He smirked. “For starters…you know all those accounts frozen by Talon when you went rogue? I can open them again, and make it so they’ll never be traced back to you.”

“What?” I stared at him, and his smirk widened.

“I told you, I’m one of the best, mate. You need something, some file stolen or code decrypted, I can do that. In fact…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a strip of black plastic. “A goodwill offering,” he announced, tossing it to me.

“What is this?” I asked as I caught it.

“All of Talon’s files on you. Everything you’ve done for the organization, all their information on where you’ve been, where you’ve stayed, your case files, your assignments, your hatching date, everything. Congratulations. You are now truly a ghost to them.” I gazed up at him, stunned, and his smile turned hard. “You know you were never supposed to come back from that mission, right? According to your file, you were becoming a ‘liability’ and ‘suspect to corruption.’ Which is Talon’s way of saying they couldn’t control you anymore. So they decided to stage an accident, have you killed in the line of duty.” He shrugged. “But, since you’re here and not buried under a ton of bricks and mortar, I guess you already knew that.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, glancing at the thumb drive in amazement. My whole life, on this tiny strip of plastic. And now, it was mine alone. Thanks to this human, tracking me down had just become that much harder. “I guess that ‘file’ they had me steal from St. George was bogus, too,” I said, slipping the drive into my jacket. “Just an excuse to get me into the compound.”

“Oh, no, mate. That was very real.” Wes grinned again as I looked up. “Talon took a very important file from St. George that day. They already had an agent inside the base, why not use him one last time? Only problem? It seems to be missing now. Like it was never there. Funny how that works.”

“You have the file,” I said, and he shrugged. “So what is it?”

“You’re asking me? I thought you worked alone.”

I glowered, but it was a mostly empty gesture. The human was right; he was far too useful not to keep around. Still, something nagged at me. “Let’s say I accept your offer,” I began, making his brows rise. “Why do this? What do you get out of it?”

“Besides staying alive? I would think that’s a sodding good reason right there, but…there is something else.” Wes leaned back in the chair, his face suddenly hard. “The bloody lizards stole my life,” he muttered. “I’ll never be normal. I’ll never be able to see my family, get married, have kids, anything like that. Because of Talon.”