“Yeah. There were mistakes in the early years. We’re careful now.” Patchaya looked away, mouth pressed into a thin line. “If his information has gone to INHUP . . . there’s nothing I can do.”

Nita’s throat was tight. She hadn’t truly understood the scale of INHUP operations, of how many different people in how many different places would be involved before Kovit’s name went up.

The cat wasn’t just out of the bag. It was long gone and had kittens.

In her mind’s eye, she pictured the day the wanted ad went up. Kovit would be sitting in a hotel room, terrified to go outside, terrified to be recognized, terrified to exist. But it wouldn’t matter, because the takeout place across the street would see him when they went to deliver pizza. And they’d post it on the internet, and the mob would force Kovit to pay for the crimes he’d committed.

Or maybe Kovit would be walking down the street. New haircut, fake glasses, full disguise. And then someone would see him, see through the look, and call the police. They’d surround him, dozens of cars, dozens of men in blue, guns raised high. And Kovit would look up at the sky, hopelessness writ large in those beautiful black eyes.

And he’d die.

Kovit’s information was going up online in one week, and there was absolutely nothing Nita could do about it.

Nine

NITA AND PATCHAYA got off at Spadina station. As they rode the escalator up, Nita checked her cell phone for texts, but there was no reception. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.

Patchaya chewed her lip, a small furrow between her brows.

“Deep in thought?” Nita asked.

“Trying to think of anything I can do to stop this.” She shook her head. “Short of somehow getting rid of the whole Dangerous Unnaturals List, I don’t know how we’d stop it.”

Nita blinked.

Get rid of the whole list.

Adair, the information broker she’d stayed with until yesterday, had told her that the list had been built corrupt, that the only creatures on it were the ones with body parts valuable on the black market. That the list wasn’t there to protect people as INHUP claimed, but to make people money. That the creation of the list was, in and of itself, leading the monsters on it to commit crimes. After all, if it was a crime to be born, there was no legal way to live your life, so you had to turn to illegal ones. A vicious cycle of making monsters.

But if the list weren’t there . . . well, a lot of problems would be solved.

But how could she get rid of the list?

“Are you okay?” Patchaya asked.

Nita gave her a tight smile. “Fine. Just thinking. Trying to find other ways out of this.”