The Replaced

by Kimberly Derting

  It was terrifying being one of the Returned, finding out you’d been taken and experimented on, and you could never go back to your old life. It made it easier to know there was someplace you could go, someplace safe, with others who’d been through the same thing you had.

  I wouldn’t want to go through it alone.

  Heck, if Griffin had found me first, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t be one of her soldiers now too. Instead, I’d ended up with Simon.

  But who’s to say that had been the right choice, that there weren’t other camps, with other leaders, and other causes that might have been better, safer . . . righter.

  It seemed like a crapshoot if you asked me, and my dice had just so happened to land on Simon. Tyler, well, he’d gotten Griffin. And Natty, she’d rolled Thom.

  “I like your new hair,” Tyler finally said, glancing down at me once we’d cleared the fields and were in almost the exact same place Simon and I had just been when Nyla had snuck me away from the showers so we could meet in private. He grinned, and that dimple of his, the one I’d spent so much time thinking about, obsessing over just a few short weeks ago, made a welcome appearance.

  I smiled up at him, and he scratched behind his ear. “Weird, right?” he asked. “This. Running into you here, of all places.” And then his dimple vanished. “And both of us being, you know, Returned . . .” It was almost comical the way he said “Returned,” like he hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea yet, and I wondered when I had, because it hadn’t been all that long ago that I’d said it the same way he did.

  There was a large flat boulder, low to the ground in front of me, and I kicked it once. I wasn’t sure how to respond, because everything I wanted to say was unsayable. I couldn’t tell him I loved him or that I’d missed him, because as far as he was concerned, five years had passed, and the last time I’d seen him he’d been a kid. I propped one foot against the rock, struggling for the right words.

  “Is this Simon guy your leader? Have you been with him all this time?” Tyler asked, searching my face through the darkness.

  “No . . . I, uh . . .” How could I even start? “I only just came back a few weeks ago. Right before you were taken.” I wondered if now was the best time to tell him the rest.

  His eyes widened like he hadn’t even considered that. “So this is all new to you too?”

  “Pretty much,” I admitted. And then, because I was dying to know more about him, I asked, “So what happened? Where did you wake up?”

  He moved closer, and I had to stifle a shiver that had nothing to do with the night air. He sat on the boulder and tilted his head back so he could look at me. “Somewhere not far from here, I guess. I honestly don’t know exactly where I was or what I’d have done if Griff hadn’t’ve come along when she did.” Somehow I managed to keep the cringe off my face when he mentioned Griffin, saying her name the way Simon did, but I felt it deep in my gut. I didn’t want him to be grateful to her. I didn’t want him to be anything to her, which made me feel petty on top of everything else, considering she’d saved him and all.

  But I wanted to be the only important girl in his life.

  There, I’d said it. So shoot me.

  Tyler kept talking. “Would it make you think less of me if I admitted I was scared shitless when I woke up?” He grinned and regarded me sheepishly, the same look I remembered from before. “I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there,” he explained.

  I laughed. “It totally wouldn’t,” I confessed. “I know exactly how that feels. One minute I was arguing with my dad over college, and the next I was waking up behind the Gas ’n’ Sip. At least that’s what I thought.”

  “Dude. You woke up behind the Gas ’n’ Sip?”

  I smirked. “Talk about weird, right?”

  His grin grew. “Talk about gross.”

  The butterflies were back . . . every time he smiled at me. I couldn’t help it. I remembered exactly the way those lips felt on mine. “So how much do you remember?” I asked, changing the subject before my entire body burst into flames.

  Shrugging, he told me, “Just that. Me waking up surrounded by sand, and then Griffin and some of the other Blackwater Ranchers showing up with this crazy story.” He patted the spot next to him on the rock, and I didn’t hesitate to take it. Somehow the rock was still warm, but his arm, where our skin made contact, was even warmer. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I thought she was smoking crack when she first tried to tell me what happened. I mean, it’s pretty nuts, the whole alien thing.” I had to laugh, because we’d had this conversation before, only it had been me trying to figure out a way to explain it to him without sounding like I was on crack. It was funny to hear him being so whatever about it. “I guess it’s hard to argue with the healing thing, though,” he said as he nudged me again. “You know, I do it faster than anyone else.”

  “Wait. What?” I bumped against him when I sat up straighter. “The healing? What do you mean faster?”

  He gave me a you-should-be-impressed kind of look. “You heard me. Like, if you cut me, I heal faster than anyone ever has before. That’s what Griffin says, anyway.”

  My knee-jerk reaction was to argue, because there was no way he could heal as fast as I could, right? But I couldn’t be sure whether my reaction stemmed from my competitive streak, or whether I was just in shock. Was it really possible there were two of us who could heal faster than the rest? And could it really be a coincidence that that person had turned out to be Tyler?

  It took me forever to even come up with, “So, who all knows?”

  “I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what you mean. Griffin told me not to. But I figured it’s okay to tell you . . . since we’re friends and all.”

  Friends. The word felt like a knife through my heart. I didn’t want to be Tyler’s friend. I mean, I did . . . of course I did. It’s just that’s not all I wanted to be.

  I hoped we could be so, so, so much more than just friends.

  I nodded, either a Yes, we’re friends or Yes, you can trust me, I wasn’t sure which or whether it made a difference.

  “Did she say why?”

  Tyler’s mouth turned down when he shrugged. “Nah. She just says I shouldn’t let it get around. Not yet, anyway.”

  “No. That’s probably a good idea.” I thought of the way Simon had kept the way I could move things from the others. I wondered if they hadn’t already known I could heal faster, if he’d have kept that from them too.

  “So, I guess if you haven’t been back that long, you probably don’t know, then,” he said, his voice growing apologetic and kinda drifty. “About your parents . . .”

  I shrugged, since I was still in that gray area—not sure how much I should admit—but I didn’t want to lie either. “No. I do. I . . . know,” I finally admitted.

  He nodded. “I couldn’t go back to see mine.” This time his expression was downright pathetic, and I was reminded that at least I’d known I was saying good-bye to my parents. The last time Tyler’s parents saw him, Agent Truman had told them I was contagious and if he stayed with me, I would contaminate him. I wondered where they thought he was now. Tyler didn’t remember any of that. “Griffin says since we’re not safe to be around, it’s better for them to just think I . . . ran away.”

  “What do you think?”

  He cocked his head to the side, his eyes overbright. “She’s probably right. It just sucks, is all. I miss ’em.” Then he bumped into me again, this time not so much a nudge as it was a brush, like he wanted to connect with someone. He glanced down at me.

  “I know what you mean. I miss my dad.”

  “Who’d’a thought he was right all this time.” His eyes sparkled just a little. “I mean, after everything that happened, and everything everyone thought of him, turns out he was the sane one in all this.”

  I lifted my eyes to his. “Well, I don’t know about sane, but yeah.”

  There was a prolonged silence as I tried to decide if this whole thing
was awkward or not, when Tyler reached over and picked up my hand. My heart tripped over itself as I watched him study it, almost like he was seeing something new . . . something he’d never seen before. Curiously he flipped it over and uncurled my fingers, flattening them until my fingers were splayed, and then he pressed his own against mine so our palms were aligned. His fingers dwarfed my own like I was only a child by comparison. “Do I look different?” he asked, his voice rough and low.

  A lump rose in my throat as I struggled for the right answer. Different how, I wondered? Different from the Tyler he thought I remembered—the one from five years ago? Or different from the Tyler I’d fallen in love with, the one I’d seen just a few short weeks ago? The one I’d been desperately-hopelessly-achingly searching for?

  “No,” I whispered, my eyes locking on his. I could’ve stayed like that forever, even if he had absolutely zero memory of me. “You look the same as I remember,” I finally said, because I couldn’t lie.

  I could never, ever lie to him.

  His fingers closed over mine and he squeezed once, an apology squeeze, before he let go. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I think I’m just homesick, is all. I . . .” He didn’t finish.

  “It’s okay.” I didn’t want him to stop or to be sorry or . . . to stop. Ever. “I totally get it. I miss everyone and everything. It’s nice to know someone. From home.” I took his hand again, wishing I could convey all my true feelings. “It’s nice,” I ended lamely because it was all I could say.

  Tyler accepted my “nice” speech. Our fingers intertwined, and even though it wasn’t like before, when sparks flew and fireworks exploded, it was comforting. And right now comforting was a million times better than nothing at all.

  Maybe comforting was better than fireworks anyway. Comforting fit like a sweater, and kept you warm, and made you feel protected.

  Comforting could kick fireworks’ ass any day of the week.

  He gave me a sidelong glance before talking again. “I don’t know if it’s weird for me to bring this up, but I miss Austin.”

  “It’s not weird, Tyler. You’re allowed to miss your brother. It would be weird if you didn’t.” I let out a sigh and leaned my head against his shoulder.

  “I just wasn’t sure . . . if . . .” He did this shrug thing, and it was completely filled with all the words he didn’t want to say, and I knew exactly how he felt because I had just as many words I was holding inside.

  I let him off the hook. “I know about them too—Austin and Cat.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  I know, I wanted to tell him, and then I wanted to bury my fingers in his hair and drag him down and kiss him, full on the lips. If only I could taste him, just one time. And press myself to him.

  Instead I smiled a small, sad little smile.

  “They didn’t do it to hurt you,” he said, exactly the way he’d said it a month ago, when he’d explained it to me the first time, and my eyes burned because he was so the same Tyler I remembered that I wanted him to remember too.

  I nodded again, and then one more time, my eyes still stinging, to let him know I’d heard enough. Enough about Austin and Cat, and enough about our old lives with our old families. This was our new life, and even if he never remembered, if this was where we were starting from, we’d get through it, and everything would be okay, I told myself, because here we were, Tyler and me, together again.

  We stayed like that for hours, huddled side by side. Sometimes he’d talk and sometimes I would, and sometimes we’d just stay silent. But for the first time in weeks I anticipated the morning, because this time, when the sun rose, there wouldn’t be the familiar stab. Tyler was back at long, long, long last.

  Except, the moment the first streaks of dawn finally appeared, gilding the desert with its warm blush, I knew I’d been wrong.

  Tyler wasn’t the cure.

  I nearly doubled over as the sun ascended, crippling me as it claimed its place in the sky.

  “Are you okay?” Tyler worried. “Should I get you back?”

  But I shook him off, biting my lip until the pain had passed. “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just so glad we have each other.”

  He reached over then and squeezed my hand in that sweater-hug safe and comforting way that blew the fireworks and sparks out of the water, and I leaned my head against his shoulder to tell him a silent thank-you while I finally let the tears fall.

  Natty pounced on me the second Tyler had delivered me back to our tent, just the way he’d promised Griffin. “Ohmygosh, Thom told me all about it. How you found Tyler . . . right here, in Blackwater,” she gushed as if it had been accidental that we hadn’t run into each other sooner. Like Griffin hadn’t had a hand in keeping us apart.

  It would take a while to break Tyler of whatever hero worship thing he had for Griffin, but I had every intention of dethroning her and reclaiming my place in his heart.

  I knew it sounded like I wanted to control Tyler, like this was some sort of catfight where Griffin and I were fighting over a boy. But it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t about to fight Griffin, and I certainly wasn’t fighting for Tyler. I knew you couldn’t control a person and you couldn’t force someone to love you—you should never have to. What I was fighting for was a chance. Our chance.

  I just wanted him to remember who I was. Who we were . . . together.

  And if, in the end, he remembered all that, and he still chose Griffin, then so be it.

  The thing was, I didn’t think that would happen. I believed, to the very core of me, that if his memories returned, he’d still want me.

  And if they didn’t . . . well, if he didn’t, then he’d fall in love with me all over again, because it wasn’t circumstance that had made us the couple we’d been, it was us. It was ingrained in us. It was who we were.

  In the same way Griffin had immediately disliked Willow—the way some magnets repelled each other. Tyler and I were the ones that attracted. The ones that, no matter how far apart, would forever be drawn together.

  Meant to be.

  I didn’t always believe in such things, but now, finding Tyler in this Utah compound with Griffin and her fanatical militia . . . now I couldn’t believe otherwise.

  “It was perfect,” I told her.

  “So he remembered you?” she asked nervously.

  It didn’t matter that she’d asked it nervously or that she hadn’t guessed right. “No. But he will.” I sat on my bunk. “What about you? Have you been here the whole night?”

  Natty perked up. “Thom was here. They’re letting us see each other. He just left.” It was the most animated I’d ever seen her.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, what I should say. If it were Cat, I’d ask what they did . . . like exactly what they did. But that definitely felt like prying. “Did you . . . have fun?”

  So. Awkward.

  Natty didn’t notice. She beamed as she nodded, her eyes gleaming. “We talked all night.” She lowered her voice, letting me know she was sharing a secret. “He told me more about Blackwater, and he said they call this part of it—where they’re keeping us—Paradise.”

  I leaned closer. “Did he say why?”

  “It’s like what Willow said about not trusting the government names that sound the most innocent. That if you hear something called Operation Rainbow, it’s gonna be majorly bad. Paradise is where they keep the people they don’t trust.” She shrugged with her face, her eyebrows rising and her mouth drooping. “Like us.”

  I wondered if letting Thom spend the night with Natty might be a step in the right direction toward letting us off house arrest, if we might be earning our way out of Paradise.

  But then I remembered the look on Griffin’s face when she’d busted Nyla for sneaking me away to meet Simon, and I sincerely doubted it. Thom and Natty might earn their freedom back, but Simon and I would likely be trapped in Paradise forever.

  Just then there was a knock, or as much of a knock as there could be on a
tent door, kind of a flapping sound against the canvas. I jumped up and pushed the opening aside.

  I felt a surge of triumph when I saw Tyler standing there, back so soon. “Couldn’t stay away?” I beamed, unable to contain myself.

  He held his hands behind his back. “I brought you something.” He said it like it was no big deal, but he was self-conscious, and he bit his lip. It was completely adorable. “It can get kinda boring here.” And even though I understood what he was saying, I couldn’t disagree more. At this moment there was no place in the world I’d rather be than right here. This camp was the most exhilarating place I’d ever been.

  He clumsily withdrew his hands and presented me with a book, his hands shaking. “It’s my favorite,” he told me, holding it gingerly, and my face nearly crumpled as I reached for it, pressing my hand over its paperback cover. The edges were worn, tattered.

  I lifted my eyes to his and swallowed hard. I didn’t tell him that I’d already read this book—his favorite. That he’d given a copy to me before and that I’d memorized line after line and that he was the one who’d taught me the beauty of reading. “Thank you,” I managed while he let me take it from him.

  Our fingers brushed, more than brushed, as the book exchanged hands and my cheeks ignited all over again.

  “I can’t stay,” he whispered. “I just wanted to give you this. I gotta go.” He glanced back at me once more after he ducked his head, leaving Natty and me in our tent as he left to meet Griffin, or do whatever it is her trainees were supposed to be doing all day.

  I clutched the book to my heart.

  “I see what you mean,” Natty joked when I finally spun around and saw her watching me. “A book. That’s pretty serious.”

  “It’s Fahrenheit 451,” I breathed, ignoring her mocking tone as I held the book even tighter. “It was the first gift he ever gave me.”

  The bantering look melted from her face. “He doesn’t remember?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He gave it to me again. It means something.”

  Natty didn’t argue, and I went to my cot and sat down with my treasure, looking at a cover I’d looked at a hundred times before, and ran my fingers over it. This wasn’t just about the book.