So I paced—not far, and mostly in tight circles in front of the bunk that was bolted to the wall, doing my best to steer clear of the stainless steel toilet, not because it was dirty or anything—in fact it sparkled so much it was practically mirror-like—but because it was a toilet, and well, gross. I paced and I checked the time. Mostly I checked the time, giving myself permission to just . . . stare. To watch the second hand. To track it as it moved around and around and around.
Hours had passed, and I’d spent most of those doing nothing and thinking everything.
I was surprised, then, when Griffin stepped beneath the dull lights of the hallway. I hadn’t even realized there’d been a change of shift until she nodded to the two new guards, indicating for them to give us some privacy.
Like good little minions, they did as they were told.
“What do you want?” I didn’t bother getting up, just stayed where I was with my hands lying on my stomach.
“We need to talk,” she said, her voice even. “We have a problem.”
“Oh we do, do we?” I asked, lacing my voice with as much sarcasm as I could round up. “Seems to me you got everything under control.”
She waited a second before adding, “It’s Tyler.”
She had me. I couldn’t pretend not to care, and I sat up.
“That’s what I thought.” I wanted to wipe the smug look off her face, but this was about Tyler, and I bit back the Bitch hovering on the tip of my tongue. “I think we both know why I’m here,” she continued, her voice way, way lower now, like she didn’t want even her own guards to hear what she’d come here to say. “I think he’s . . . like you.”
I went to the bars, to where she was clutching them, and I leaned close so we were nose to nose. “How long was he gone?” I asked, trying to piece it together.
Her dark eyes searched mine. “When we found him, he wasn’t sure, so we had to figure it out for him. Daylight Division chatter put his disappearance somewhere around twenty-five days ago.” I did the math in my head. That was right. That was when he and my dad and Agent Truman had vanished from Devil’s Hole. “We picked him up some five days later—the day he said he was returned.”
Five days, not five years.
Still, that was three days past the forty-eight-hour mark.
She must’ve read my thoughts, because she said, “I knew it was too long, and at first I assumed he was confused. It happens. People—those of us who’ve gone through it—tend to lose track of time. It’s disorienting. But even when I figured out he was right, I didn’t tell him how unusual that was.” She didn’t say unheard of, because we both knew that wasn’t true; I was proof of that. “And then . . . when he could heal the way he could, I assumed they’d done something more to him. More than they’d done to the rest of us. It just never occurred to me . . .”
I nodded because I knew what she meant—even with everything her father had told her it would be a stretch to assume Tyler had been successfully Replaced.
I could hardly believe it myself.
“His memory,” I whispered. “Do you think that’s a side effect? Maybe they sent him back too soon . . . ?”
“Maybe.” She looked over her shoulder. Ever since we’d been here at Blackwater, I hadn’t known her to be anything but confident and in command. It was strange to see her so spooked.
“Do you think he’ll get it back? The part he’s missing.”
Griffin gave me a look. “That’s the least of my concerns.” Then she smoothed her hand over her hair. It was a nervous gesture. “Who knows. Look, I get that you want this to be like some kind of happily-ever-after fairy-tale sort of thing, but that’s not the way the world works. I’m just trying to keep him alive. I can’t worry about your little crush.”
My heart crashed. “Alive? Why? What happened?”
“Kyra,” she said, saying not just my name, but saying it so sincerely and looking me in the eye that I couldn’t help the jolt of alarm that boomeranged in my chest. “I need you to get Tyler out of here.”
I didn’t understand why Griffin was being so secretive, or why she was all of a sudden confiding in me, especially considering she’d been the one to order my detainment in the first place.
“Where are Simon and the others?” I demanded, wondering if they were being held the same way I was.
“Simon’s safe. He’s making plans as we speak.”
“Plans? He was there when you had me arrested. I seriously doubt he’s helping you make any plans.”
“I explained everything to him; he gets why I had to do that now.”
“Mind explaining it to me?” I gave her my best this-better-be-good look while I waited.
Griffin pinched the bridge of her nose, releasing her breath on a hiss. “I know you don’t trust me, but you need to believe me when I tell you we have a traitor in our midst.”
Traitor. The word hit me like a thousand tons of lead.
I thought of Simon’s complicated history with Griffin.
“It’s not Simon,” I defended, my voice raising and echoing off the concrete walls. “And it’s not Willow either.”
“Shh!” she shushed, flapping her hands and warning me to keep it down. And then she met my gaze directly, her expression weary. “I know that, Kyra. It never was.”
I lost some steam with her admission. “So who, then?”
Pulling out a key, she unlocked the door and opened it. I didn’t know if she was coming in or if I was coming out, so we both just stayed where we were. “I wasn’t sure until I had you locked up. I had to make it look believable, so everyone would think I was keeping you prisoner.”
“Well, bravo. You were convincing.” I cocked my head to the side, crossing my arms. “But for what purpose?”
“I needed whoever the traitor was to think I was willing to trade you myself. That I planned to turn you in to the Daylighters. And then I waited.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For someone to try to get a message out.”
“I take it they did.” It wasn’t a question. Of course they had or Griffin wouldn’t be here now, telling me what her plan had been, and asking me to get Tyler away from this camp. “So . . .” I was almost afraid to ask. “Who was the traitor?”
Griffin came inside and dropped to the bunk. She put her face in her hands. It was a strange reaction, not at all what I’d expected.
I ran through the list of possibilities. I’d already ruled out Simon and Willow, and I mentally ticked off Jett, and Natty since she’d been with me almost every minute of every day since Simon and I had landed in Silent Creek.
“Thom,” I breathed, almost at the same time Griffin said it. But even hearing her voice echoing mine, I shook my head. “No . . .”
“It had to have been him back then too.” The accusation was pitiful, as if it was painful for her to say. “He must’ve been working with them, colluding all these years. I’ve always wondered how they could know so much.” Her face lifted so we were eye to eye. “Has Simon ever wondered how the Hanford camp was found out?”
“Thom?” I asked with almost as much disbelief as her. “But . . . why? And if they knew where the camps were, why didn’t the Daylighters just round you all up years ago?”
“Because we’re not the ones they really wanted. They’ve been looking for a Replaced. The Returned are child’s play.” Even her shrug was unenthusiastic. A whisper. “I mean, sure, they’re willing to do their experiments on us if we’re all they can get. They extract our DNA and dissect us and . . . who knows what else they do in that lab of theirs.” I hugged myself tighter, her words making my skin tighten. “But it’s always been about finding a Replaced. Thom’s no good to them, none of us are, not if they can’t get their hands on one of you.”
“One of us. You mean, me and Tyler?”
She nodded wearily. Tiredly.
But we couldn’t afford to be tired. “What about that Alex kid? What if he was a Replaced? What if they . . . the aliens are honing their skills an
d there are more of us out there? What if they no longer need five years, or even five days? What if we’re coming back in forty-eight hours?”
“That’s not our concern. At least not yet. For now, I need to get you two out of here.”
“And go where?” Just yesterday, the idea of leaving here with Tyler was exactly what I’d wanted. Now it just made me feel sick.
“Simon’s working on that. He’s setting up a rendezvous for you, a way to get you safely away from here.”
“What about the rest of you? What happens to you now? Is the Daylight Division on their way?”
“We’re doing what we always planned to do: fight.”
“I’ll help you,” I told her, “if you tell me the truth. Why Tyler? Why do you care so much what happens to him?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I think you already know the answer. He’s special.”
“So you care about him?” I asked, not sure why I was putting myself through this. I’d seen the way he looked at her. Hadn’t I already wondered if his feelings were more than just innocent when it came to her?
“Don’t we both?” she said, getting up and reaching for my arm. “Now, come on, we don’t have time to waste. We need to get you out of here, before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
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.”