comes to that."

"Will you put me on trial?" he feigned surprise, looking at her from under his brows, although the prospect gave him a wave of goosebumps. His insides twisted with horror, but Nathaniel didn't show it. He knew how to control himself no worse. "I see that during my absence Corps has become bolder, since it is ready to take out the trash from the hut."

"Stop pretending," Vet snapped, a little more sharply than he expected. She obviously didn't like it either, because she tightened her clasped hands on the table in front of her. "We already know that you are not Nathaniel Bond, who accidentally survived two years ago."

"And yet my memories of Corps end just shortly before that. When was the last time he donated blood?"

"Who are you?" Vet asked, still evenly.

"I don't like questions that everyone already knows the answers to. Ask something else."

"Why do you have human eyes?"

He shrugged lazily.

"Haven't you sorted out Penn's notes yet?"

Vet said nothing, boring him with the same calm gaze. Where did the delicate blush and hope in his eyes go? Nathaniel decided that for such iron self-control, he could encourage her a little.

"I was created a year later than Alyss. Version 3.0, just like I told you. More perfect, more stable. Penn learned from her mistakes."

"Did you kill her?"

"You know the answer to that question perfectly well, too," he hissed bitterly, leaning forward a little and lifting his manacled hands. "That's why I'm here like this."