The Replaced

Like phantom fireflies.

Simon’s grip on my wrist drew me back to the situation at hand. “We need to get you the hell outta here before these guys come out of that room and find us. I have a feeling they’d way rather have you than that kid in there.”

“What about Alex? Shouldn’t we try to figure out a way to get him too?”

“It’s too late for him,” Simon whispered insistently. “Even if they didn’t come all the way from Tacoma, I doubt they’re planning to leave ’til they know for sure if he’s one of us. Agent Truman made that mistake with you—I doubt these guys plan to repeat it.”

He eased the door open and when he gave me the all-clear signal, I followed him. As we passed room 2046, I could hear them in there, talking to the boy, to Alex Walker, and my step faltered, knowing what he was in for. I couldn’t believe we were about to leave him behind.

Simon must have sensed my reservation because he reached for me, pulling me faster as we hurried, running now, down the hall, this time passing up the elevator for the stairwell beyond.

We took the steps two at a time, almost tripping in our effort to get down them, and away from the two starched-suit men, who Simon believed would just as willingly, maybe more so, take me rather than Alex back to the Daylight Division.

So they could flay me open to see what makes me tick.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NYLA HADN’T WASTED A SECOND WHEN WE’D raced out the ER doors; she was there with the engine already revving. She’d seen them too—the Daylighters—when they’d strutted right past her.

She’d spared me only the briefest of glances when I’d jumped in the backseat, right before saying, “Well, that’s new,” and I knew she meant the whole glowy-eye thing since that’s where she was looking, directly at my eyes. But then she’d jammed the Jeep in gear and peeled out of there, not bothering to look back—either at Delta, which faded in the distance, or at me.

Simon might have checked on me, but I wouldn’t have known since the second we were on the road, I’d leaned my head back and shut those eyes of mine, trying to block out the guilt about leaving Alex Walker behind.

I felt sick most of the ride back to Blackwater Ranch.

I mean, I guess we’d had to do it. I doubt we’d have been able to get him away from there, from those guys, unnoticed. And then what? They would have followed us? They would have known exactly where we were, where Blackwater was?

What kind of option was that?

As it was, I was so freaked out that they were only a few hours away, back in Delta, that when the sun had finally crested over the horizon, stabbing me with its presence, it felt more like penance for my failure to save the boy. Like I deserved each spasm that rippled through me.

This time when we got back to camp, the only ambush awaiting us was Griffin, which was almost worse than what facing her entire army had been when I saw the tightening of her lips as she gave the Jeep a once-over, doing a mental head count even before we’d come to a complete stop.

“What happened?” Her voice was filled with accusation as she turned to Simon, and then me, pointedly letting us know we’d let her down on our first recovery mission.

Nyla answered before either of us had a chance to explain. “Daylighters got there ahead of us. Nothing we could do.”

“Daylighters,” Griffin echoed. “They didn’t see you, did they?”

Before that moment, when I’d seen the look of abject horror cross Griffin’s face, I’d had my doubts about her, like that maybe this whole sending-us-on-a-mission thing had been a setup. That she’d tipped the Daylighters off herself in order to get rid of Simon, Nyla, and me.

Mostly me, I’d suspected.

But now . . . now I didn’t think so. I doubted she’d sacrifice her own camp like that. Not on purpose anyway.

Nyla gave a decisive shake of her head as she jumped down from the Jeep. “’Course not. You think I’da come back here if they had? Nah, they got to the kid before Simon and Kyra could, and then we cleared outta there.”

“Damn,” she muttered. “So they got him? Too bad you couldn’t’ve gotten there sooner.” Griffin lifted her chin defiantly at Simon. “What happened? You used to be the best.”

There was a pause—the kind of extra-long one that makes you aware that there’s so much more than just a pause happening. That subtle communication of locked gazes and eyebrow raises and signals no one else was probably even aware of.

“That was a long time ago,” he said, finally backing down. “I didn’t ask to do this, Griffin. This was your idea. Kyra and I should never have been there at all.” He moved closer to me, creating a united front. “I’m not a recruiter anymore.”

Griffin scowled at me, giving me a this-has-nothing-to-do-with-you look that made me feel like an outsider all over again, and I had to remind myself what Simon had told me about her . . . about her father and everything he’d done to her. It kept me from wanting to slug her for being such a major B about everything.

No wonder she doesn’t trust anyone, I reminded myself. It’s not entirely her fault.

Then she looked Simon up and down as one of her tapered brows ticked up visibly. “Mmm . . . so I see.” And when she was finished giving him an unspoken slap on the wrist, she shrugged as if it had never mattered in the first place. Like what’s-done-is-done.

And so it goes, Billy Pilgrim would have said.