"What?"
"Stop looking at me with that stupid sad puppy face. You're as bad as Zach."
Dex arched an eyebrow but didn't respond.
"He looks at me with that face. Like he's sorry for me. I'm no one's charity case."
"That's not what I was thinking," Dex said quietly, swinging slowly. "I'm pretty sure that's not what Zach thinks either."
"Then what?"
"I was trying not to get angry."
Austen cast him a sideways glance. "About what?"
"About how you should have been given the chance to be a normal kid. Go to school, get in trouble for reading comic books during math class or putting a skunk in the PE teacher's car for telling your little brother he stinks at dodgeball. Hard to avoid something twice your size being hurled at you by Therian kids bigger than you."
Austen stared at him. "You put a skunk in your teacher's car?"
Dex waggled his brows. "Guess who stunk after that?"
Austen snorted. "You're such a dork, Daley."
"Old news."
Austen shrugged, his gaze off at nothing. "Hard to miss something you never had. I got lucky."
"Lucky?" Dex shook his head in disgust. "You were shooting people in the head before you were old enough to buy a beer. I mean, what the hell was Sparks thinking? Then again, it's not like she gives a fuck. She used you the same way she does everyone else."
"You don't know shit, Daley," Austen snapped, startling Dex. "Yeah, she's done a lot of fucked-up shit, but don't think for a second you know her. Granted, sometimes I want to tell her to go fuck herself, but she saved my life. She asked me to join TIN because I wanted it more than anything. I was tired of being vulnerable, of feeling scared and having to run. Tired of seeing Therians my age forced out into the street, turning tricks, and dying with a needle in their arms just for being Therian. Do you know what it's like to blow a guy just so you won't starve?
"I came close once, but ran at the last second. Instead I became really good at stealing and not getting caught. Until Sloane. He was the first mark who caught me, and I swear I thought I was fucked, because he was either going to turn me in or accept my offer." Austen dropped his gaze to his boots. "It was the first time the idea didn't make me feel sick to my stomach. Maybe because I knew he wouldn't take advantage of me like so many of the others would have." A slow smile crept up his boyish face. "Also, he was hot. He was so fucking good, so nice. Not because he wanted something from me, but because he was a genuinely good guy. Blew my mind. Before Sloane, I hated everyone. I hated the whole fucking world and just wanted to see it all burn. After Sloane introduced me to Sparks, she brought me to THIRDS HQ. She didn't give me the spiel. Instead she let me shadow Destructive Delta. I'll never forget what she said. Maybe you'll never grow up to be the kind of man Sloane Brodie is, but you can make him proud."
Dex swallowed hard. That made sense. Sloane had a way of inspiring people, of making them want to do their best just so they wouldn't disappoint him.
"I've never forgotten those words. She knew me. I don't know how, but she did. It was all I needed to hear, because it was all I wanted. I begged her to let me work for her. I'd do whatever she wanted. She said it would be the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life, and that sometimes I'd hate her or regret my decision to join, but when that happened, I had to think of Sloane, and others like him, both Therian and Human. As a show of her trust in me, she showed me TIN's file on Sloane."
Dex stared at Austen. "TIN had a file on Sloane?" Had Sparks considered Sloane for TIN earlier? If she had, why hadn't she approached him? Why wait?
Austen nodded. "TIN has files on exceptional Therians. Those who would make good operatives. The more I read about Sloane, the more inspired I was. Here was a guy who had been experimented on and tortured, and instead of letting his anger and hate consume him, he used his pain to drive him toward something good. Your man was the source of a lot of arguments between Sparks and the higher-ups in TIN."
"Really? Why?"
"TIN wanted to bring S
loane in right after Gabe was killed. Sparks refused."
"What the hell? Why would they think Sloane would join them at a time like that?" It struck Dex then. "Because he was vulnerable and angry."
Austen nodded. "With the pain so raw, getting Sloane to start fresh with a new life doing something to protect those he cared about would have been an easy sell. When you lose someone you love, and suddenly you're presented with the opportunity to do something about it, to prevent it from happening again...."
The irony was not lost on Dex. His heart hurt. "It's hard to turn down something like that."
"You didn't."
"I know," Dex sighed. "Why didn't Sparks want to bring Sloane in?"
"She said he wasn't in the right frame of mind. That he'd be too unpredictable and hard to control. And maybe that's true. Wouldn't be the first time an operative ended up on the wrong path, but if you ask me, she was protecting him."