I was mystified. What was Kara going to do to me? She didn’t look like she had it in her to beat me, physically. She was quite short, and though she wasn’t delicate, like Callie, her mass came from a curvy figure, not muscle. Then again, who knows what havoc she could wreak with her ability — maybe healing was only the positive side of what she could do.

Surprisingly, what she seemed to want to do was talk to me. A whole lot.

“We brought you out here because we need to explain some things to you,” she said. “I’m sorry it went down like that. We had to make it fast, and it had to happen out of Graham’s range. Callie sensed an opportunity, and we thought it might be our only chance to reach you. We figured you wouldn’t come willingly.”

She’d figured right. I just stared back at her, which she seemed to find a little unnerving. She shot a glance over at Williams, but I could’ve told her he wasn’t going to help her out with this. The guy wasn’t much of a talker.

Kara took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She looked sad. She also looked a lot older than her years, sort of worn out.

“Graham trained me too,” she said. “He told me that we protect the world from dangerous Seconds. Sound familiar? It’s not true. Our job is to keep humans from finding out about the S-Em. He also told me that we have the support and protection of some powerful Seconds. That’s misleading. The real story is they control us. Totally. We’re basically slaves. The Seconds tell us what to do, who to fight, who to kill. We don’t have any choices.”

I felt my body go still, like the world had stopped, but only I realized it.

“They don’t care if humans are killed, so long as it’s kept quiet. I’ve never been sent on a mission that was supposed to protect humans. The only thing we protect is the secret. I’ve been sent to kill Seconds that were as harmless as kittens just because they slipped up once, and someone might’ve seen something funny. And I know of one back in New York who kills a human every couple weeks, but they leave her alone because she’s discreet.”

I thought about it. Had Graham ever actually said his organization protected humans? Maybe not. He’d said some Seconds were dangerous to humans and some weren’t. Maybe I’d jumped to conclusions.

“He tell you about the open strait?” Kara said.

I nodded.