The Replaced

by Kimberly Derting

  But his T-shirt had that same Tyler smell I remembered, which made me think of home, and the thought came to me that I was home as long as I was with Tyler. I wanted to tell him so many things, including that, but for now, this—right here—was more than enough. More than I could have dared to hope for.

  “Kyra,” he repeated, and I wondered how many times he’d said my name at the same time I’d said his. “I . . . I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I know,” I said back, while he pulled away and gazed down at me with this wonderstruck look in those incredible-amazing-brilliant green eyes of his, and I tried to decide if they were more brilliant than they’d been before or if they’d always been this dazzling. “I was thinking the same thing. How did you get here? How long have you been back?” My face crumpled as the tears finally broke to the surface. “I . . . I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”

  Tyler crushed me to him, his chin bumping against the top of my head. It was all so familiar—the hug, and being consoled by Tyler, who was like that, familiar—that I almost didn’t hear what he said next. I mean, I heard it, it just didn’t make sense to me. “I was gonna say the same thing to you. I don’t think anyone thought they’d ever see you again.” His arms tightened and his voice rose, an elated kind of sound. “I can’t even imagine what Austin would think if he was here.”

  My heart stopped again, but this time in a bad way.

  And then he pulled back, and that hopeful look on his face fell away. “We can’t tell him,” he explained, saying it like this was new information to me, his voice dropping super low as he tried to make me understand. “Austin, your parents, they can’t know you’re back.”

  I blinked. What the hell was he even talking about? They couldn’t know what . . . that I was back? I turned to Simon, whose face gave nothing away, and then to Griffin, who had her eyes trained solely on Tyler, and wasn’t paying any attention to me at all.

  “You two know each other?” she asked Tyler, and there was something slippery about the way she looked at me, like she totally already knew all this. Like I’d been played.

  Tyler glanced back at her and put his arm around my shoulder in a very pal-like way. Pals, he told her with that gesture, and my stomach sank achingly. “This is the neighbor I was telling you about. Kyra Agnew.” He shrugged, and his pal-hug tightened. “I’ve known her since . . . forever. No one’s seen her in . . .” He did the math and blinked at me, and even before he said how long it’d been, I wanted to vanish again because I knew where he was going with this. “Five years,” he finished, grinning down at me and letting out a low whistle. “Five long years.”

  “You’ve known all this time,” I accused Griffin, wishing she hadn’t sent Tyler away, but seriously glad to be alone with her so I could have the chance to give her a piece of my mind. “I heard him—he told you my name. He told you I’d been taken. All this time we were in the same camp and you knew we knew each other. You knew he’d want to see me, and you didn’t bother telling either of us. Why would you keep us apart like that? What’s wrong with you?”

  But Griffin, or “Griff” as Simon so adorably referred to her, didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed by my allegations, not in the way I wanted her to be. I wanted her to be ashamed the way a normal person would have been.

  Instead she stared at me expressionlessly, like the dictator I suspected she was. “I did it for Tyler. He’s only been here a short time, and I wanted to ease him into camp life. Keep his old life separate from his new one. You showing up here, that was . . . inconvenient. I would’ve told him eventually.”

  “Bull.” My hands were shaking at my sides and blood pounded past my ears as I challenged her.

  Griffin just snorted. “Really none of your concern what I do, or do not, tell my people.”

  “Tyler’s not one of your people.”

  “He is now. Ask him.” She smirked, and I knew she had me. I’d seen him. I’d seen the way he looked to her as his leader. And I’d heard the way he’d described me—like I was his brother’s girl and the two of us were pals, the way we’d been before I’d come back.

  “How did that even happen?” I asked, trying to stay angry with her but losing steam. “How did you . . . find him?” It was supposed to be me, I wanted to shout at her. Or maybe I wanted to shout it at myself for failing yet again. I was supposed to find him.

  Griffin gave me a tight-lipped look and said, “I have people who give me information.” Then she turned to Simon and explained, “Tyler’s a good kid. He’s fitting in here—”

  But I cut her off as I spun on Simon now, unsure who I was more upset with: Griffin for laying one of those Finders-Keepers claims on Tyler—my Tyler—or Simon for not helping me get to him first. “Did you know?”

  Simon threw his hands up, hostage-style. “Leave me out of this. I had no idea what she was up to.” Simon looked at Griffin instead of me, and I couldn’t help thinking of our conversation about Tyler that day in the library, when Simon told me I couldn’t wait for Tyler forever.

  “Okay, yes, Simon told me you were looking for a boy. Someone who was important to you,” she said in a pacifying voice as she tried to smooth things over. “But how was I supposed to know you were the same Kyra Tyler had been talking about?”

  “How many Kyras do you know?” I asked, but there was no point arguing. Griffin held all the cards. She was in charge of whether I would see Tyler again, or not. The best thing I could do was keep my mouth shut.

  She gave me a condescending smile. “Look. Tyler didn’t know much when he got here. He didn’t remember how he’d been taken, and he certainly didn’t say anything about having a girlfriend back home.” I hated the way she was determined to remind me of that. She seemed to enjoy making it clear that his memories didn’t include me, at least not the important parts.

  He didn’t remember the day I’d stumbled into his kitchen and fallen into his arms, mistaking him for Austin. Or the beautiful chalk drawings he’d done for me. Or taking me to his favorite bookstore and leaving me gifts outside my window and sending me messages at all hours of the night.

  He also didn’t remember any of the things that had gone wrong after I’d cut myself on that box knife right in front of him, contaminating him . . . and the way he’d gotten sicker and sicker until I’d been left with no choice but to drag him up to Devil’s Hole to be taken.

  As far as he was concerned, I’d vanished five years ago and had never come back.

  And now Griffin acted like her claim on Tyler trumped our history together, as if none of those things ever existed at all.

  Simon surprised me then, when he said to me, “This must be hard on you,” because it had to be hard on him too. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, watching me anxiously. I tried to tell myself he didn’t seem worried that Tyler was here, and that worried wasn’t the same as threatened.

  But I knew better. I could see it written all over his face: Simon wanted more, and I couldn’t help wondering if he’d hoped we’d never find Tyler at all.

  I couldn’t worry about Simon’s feelings, or the fact that Tyler couldn’t remember me. All that mattered was that we’d found him, and I was determined to make him remember me if it was the last thing I ever did.

  “When can I see him again?” I begged Griffin, still frustrated she’d sent Tyler away with Nyla. “Please. I’ll do anything.” I refused to acknowledge that hurt-puppy look in Simon’s eyes, and ignored his words altogether.

  “I’ll have Nyla bring him to us, but first . . . there was a reason I was looking for you,” Griffin said slowly, her voice sticky. “Jett needs to show you something.”

  Jett. I’d waited days to see Jett again, face-to-face.

  I followed clumsily, eager to reach Jett, to hear what he had to tell me, and just as twisted up about when I’d get to see Tyler again. Griffin led Simon and me to the same white building where I’d spied her and Jett earlier while I’d been doing drills with Natty. She knocked again, th
e same way she had then, only once, and then we, too, slipped inside.

  It wasn’t only Jett I was reunited with inside—Willow was there too, safe and sound. When she saw me, she winked at me.

  Winked, as if to say: Hey pal, long time no see. It was completely surreal.

  If Griffin hadn’t been there, watching our every move, I might have hugged Willow because it was so damn good to see her again. But the last thing I wanted was to give Griffin even the slightest insight into my state of mind. She already had enough ammunition to use against me, having her hooks in Tyler and all.

  So instead of hugging, or even winking, at her, I lifted my chin, which had to make me seem totally stuck up, but it also kept my feelings where they needed to be: under lock and key.

  “What is this place?” I asked, my eyes landing on Jett as I gave him that same aloof nod I’d given Willow.

  He looked unsure for a minute, and I wondered if it was because of my greeting or the question. But then he scratched his cheek and said, “It’s the computer lab. Pretty fancy digs, right?”

  He wasn’t wrong. The first thing I noticed, besides how much warmer it was in here, probably from all the electrical equipment—the computers and monitors crammed into such close quarters, making it downright stuffy—was that it was a lot like the place Jett had kept back at his old camp. Back at the abandoned Hanford site when I’d first met him. I was impressed.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Since the first day we got here.” He grinned at Griffin and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Been workin’ ever since.”

  Not you too, Jett? I wanted to shake some sense into him, but I could hardly blame him for falling under her spell. Talk about finding the key to Jett’s heart.

  I doubted Griffin had batted a single lash this time; all she’d had to do was give him access to a bunch of computers and hook him up to a satellite feed. He’d have been eating out of her hand in ten seconds flat.

  Damn her!

  Jett indicated his trusty laptop, which was linked to their network. “I don’t know if anyone told you, but we may have something.”

  I was all ears. “Something like what?”

  Jett plopped down in the rolling chair and cast me an expectant look. “I don’t want to get your hopes up or anything, but we may have gotten another message from someone claiming to be your father.” His brow lowered as he rubbed his palms over the tops of his knees. “Don’t get too excited, but . . . I think it might be legit.”

  My eyes widened, and for just a second, just a teeny, tiny second, I was able to forget all about Tyler and Griffin, and whatever reasons she had for keeping us apart while we were here. “My dad? You think it might be him . . . for real . . . ?” I didn’t know if I could allow myself to believe it might be true.

  Jett stopped me before hope could take root. “We can’t be sure yet. I’m just saying we can’t rule it out either. We’ve done IP traces and we’ve definitely ruled out the Tacoma facility. But if it is him, he’s being extra careful. Whoever it is, he’s taking as many precautions as we are.”

  “Then let me talk to him,” I gushed, knowing I could figure it out if they gave me the chance. “I’ll ask him things only he’d know.”

  I stepped toward Jett, but Griffin’s fingers dug into my shoulder. “We can’t do that. Not just yet,” she said. “Not until we make sure whoever he is, he isn’t running a trace. We can’t be too careful. When mistakes are made, people die.”

  I wrenched out of her grip, not caring that she had a point. “So, how long will that be?” I asked, directing my question to Jett instead of Griffin because I was so over her.

  He just shrugged. “Could be a coupla hours, could be a coupla days. Could turn out to be a hoax altogether. I just thought you should know.” When he met my gaze, he silently told me he didn’t think it was the latter, and I nodded back, thanking him for that.

  “What about the files?” Willow finally spoke up. “Tell them where you are with those.”

  “We’re definitely in,” Jett explained, eager now, and Simon stepped closer to peer over Jett’s shoulder.

  “Find anything interesting so far?”

  “Not yet,” Jett answered, glancing back at him. “Even with the encryption codes, all of their internal files are password protected, so every time we break one code, we have to break another. It’s slow going, but we’re piecing it all together a little at a time. Soon, though.”

  Soon. That sounded a heckuva lot faster than when I’d know about my dad.

  There was a thump at the door, and when it opened, Nyla materialized, and right on her heels was Tyler. Butterflies swarmed my stomach.

  I became that girl, the one who was worried about how she looked and whether her breath was bad, and I had this sudden urge to check to see if I had a booger hanging out of my nose and I so totally hoped I didn’t because I was sure I would absolutely die of sheer embarrassment if I did. If that was his second first impression of me after we’d just re-met each other.

  I glanced at Griffin, who looked downright stunning. How in the heck had she found the time to apply lip gloss when she had an entire camp to run?

  I smoothed my hand over my hair, wishing I at least had some other style besides finger comb and rubber band. I had to remind myself that even if he didn’t remember it, this was the boy who’d given up everything to help me, and we’d seen each other in far worse circumstances.

  “Hey,” Tyler said, and when he smiled, I forgot all about my hair and boogers, and almost even about my dad.

  “Hey,” I said back.

  And then I almost died anyway when I realized he wasn’t talking to me at all, but to Griffin, and all of a sudden I was back in junior high all over again as I had one of those awkward moments in the hallway when someone waves to you and you wave back, only you realize a second too late that they were never waving at you at all, but at the person standing behind you all along.

  So. Embarrassing.

  My cheeks blazed like someone had thrown a gallon of lighter fluid on them, and I lowered my gaze, unable to look at anyone. Humiliation brimmed in my eyes and I had to blink several times to keep them from spilling over, certain my charcoal cheeks would cause the tears to sizzle.

  On the other side of me, I felt Simon’s fingertips brush over the back of my hand, but I curled my fingers until all that was left were white-boned knuckles. I didn’t want his pity. I never had.

  But Tyler rescued me when he nudged me with his shoulder. “You guys almost done here?” And this time he was most definitely talking to me.

  My breath caught as I glanced up again. He grinned at me with his way-too-alluring lips, and the butterflies beat rather than fluttered like a flock of spastic birds in the pit of my stomach. “I am.”

  “You wanna get out of here? Maybe go someplace we can catch up?” He looked to Griffin for approval and the butterflies died a horrific death. I didn’t want him to seek her approval. I wanted it to be just us, him and me, so we didn’t have to do any of this in front of the rest of them—not her or Simon or Willow, who was giving me the eyebrow version of a thumbs-up. “Do you mind?”

  Griffin took it all in, from Tyler’s far-too-eager-to-please expression to my less-than-thrilled, arms-crossed-over-my-chest stance. She was in her element, being in control like this. Having the final-ultimate-absolute say in whether we would be alone or not.

  All I could do was wait, telling her with my own eyebrows to give it a rest. But all the while my lungs were paralyzed as I waited for that single, almost imperceptible nod. And when she gave it, I tried not to be too obvious. The last thing I wanted was to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had me all twisted up inside . . . even though she totally did.

  I’d have done anything for her in that moment. Traded anything.

  Given up everything.

  “Have her back in her quarters by dawn,” Griffin told Tyler as he passed her. “She’s staying in Paradise. Sector n
ine.”

  Tyler paused and shot her a puzzled look. “Paradise?”

  She lifted a brow, letting him know the conversation was over, and Tyler just shook his head.

  “Come on,” he said, reaching for my hand. When his fingers closed over mine, I didn’t shy away from him the way I had from Simon. I let our hands melt together, our fingers interlocking as if they’d been made for this—two halves of one whole that fit together, like jigsaws in a puzzle.

  He dragged me enthusiastically, and I followed, just as eagerly, impatient to make him remember he loved me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MEMORY WAS A TRICKY THING.

  As much as I wanted to fix the gap in Tyler’s mind, the place where I should’ve been—where we’d spent our time together—it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t just hand the missing chunk back to him.

  I understood, of course; I’d lost time too. Five entire years. I mean, it wasn’t exactly the same since I’d really been gone that whole time and his was more of a glitch in his memory, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get how weird it would be if I were to just spring it on him, the news that we’d been a thing, he and I, something he had absolutely no clue about.

  Instead, it was like a do-over, like I was meeting seventeen-year-old Tyler that first time. He was looking at me and thinking about me the same way he had been that first day I’d come back.

  Except this time we had something new in common: we were both Returned.

  We walked in silence past the training field, and for several long, almost too long, seconds I thought maybe we’d have nothing to say to each other. It was strange, seeing him and trying to put myself in his shoes. He’d been here at Blackwater ever since he’d been sent back, which, if everything I’d been told about the whole forty-eight-hour thing was right, must have been several weeks already.

  That was a long time to be indoctrinated into Griffin’s way of thinking. To be training with her so-called army.

  I understood how Tyler could end up in a place like this. I even understood why he’d want to stay.