The Replaced

I was nervous. What if we were too late, and the Daylighters had beaten us and had already whisked the kid back to the Tacoma facility?

What if this was another trap?

We passed a sign that read: You Are Now Entering Delta, Utah. Population 3,457.

I never once saw Nyla consult a map or a GPS, or ask directions. She didn’t say if she’d been here before, but if she hadn’t, then she was just one of those people who had an innate sense of direction. Their own built-in compass.

I was super jealous of people like that. I’d always been fast on the mound, and now I could add super strong to my list of talents, but even as a kid I’d always been directionally challenged. To the point that Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey had been less like a game and more like a hand-eye coordination test.

One I almost never passed.

When we got there, the Emergency entrance was brightly illuminated against the dark backdrop of the rest of what I assumed was supposed to pass for a hospital. Even if it hadn’t been dark, the place we pulled up in front of was really more clinic-sized than hospital-sized, but Delta was a small town, so clearly they made do with what they had.

Out front of the blazing ER doors there were two parked cars, which would have made my heart race and set my suspicions into overdrive, except that one was a beat-up station wagon, circa 1960-something. And the other was a bright yellow convertible Volkswagen Beetle.

Neither screamed Daylight Division.

Off to the side, and closer to the sidewalk, was a man smoking a cigarette and murmuring into his cell phone. Again, since he was pushing seventy and wearing a hospital gown, I deemed him at least relatively harmless.

Rather than parking, Nyla decided to wait for us, which was probably a good idea, since no matter how I tried to spin it, I couldn’t come up with a reasonable story for the three of us to be skulking around the hospital at three in the morning.

Also, with her shaved head, I didn’t imagine Nyla went unnoticed all that often.

There was only a small check-in counter inside, and the girl working it looked barely older than we did. When Simon and I stopped to ask where we could find Alex Walker, she chomped obnoxiously on her wad of gum and pulled out a spiral notebook, which didn’t seem very hospital-y at all. She had us sign one of the lined pieces of paper after asking us to confirm that we didn’t have any cough or flu symptoms, and then she just blurted out his room number.

Not, “Are either of you family members?” or concerns for privacy laws or anything. Just a raised eyebrow that asked, Are we done here? and we were on our way, wandering the halls of the hospital in the middle of the night, without so much as a glance at our (fake) IDs.

Apparently security wasn’t much of an issue in Delta, Utah.

We only had to go up one floor, which shouldn’t have been a big deal, except that, because the building was so old, the place was put together like a ransom note. The building looked small from the outside, but it seemed bigger inside, and it was as if every hallway had been added on as a second, and then third, thought.

I was beginning to feel like a rat in one of those science mazes, and that we should get some sort of reward for figuring our way through.

After several turns and dead ends and some backtracking, Simon and I finally found an elevator. When we got off on the second floor, I breathed a sigh of relief that there was an actual sign pointing toward room numbers 2024–2050, since Gum-Chewing Girl told us Alex was in room 2046.

I pulled Simon to a stop outside the closed door. “What did you mean when you said Griffin didn’t give you a choice about bringing me here?” I stalled, suddenly nervous. I mean, how do you even start to explain that everything this kid knew, his entire life, was a lie? That his whole world had just changed, all because he’d gone missing for less than forty-eight hours.

Simon leaned his head out of the small alcove and glanced down the hallway, making sure we were still all alone. It was end-of-the-world quiet out there. The flickering overhead fluorescents were dimmed, and it was super weird that we hadn’t even passed a nurse’s station on this floor, considering it was a hospital and all. “She didn’t say it in so many words, but I think she wants to keep you away from Tyler,” he explained. “If I didn’t know better, I think she feels threatened by you.”

I pursed my lips. “And that doesn’t worry you? Look at what she was willing to do to Willow when she was threatened by her.” Now it was my turn to look down the hallway, my heart picking up speed.

Simon put his hands over mine. “Relax, Kyr. Her beef with Willow had to do with power. I don’t think that’s her issue with you. I think she’s worried Tyler might be a little too interested in you.” He took a step closer, too close, and suddenly my heart beat like a sledgehammer. “Frankly, I’m worried about that too.”

He leaned toward me, closing the gap that had already grown too small. There was a shift in the air, something tangible and sharp that I felt all the way to my toes. I could smell him—his skin, clean and crisp, but with the hint of the dust-blown air clinging to him. His eyes, so rich and coppery, landed on mine, begging me to tell him this was okay, what he was about to do.

I yanked back at the last possible second, just as his lips were about to brush mine, and my head thumped against the wall behind me.

His eyes sparkled then, like he’d been about to get away with something he’d known he shouldn’t have.

“You never give up, do you?” I accused, shoving him, and giving myself the space I needed to breathe again. And then, because it was easier to change the subject than to deal with the lingering tension, I eyeballed the door to room 2046. “Should we knock or just go in?”