My dad ignored me and signaled to one of the waitresses wearing a cotton candy-colored uniform before she rushed past us with her coffeepot.
“Can I get a refill here?” He wore his own version of a cheesy grin as he waved his cup in her direction. She paused just long enough to top him off, and didn’t even acknowledge Tyler or me before rushing away again, eager to escape into the kitchen, probably hoping to steal a quick smoke break before having to go another round with Free Mustache Rides.
My dad settled the lip of his mug just beneath his nose, lingering before actually taking a sip. I could smell the strong brew from the other side of the booth and tried to decide if that was a good thing or not. But from the blissed-out expression on my dad’s face I guess I had my answer. After finally downing several long slugs, my dad dug into the pie and that blissed-out expression shifted to shameless ecstasy.
“You have got to try this,” he said through a mouthful of the crumbling apple confection. He held out his fork, offering me a bite.
At any other time, and maybe for Old Kyra, the offer would have been tempting. But now, and to New Kyra, who had different, and less than impressive taste buds, the suggestion wasn’t all that appealing.
I shrugged. “Maybe next time,” I refused, like we were regulars and I wasn’t passing up my one and only opportunity for the World’s Best Pie.
“Ben, seriously,” Tyler interrupted. “Who the hell was that back there? Did you get a good look at them? Did they see you?” Tyler was leaning forward, his face screwed up in determination.
My dad scowled, the fork halfway to his mouth, and then he glared, first at me and then at Tyler, before setting it back down again. After a second he shook his head. “No, I didn’t get a good look.”
“Then how do you know it was them?” Tyler pushed, and I wondered if maybe it was never Agent Truman at all. If maybe my dad had seen—or heard rather—the same people Tyler had.
The Returned must die.
The hairs at the nape of my neck prickled.
My dad cleared his throat and then gazed at me intently. Despite the fact that my dad was sitting right there, Tyler threw his arm over my shoulder and yanked me closer to him reassuringly.
I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised, me, my dad, or Tyler, but I smiled just a tiny bit.
Tyler wasn’t thinking the way I was. He still thought the Daylight Division had tracked us down. “How do you think they figured out where we were? Where did we go wrong?” he asked.
Ignoring Tyler, my dad reached across the table, his hand closing over mine. “I don’t think they did, kiddo. I don’t think it was that Truman guy or his jackbooted thugs.” He was hedging. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to come out and say what he thought.
I nodded. “So? What are we doing here?” I gestured to the diner around us. “If it wasn’t the Daylighters, then who were you and Nancy running from?”
He sighed again, a giving-up kind of sigh, then looked around, making sure no one was listening. And then he glanced up. Like up-up, toward the sky. “Them.”
My stomach dropped, and I wondered why I felt this way. Why I had that same sick feeling I’d had in his trailer, back when I’d first been returned. Back when he’d told me he thought I’d been abducted by aliens.
Back then the aliens had all been in his head. Make believe. Fiction. The stuff of fairy tales.
Now . . .
Now I knew better. Now he was only confirming what had already been bugging me. What I’d already been telling myself couldn’t be . . . because no way was it them. Not here. Not again.
I tried to swallow but my throat felt like it was one long inflexible steel pipe, and my breath rattled along the hollow tubing. I kept my voice low . . . super, super low so no one could hear the kind of crazy talk coming out of our mouths. “What . . . makes you say that? Why do you think it was”—I leaned closer, our heads almost touching over the top of the table—“them?”
“I think they’re trying to send a message, Kyr. I think they’re after you.”
I stayed inside the bathroom stall for way too long, surrounded by metal walls that were plastered with so much graffiti they looked like they belonged in a high school locker room rather than an all-night diner. One particularly eye-catching piece—a Sharpie collage of a nude woman riding an elephant—was not only bizarre, but so detailed I had to wonder how much time the poor woman drawing it had been trapped in here. I hoped for my dad’s sake it hadn’t been The World’s Best Pie that had done her in.
On the flipside, there were several penis sketches and one For A Good Time Call listing . . .
Seriously, you’d think grown-ups would be more mature.
I looked down to where my dad’s watch was strapped firmly to my wrist. He’d given it to me so I could always track the time, knowing the way it anchored me. Made me feel safe.
But right now, there was no solace in the steady meter of the second hand as it wound its way around the dial. My dad’s words . . . the things he’d said back there at the table haunted me.
Whoever Tyler had overheard, my dad had heard them too . . . only he hadn’t heard them the same way Tyler had. He agreed that they were talking, or at least he thought that’s what they were trying to do.
Communicate . . . but not in words.
It was Nancy who’d woken him, he’d explained. “She was growling, which put me on alert, being the middle of the night and all. So I got up to see what had her all riled.” He shrugged, his face sagging as he rubbed at the memory. “That’s when I saw them . . . two gals dressed like hikers. At first I didn’t think anything of it, except it was dark out and I didn’t know where you kids had gotten off to.” His saucer eyes fixed on me, and I couldn’t tell if it was a concerned look or that unsettling are-you-still-you? look I’d been getting from him for days. “Then one of ’em opened her mouth and this”—he winced—“this sound came out of her, like a hiss. And when she was finished, her friend opened up her mouth and did the same. They went back and forth like that, having this weird electrical conversation.”
It was Tyler who questioned my dad. Tyler who had admitted to hearing something similar by the pond—voices mixed with static. “So what makes you think they were aliens?”
My dad rubbed his temple. “I didn’t say they were aliens. I said I think the aliens are trying to send a message to you, trying to . . .” He shrugged and wrapped his hands around his coffee mug.
“So who were they then, those two ladies? If you don’t think they were aliens?”
“I can’t say who or what they were—maybe they . . .” He’d nodded toward the sky again. “Figured out how to hijack regular people, like those lady hikers. Maybe they—”
“Dad, I got it. I know who you mean,” I interrupted, letting him know the histrionics were unnecessary. “And I’m pretty sure people stopped saying things like ‘lady hikers’ with women’s lib, if anyone ever said it at all.”
A half smile tugged at his lips. “You’re probably right. All I’m saying is maybe that’s how they’re trying to reach you. All I know for sure is something’s out there, and I don’t think it’s just that Agent Truman dude we gotta watch out for anymore.”
Something was out there.
Something, not someone.
If there was something out there—something that spoke like static—then what . . . who was it? What did they want with us?
I sighed as I stepped out of the stall, feeling a little punch-drunk from everything thrown my way. I’d asked my dad if he had any idea where we’d go next, after we left this little slice of heaven—pun totally intended.
But the truth was, I had an idea, something we needed to consider: it was time to get ahold of Simon.
Something was happening out here that Simon and the others needed to know about. Something that involved weird languages and people talking in strange static-y voices. Something that maybe wanted Simon and the other Returned dead.
Still, I felt better having a plan in place
. Knowing we wouldn’t be alone much longer.
Slipping off my sunglasses, I examined myself in the mirror. Beneath the light of the bulbs my eyes hardly glowed at all. They just looked plain old Kyra-colored. Brighter maybe than before I’d been taken, but ordinary enough. Passable.
I tried to imagine when that had become the gold standard. When getting by had become good enough.
I jumped when the door to the restroom swung open, and quickly dropped the shades back in place as I pretended to be engrossed in simply washing my hands. The blond girl who stepped inside glanced at me, her brow lifting slightly when she noticed my sunglasses.
From behind the safety of the tinted lenses, I watched her. She reminded me a little of Cat, just a few years older than me—the way Cat was now—and there was something bold in the way she’d gone to the sink right next to mine rather than one of the open ones down the counter. I tried to be sneaky about my glances, but when I felt her eyes slide my way I put all my effort into the soap dispenser instead.
Even though it was only from the corner of my eye it would have been impossible not to be aware of her laser-intense scrutiny. As if she were trying to peel back the outer layers of me, picking a scab she couldn’t leave alone.
Before I could stop myself, I glanced up, accidentally meeting her stare. This time, she didn’t blink, or even attempt to look away, which made me think even more of Cat—no shame.
After a second of blatant inspection, she narrowed her blue eyes and bit her lip. “Do I know you from somewhere? You look . . . so familiar.” She chewed more thoughtfully, scouring her mental archives to sort it out.
But I was already shaking my head and backing away. “Sorry. Not me.” I wiped my hands on my jeans, not bothering with the electric hand dryer mounted on the wall. “I’m not from around here.”
I was suddenly desperate to escape the confines of the restroom and those unwavering blue eyes of hers and questions about who I was and where I was from. I turned and bolted for the door, suffocated by my own panic. It was bad enough we’d been sitting in a diner full of people who’d seen our faces. Now I’d stumbled across someone who thought she recognized me.
But I hit the door too hard and grossly miscalculated how easily it would swing open, so when I shoved against it, I fell through, tumbling out the other side.
Thankfully, Tyler was there to stop me from falling face-first . . . and causing more of a scene than I already had (you know, with the sunglasses and all).
“Hey there! I got you,” he gasped as I slammed into him, sending the both of us crashing into the opposite wall. My cheek smashed against the hard muscles of his chest and his arms closed around me.
For several seconds I stayed there, inside that space. I remembered a time, not so long ago, when that was the absolute safest place in the world. When Tyler’s touch could fix everything.
But things were different now.
I drew away, grimacing as I gave him a sheepish look. My sunglasses had slipped down my nose. “Sorry,” I offered, my cheeks practically sizzling.
And then, when Tyler’s arms didn’t move, when his grip actually tightened, my cheeks got even warmer. “Don’t be.” His voice was lower when he said it, gravelly in a way that made my heart stutter. “Kyra, I’ve been meaning to . . . I’ve wanted to ask you . . .” Now he was the one who was stuttering. He frowned, an adorable kind of frown that almost couldn’t be called a frown. I wanted to tell him not to say anything, to just stand there and keep looking at me like that.
Except now I was curious too.
His grip loosened, and for a moment my stomach clenched because I didn’t want him to let me go. He drew me farther away from the clatter of dishes and voices that came from the diner, and into a dark hallway where there was an exit, where we couldn’t be overheard by anyone headed to the restrooms. “I . . . ,” he started again. “I have so many questions, and I think you might be the only one who can answer them.” His hands moved back to my hips as he pulled me close to him. It was so familiar I thought my heart would explode because maybe-finally-at last he might remember how he felt about me.
“Yes.” The word came out like a whisper. A breath.
His forehead puckered as he tried to piece his thoughts together. “I had a dream. And I think you were in it.”
I waited, my mouth going unexpectedly dry. “A dream?”
“Yeah,” he answered, and then his hands slipped up and down, like he was wiping them on my hips. Like he was nervous. “More than one I think. And in them I have this strong sense that you’re with me, even when I can’t see you.”
This is it, I thought. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I leaned closer, all my attention focused on him. On his lips, on the sound of each breath he took. On waiting for him to say the words out loud.
At last he tried to see through my sunglasses when he said, “But we always have to be somewhere, and I know how to get us there because I have these maps—”
I jolted, stopping him midsentence. For a moment, I’d let myself believe we were on the verge of something—a breakthrough. That Tyler might be remembering how we’d been . . . before. Now I realized I’d misread the situation. His dreams weren’t lost memories, they were just that . . . dreams.
I wanted to hug my dad for insisting on the sunglasses because at least Tyler couldn’t see the tears crowding my eyes. “Maps?” I managed. “What kind of maps?”
Unaware I was on the brink of a total meltdown, Tyler gave one of his signature shrugs. “Maps. I don’t know. Thing is, they don’t even make sense, really. They’re just these”—he made a face—“weird squiggly lines and symbols. But to me, at least in the dream, they make perfect sense.”
Even as he tried to laugh it off as a nothing kind of thing, my skin began to tingle, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking of the old us. His laugh wasn’t convincing because he definitely thought there was something to it . . . and so did I.
His hands had been running anxiously back and forth along my sides, and I reached for them, gripping them. My stomach felt heavy and tight, and my nerves were zinging with electricity. “Tyler, it wasn’t a dream,” I insisted. It was time to tell him about the night in the desert. Maybe more.
Maybe all of it.
I’d seen what he was talking about, those squiggles, the symbols—the ones he’d been drawing.
His map.
I looked up and whispered, “Ochmeel abayal dai.”
I might have said it wrong. The words felt strange on my tongue, but it didn’t seem to matter. The moment they crossed my lips, Tyler’s eyes went huge as he stared back at me.
He knew.
He clung to me, his fingers working their way through mine until they were interlaced. Until he was holding me like I was the only thing tethering him to this world. Then he translated the words for me, in the same strange cadence he had before: “The Returned must die.” His eyes searched mine. “That’s right, isn’t it? What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. But tonight, at the hot spring, it wasn’t the first time you said that to me. I found you a few nights ago, right after we’d left Blackwater—I thought you were sleepwalking in the desert because you were totally out of it—but you were drawing on the rocks. Strange lines and swirls, just like you described.” I let out a hard breath, cringing. “Maps, I think. And you said those weird words—Ochmeel abayal dai.”
“The Returned must die.”
I hated the way he could say it so easily. “I think we need to tell my dad so he can get in touch with Simon and the others. We need their help to figure this out. . . .”
Tyler nodded, letting go of my hand and touching my jaw. “Whatever you want,” he said. “I’ll go along with whatever you think we should do.” And that was it; I couldn’t stop the tear from slipping down my cheek. Tyler had always been that guy, supporting me no matter what . . . even if he didn’t remember. He deserved the truth.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t
cry. I swear I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”
My forehead crumpled. “It’s not that. I’m not afraid about what you said or what you or my dad heard tonight.”
His palm cupped my chin, his thumb stroking my cheek like he was drying it, but it was already dry. “What is it then?”
I couldn’t claim temporary amnesia the way he could. This . . . what we’d been to each other . . . hadn’t just slipped my mind. I had to hope-pray-cross my fingers I could find some way to make him understand why I hadn’t told him before.
I lifted my chin, searching the green eyes I’d fallen for and telling myself I could do this. “There’s something I need to tell you, Tyler.”
His gaze clouded over at my serious tone.
I swallowed. “When we ran into each other, back at Blackwater . . .” My voice was hoarse so I swallowed again. “That wasn’t the first time I saw you after I’d come back.”
His tone was uncertain. “What are you talking about? Are you saying you saw me around camp before then? Why didn’t you say something?”
I pressed my lips together. I needed to be clearer. Braver. “No. What I mean is, I saw you before you were taken. Right after I’d been returned, when we were both back in Burlington. At home.”
Tyler’s hand dropped. He looked more confused than ever. “What are you saying?”
I started to reach for him, but stopped myself. It would be too weird to touch him, to hold his hand, at a time like this. “I’m saying those gaps in your memory, the part you can’t quite remember . . . I’m in those. You and me, we were together then.”
He shook his head. “I don’t . . . No . . .” He took a step away from me and ran his hand through his hair. I knew the gesture so well I almost could have predicted it. I waited for him to absorb what I’d just told him. After a second he asked, “Wait, so all the stuff I told you, about Austin and Cat . . . you already knew that?”
I nodded.
“And we . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “We were friends then? Before I was taken?”
I started to nod, then fell off to a shrug. “Sort of.”