The Replaced (21 page)

WE WERE AT THE EDGE OF THE OBSTACLE COURSE
when the helicopters appeared overhead. But even before we heard them—or smelled and tasted the dust being stirred in the air, signaling their approach—there were shouts, calls to action all around us.

Griffin’s camp came to life.

It was no longer a group of teens being drilled in make-believe war maneuvers. Her Returned were fine-tuned soldiers under attack. There were far more of them than I’d ever imagined as they swarmed the field and the perimeter, looking like an endless stream of ants as they poured forth,
coming from everywhere all at once. They manned their stations, and moved with the fluid quality of those who’d spent years on the battlefield.

They were prepared, and Griffin was their general.

The sounds of gunfire split the air, and even without knowing which direction it was coming from, instinctively I ducked my head, lifting my arm to shield myself. It sounded close, and seemed to ricochet inside my head.

“Keep moving!” Griffin shouted. “Simon’s getting Tyler!”

“What about Thom? Did you catch him?”

“No! After we intercepted his message, I sent a patrol after him, but he was already gone. His girl was gone too.”

His girl
. . . “Natty?” I shouted back as I tailed Griffin through the tents, staying as close as possible. “No. That’s a coincidence. She wouldn’t betray me.”

“I can’t say if she did or didn’t. But no one could find her. Makes her look guilty, if you ask me.”

We were almost to the cafeteria, near the computer lab, when a voice—a voice so familiar and chilling, and so out of place in Blackwater that I actually stumbled over my own feet—reached out to us from the shadows. “Don’t make any sudden moves, neither of you. Nothing fancy, just turn around slowly.”

That dark, grating sound that reached into my core and made me cringe.

My nemesis
.

Alive, despite the Code Red.

I tried to imagine how that was possible, when I noticed the way Griffin’s face had gone all gray, like the color of old ash, and it dawned on me: I wasn’t the only one who’d recognized Agent Truman’s voice.

When we turned to face him, I wanted to fall to my knees and cry. We’d gotten so close to escaping, Tyler and me. To running away, no matter where we were headed, and maybe being able to start a new life. Away from this place. Away from Agent Truman and the Daylight Division that was hunting us.

But it was Griffin’s whispered plea that made me choke on a mouthful of bile.

“Dad?” she practically wheezed while everywhere the sounds of weapons firing pealed through the air. “But . . .
how
?”

Dad?

“Are you . . . Griffin . . .
Truman
?” I could hardly get my voice out, pairing her name with his, because surely he couldn’t—no way, no how—be
her
dad. “Is that your name?”

But Agent Truman wasn’t half as shocked to see Griffin as she was to see him, when he revealed himself, stepping out from where the tent had kept him hidden. His face was pinched in a weasel-like expression that couldn’t mean anything good. Not for us anyway. “Of course it’s not. You didn’t think Truman was my real name, did you? And Griffin here, she didn’t keep hers either.” He bit back a cruel smile.

I searched the both of them for some sign of resemblance,
something that said they were father and daughter, but I couldn’t find it. No matter my opinion of her, Griffin had flawless skin and hair that gleamed and bee-stung lips. Agent Truman’s skin was rawhide tough, his eyes dead and ice cold. He was a cowboy in a suit.

“Bennett,” Truman explained, taking in Griffin. “That was our last name. Dr. Arlo Bennett and my daughter, Griffin. Funny how little names matter when you become a pariah. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” He watched—we both did—while she scrubbed her hands over her face as his voice took on a sweet-talking quality. “Do you need a minute? You seem surprised to see me. Don’t tell me you thought you were the only one of us who’d get to live forever?” He sneered at her. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure they’d take me. Back at the Meeting, when we struck our little deal with those alien buggers, they made it clear they did not want us adults. We were too risky. Our bodies were too old and damaged.

“But when I went to them . . . told them I was sick and had no other option on account of what
you’d
done to me, they gave me a chance anyway.”

My eyes lowered to his hand—his cast-free right hand, which was holding his gun perfectly. Precisely. “You weren’t hurt,” I accused. “Up at Devil’s Hole.” But it felt so lame to add lying to his list of offenses when there were so many more horrible things he’d done.

He shook his head. “No, I was hurt,” he corrected. “Just not as bad as you thought. I was mostly good as new by
then, but I had to put on a good show.” He grinned, a shark-toothed grin. “One of my finer acts, if I do say so myself. Plus, it hurt like a . . .” His gaze narrowed on me as his words trailed off. “I don’t forgive you, by the way.” He grimaced. “Like I said, my body is older. One of the side effects is that I heal slower. And more painfully, so it seems.”

Suddenly so many things made sense. The way Natty and Jett and the others had told me he hadn’t fled when everyone else had, after I’d shot myself.

Why would he? He wasn’t afraid of the dreaded Code Red because he was one of us. His blood was just as lethal as ours. And what about that other thing, the way he’d disappeared that night at Devil’s Hole? Had he been taken at all, or had they let him get away, the way they had Simon and me?

“But you . . .” His dark expression grew even darker as he leveled his gaze on Griffin. I wondered if he could really go through with it, killing his own daughter. “You thought you got the best of me with that stunt of yours, but look who’s laughing now, daughter dearest?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and I had mine the instant he pulled the trigger.

Pulled it for real, and a bullet, the actual kind and not the beanbag kind—the ones that could most definitely kill us if fired into exactly the right place—ripped through Griffin’s right shoulder.

The sound blended into the backdrop of all the other shots being fired, and I gasped because I seriously hadn’t
believed he’d go through with it.

I still couldn’t.

Griffin must have felt that same disbelief, because her eyes flew wide. She fell against the canvas wall behind her and then she slid to the ground, leaving a smear of blood on the dusty field of army green. He raised his weapon again, only this time, instead of pointing it at Griffin, he aimed it at me, training it right at the center of my forehead, and all I could think was that if he’d shot his daughter, he would definitely-absolutely-
unequivocally
shoot me.

I shook my head. I couldn’t help myself. Even as I stood there facing the barrel of his gun, I heard myself asking, “If you’re one of us, how can you work with them?”

He looked at me like the answer was obvious. “What else was I supposed to do? Go with Griffin? Be part of her army?” He pointed the gun at her again, to where she was struggling to get up. And then he fired, this time at her left shoulder, sending her flying against the tent all over again. He ignored her yelp as if it made no difference to him—and maybe it didn’t—as he continued, “I hardly think so. The Division gave me a chance to continue with my experiments. Most of those guys don’t even know who—or what—I am. That information’s on a need-to-know basis. Classified shit.” The gun shifted, so it was pointing at my head again. “You wanna know what else is classified?” His finger stroked the trigger.

I took a step back, trying to put some distance between him and me, my heart picking up by several beats.

“What’s that?” I asked, keeping his attention trained on me as I took still another step away from him, hoping he’d stay right where he was.

From where she was on the ground, Griffin muttered something about
son-of-a-bitch,
but both of us were ignoring her now as Agent Truman or Dr. Bennett or whatever the heck his name was concentrated on me, and I concentrated solely on creating distance between me and that gun in his hand.

“The information in those files you stole.”

It was his one big mistake, reminding me how different I was from the rest of them. In all the chaos, I’d nearly forgotten my worth, even if it was only as a science experiment.

I stopped backing away and lifted my chin. “You won’t do it,” I challenged. “I’m the one you’re after. I’m the one you’ve been after all this time.”

He flashed his teeth, and just like that he was the polar bear and I was a three-year-old girl. “Makes no difference to me.” His words hung there for a minute before he pushed on, “We have another one, just like you. Picked him up a couple hours from here.” His brows rose challengingly, his forehead bunching up. “Funny thing is, after running some tests, you know the ones, kid healed just as fast as you . . . maybe faster. Bet he can do all kindsa crazy shit, that one.”

Hearing him talk about Alex Walker that way turned my stomach.

I nodded then. Not at Agent Truman, but at the person
waiting behind him. The one I’d really been backing away from this entire time.

When Willow swung the bat she’d been holding, I heard it whistle through the air. And when it struck the side of Agent Truman’s head, there was a moment when I thought I might actually lose my lunch. I had to keep reminding myself he could heal . . . even if, like he said, it was slower than the rest of us.

I hoped he hadn’t lied about that other part, though, and that it hurt him like a mother.

I kind of envied Willow’s power. I’d always been more of a line drive hitter.

She only struck him once, but it was more than enough. The bat made this disgusting sound as a fine spray of blood filled the air, and a look of sheer horror passed over Agent Truman’s face. He blinked once, and only once, and then his eyes rolled all the way back in his head before he dropped forward, falling heavily on his knees and then landing face-first in the sand.

“It was my turn to save you.” Willow beamed, shouldering the bat.

Griffin was already scrambling to her feet, gasping and cringing because the wounds on each of her shoulders were beginning to pucker around the edges. It had to sting like you-know-what.

She tugged my arm. “Simon and Tyler are waiting for you at the Jeep, out in front of the camp.” She turned to
Willow then as she sucked in a breath through her clenched teeth. “You take her. I’ll stay here and handle . . .
this
.” Her gaze moved to her father—Agent Truman—who was still lying blacked out in the dirt. She reached out and nudged him with her boot. “Go!” she hissed at us. “I mean it.
Go,
before the old man wakes up.”

I didn’t wait to be told again, and I didn’t look back. Griffin could handle her father, the agent-slash-doctor, I had no doubt about that.

Then Willow and I were literally dodging bullets as we made our way through the tent maze. Willow knew exactly when to zig and when to zag, and she got us through the chaos not only unscathed but also unnoticed, and suddenly I was even more impressed by her, glad she was on our side.

When I saw Tyler, though, I nearly gave up on that whole not-crying-in-front-of-others thing. I thought I’d be the only one feeling panicked, but the strain across his forehead told me he was at least as worried about me.

His brow crumpled when he saw me, and before I could run to meet him, Willow grabbed my arm. She used her own body to shield me as she dragged me across the last stretch of open ground to where Tyler was waiting to meet us.

When I felt his arms go around me, and his lips against my forehead, I had a hard time stopping the words
I love you
from bubbling up my throat.

“I need to get you two out of here without anyone seeing us,” Simon insisted, jumping into the Jeep and firing up the engine.

I didn’t get the chance to thank Willow for saving my butt, because when I turned around again, she was gone.

“Where are we going?” I asked Simon as Tyler and I climbed into the Jeep behind him.

“Buckle up, keep your head low, and try not to distract me. I’ll do my best not to get you killed,” Simon told us as he pushed the vehicle into gear and spewed a cloud of dust in our wake. “We only have an hour to get to the designated meeting point. If we’re late, we miss our chance. And if we get caught, we’re dead.”

And with that, I felt Tyler reach for me from the backseat. I let him take my hand, gripping his in return as the wind battered us while we raced across the desert.

SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN THE BACK OF MY NECK
as we hurtled along the two-lane highway.

Every now and then, even from the distance we’d put between us and Blackwater, we’d hear, and feel, an explosion so loud it rocked the ground beneath us, making the Jeep shudder as it coursed along the plane of the asphalt. Acid burned in the back of my throat as I worried about everyone who was still there, back at the camp—Jett and Willow, who’d stuck with me even though I’d never really declared myself one of them, and Griffin and her people, who were now fighting our fight.

And then there was Natty.

I had no idea where Natty was now. No idea if she was on our side . . . or on Thom’s.

But regardless, I couldn’t help the way my stomach knotted when I thought about her. Until I heard otherwise, I couldn’t force myself not to care about her, just because, as Griffin pointed out, her actions made her “look guilty.”

Friendships were never that simple. I knew because of Cat.

Cat, who was five years older than me now and had moved on with her life while I’d been gone.

Cat, who was Austin’s girlfriend now.

Cat, who would forever be my best friend, no matter how hard I tried to deny it.

I checked my watch. And I checked it again, and afterward, I craned my neck to check on Tyler, but he was already checking me checking him. I smiled because even if he couldn’t remember us—the us that curled my toes and made my cheeks burn every time he grinned his crooked grin and feathered his finger along my lower lip, he was looking at me like that now. With that same crooked smile.

There was something about being trapped like this with Simon and Tyler that had me feeling twitchy and tingly, and I couldn’t decide if it was the good kind of twitchy and tingly, or the super weird kind.

Simon had managed to get us away from Blackwater Ranch undetected, yet even away from the onslaught of the Daylighters, alarm bells were still going off inside me.

As the road, and my heart rate, leveled out, I finally asked Simon the question that’d been driving me crazy. “Did you know it was Thom—that he was the traitor? I mean, did you ever suspect?”

Simon’s jaw tensed, and I could see it was eating him up inside. “Not until Griffin . . . until she came to me and told me about the message they intercepted.” He seethed. “Griffin asked Jett to look into it, and it was Jett who discovered it. Jett helped lay the trap. He was the one who traced it to Thom.”

I sighed, shooting a furtive look to Tyler, and wondering how much he already knew. About who he was and what had happened to cause all this. I imagined since he was here, running away with me, Griffin had told him pretty much everything by now, and his nod, and the sympathetic look in his eyes, pretty much confirmed my suspicion. “Sorry about your friend.”

I shrugged. “I guess he wasn’t really our friend.”

Above us, a strange sound rippled the air. It wasn’t loud at first, but it was coming at us fast—a sheer, tearing noise that seemed to be shredding the sky. I unbuckled so I could turn around and get a better view, straining to see what it was.

Whatever it was, it was still far off, but getting closer and closer. It sort of looked like a plane, but I couldn’t be sure because it was almost . . . too fast. Plus, it was heading right toward us.

Simon was watching it, too, from his rearview mirror.
“Damn,” he cursed. “How the hell did they find us so fast?”

“That’s . . .
them
?” I asked incredulously, gripping the seat back as I watched its steady approach. “What is that thing?”

“Military drone,” Simon stated matter-of-factly.

“Drone? What’s it doing?” I asked.

“Tracking us!” Simon shouted from the driver’s seat. “And if it can get within range, they won’t let us escape. Not alive, anyway.”

But Tyler shook his head as he leaned forward. He looked from me to Simon. “I don’t think so. Griffin said they need us.”

“Something must’ve changed,” Simon said. “Or someone didn’t get the memo you two are worth more alive than dead.”

Pins and needles prickled my skin as I thought about what Agent Truman had told me back at Blackwater, about Alex Walker . . . about how quickly he’d healed. “Not anymore they don’t. They have Alex Walker,” I breathed. “They have another Replaced.” We were expendable, Tyler and me.

Tyler turned to Simon. “Can we lose this thing?”

“Hang on tight!” And with that, Simon forced the steering wheel hard to the left, veering us off the highway and onto the rocky terrain of the desert. We bounced awkwardly, and I dropped back onto my seat. I felt Tyler’s hand reach out to my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze, and if I hadn’t been hanging on to the sides of my seat for dear life, I probably would’ve reached back to return the favor. As it
was, all I could think was,
Please don’t throw up
. . .
please don’t throw up
. . .
please, dear God, do . . . not . . . throw . . . up
. . .

Each time the Jeep hit a rock, it felt like my brain was being rattled against my skull as my head smacked against the headrest and my heart felt like it might rip a hole through my chest, and the entire time I wondered,
Why are they doing this to us? And how the holy hell are we going to outrun a military aircraft?

“What if we can’t lose them?” I called out to Simon, my voice hoarse as I glanced over my shoulder and saw how much closer the drone was getting.

My throat nearly clamped shut as I saw a grim look darken his face. And then I looked at Tyler, who I’d already sentenced to death once when I’d cut myself in his presence. Could I really let him die again just when I’d gotten him back? Was it fair that these two suffer just because I had to go and be some sort of freak that Agent Truman had to get his hands on?

I released the buckle on my seat belt again and glanced down at the dirt and rocks that blurred past. I’d jumped out of a moving vehicle once before, on Chuckanut Drive the night my dad and I had fought after my championship game. It hadn’t worked out so well for me then. I’d lost five years of my life because of that move.

I certainly wasn’t about to jump again.

Instead, I shot to my knees as I faced the approaching drone.

I stopped trying to stuff that I-might-puke feeling down,
and embraced it, along with the shaky, sweaty dizziness that threatened to engulf me. Everything that came with the wave of sheer dread consuming me. I tapped into it. I used it.

I wasn’t even sure this would work, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of options at this point. That aircraft up there was closing in on us. We were running out of time. When I narrowed my eyes and felt the zip of tension burst along my spine, stars erupted in my periphery.

“Down!” Simon yelled, reaching over and yanking at me.

I’d already seen why, though. Something was coming straight at us . . . besides that drone thing, I mean. I had to assume it was some sort of missile, which meant we must be within range, as Simon had pointed out.

But Simon hadn’t seen what I had right before he’d grabbed for me. The part where that drone had wobbled, its course slightly altered. And even though I couldn’t say for sure that I’d been the one responsible, I couldn’t say I hadn’t been either.

Regardless of the reason, that slight alteration must have been enough, and the missile had been off course also. Just enough.

It was close, though.

There was a bright flash when the missile struck the rocky ground, followed immediately by a shock-wave explosion. Black smoke billowed around orange flames that expanded in every direction. It was so close I could taste bits of sand, dirt, and fuel. It took several seconds for me to blink away fragments of debris from my lashes, but when I did, I
flipped back around and saw that the aircraft had regained its trajectory.

I concentrated again and wondered if I even had it in me to do what needed to be done. That thing up there was a gazillion times bigger than any library book or T-shirt. But this wasn’t just fear I was channeling. I was learning the feel of this ability. I knew the way it moved through me and how to draw it out.

Biting my lip, I dug deep, tracking the drone for one . . . two . . . three seconds, less than one full breath.

It wasn’t kinda like being on the mound; it was exactly like that. That same level of intensity. What coach and my dad called single-mindedness. Until there was only me and the drone. Nothing else.

Then I unleashed everything I could muster. I let it pour through me, out of me, and I released it—whatever
it
was—at that thing that threatened us, the same way I had when Agent Truman had threatened my dad, the same way I had when Simon had made me mad in the library.

I meant to send it swerving, to divert it so far off its flight path, it couldn’t find us again.

And at first I thought I’d done just that, as it wavered.

But I’d misjudged my own strength, just like when I’d tossed that softball to Tyler, and it didn’t just shift off course. My stomach plummeted as it went hurtling, rotating, spinning out of control. My hand covered my mouth as I shot all the way to my knees, trying to track its trajectory.

“What the . . . ?” I tried to say, but nothing came out of
my mouth, not even a breath.

Everything slowed as I watched the drone’s nosedive descent. Behind me, Simon slammed on the brakes just as the aircraft slammed into the earth.

The blast was more massive than the missile’s had been—the flames wider and hotter, the black smoke greasier as it choked me, and the caustic odor singed my nose hairs.

“I take it that was a mistake,” Simon said blandly.

I tried to nod, but I could hardly swallow. I felt paralyzed.

“I’d like to see what you can do on purpose,” Tyler threw in.

A tightness spread across my chest, and then I turned to Simon. “We have to go back. We have to see if the pilot . . . if anyone . . .” I knew it was useless, but I couldn’t stop myself from needing to know. “. . . survived.”

Simon half smiled, a small, wry smile. “Kyra, that was a drone. An unmanned drone. There was no one flying it.”

If I’d been standing, my legs surely would have buckled. As it was, I let my forehead drop against the back of the seat as a shaky laugh escaped my lips. “Are you kidding me? Oh my god, I thought . . . I thought I
killed
someone.”

But it was Tyler who interrupted my internal cheers. “The question is, how did it know where to find us?”

I looked to Simon. “They must’ve known where we were going. Did you tell Thom?”

“No, only Griffin and Jett.”

I thought about Griffin, and the way I’d once suspected
her. But there was no way. She hated the Daylighters, and her father even more, for what they’d done to her.

That left . . . “You don’t think . . . ?” My mouth went dry just thinking it. “Could it have been Jett?”

“No way. Not Jett,” Simon insisted. “You don’t know him. Not like I do.”

I frowned. “How do you know him? I mean, I know he wasn’t at Blackwater with you and Willow, so where did you meet him?”

Simon ran his hand over his head. “When me and Willow found him, Jett was in Nevada.” Simon grinned. “He was all alone. The three of us started our camp together. I’d trust him with my life.”

I glanced to Tyler. “Who, then? How?” I chewed the inside of my cheek as my eyes nervously drifted downward, to check the time.

And my stomach dropped.

Thom
.

Thom was the traitor. Thom had been feeding Agent Truman and the NSA’s Daylight Division information all along. It was probably the reason he hadn’t let Natty go with us to the Tacoma facility without him—he didn’t want us getting her captured.

But it was also the reason he’d taken an interest in me after we’d arrived at Silent Creek, once he’d learned I might be different from the other Returned—that I had night vision, and could go longer without oxygen and could heal faster. The telekinesis just confirmed what he
already suspected, that I was a Replaced.

“Thom gave me this.” I unstrapped the watch I’d treasured from the moment he’d given it to me, and threw it at Simon. “Soon after we left Tacoma. He said it was a present. It’s this. This is how he’s tracking us.”

“That son of a bitch,” Simon fumed.

Simon picked it up by the pink band and inspected it, probably thinking the same thing I had: How could something so harmless-looking be so deadly?

He gave it one last hard look before hurtling it into the desert. “We got less than half an hour to get to our rendezvous point,” he said, putting the Jeep in gear and leaving the still-flaming crash, and the tracking device Thom had planted on me, in our wake.

We drove toward a completely unknown future, leaving everything—our friends, allies, pasts, and even our identities—behind to start over again.

We had to hope Thom didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve.

I
had to hope Simon knew what the hell he was doing.

And most of all, I prayed Agent Truman, or Dr. Bennett, or whoever he was now, never,
ever
found us again.

There was a left-for-dead pickup truck with giant rusted-out patches that was half-in and half-out of a storm ditch when Simon pulled off the road.

“You think we missed ’em?” I asked, looking for signs of another—street-legal—vehicle.

So far, Simon hadn’t given me a single straight answer about who we were meeting. All I’d managed to get out of him was I could trust this person, whoever he was.

I was about to push again when Tyler, who had already hopped out, reached up to help me down. When his green eyes locked on mine, the breath caught in the back of my throat.

I didn’t bother telling him it was only a Jeep, not a tank or anything, and that I doubted I
needed
his help getting down. Instead I almost died inside when his hands found their way to my hips, and I let him
catch
me when I leaped the maybe two feet to the ground.

I stood in front of him, wishing this moment, our bodies touching this way, meant half as much to him as it did to me.
Eventually,
I told myself.
Soon
.