The Replaced

by Kimberly Derting

  “Ehem!” Natty shouted, a sound that was so obviously not her clearing her throat that I probably would’ve laughed if I wasn’t already dying of embarrassment over the part where she’d caught the two of us kissing. “You two need some privacy?” Even without looking at her, I knew she meant the thing where I was still draped all over Simon.

  “Are they gone?” I asked against Simon’s teeth, while Simon kept his arm secured around my waist.

  Natty sounded uncertain when she answered, “Are who gone? I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “The cops.” But from Natty’s bewildered tone I already had my answer, and I shoved away from Simon.

  I told myself that it was normal to feel a little tingly, my head just a tad—a tad!—fuzzy, after such close contact. It would be weird if I didn’t feel that way.

  “Cops?” Natty asked, and I got the feeling this was her version of the third degree. “Is that what this was all about?” She waved at us, like she was waving at something disgusting and unnatural. Like now she was the one who needed something pointy and sharp to poke out her mind’s eye.

  But Simon just shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest and flashing me a know-it-all smile. “I didn’t see any cops.”

  I crossed my arms too, but not all show-offy and full of myself, the way he was. I cocked my head to the side and gave him an exasperated look. “Really? So you, what, you thought I just couldn’t keep my hands to myself another second? That I had to have you?”

  His grin widened as he raised one eyebrow at me. “Pretty much.”

  “Ugh!” I stomped down the porch steps to the sidewalk below. “You’re such an ass!” I shouted over my shoulder. “You knew what I was doing. You knew it was all an act so we wouldn’t get caught,” I insisted, wondering if it was him I was trying to convince, or Natty.

  Or maybe it was me, I wondered, pretending to wipe away the memory of what we’d just done from my lips, because my body was still buzzing, and my lips still burned in all the places his had touched seconds earlier.

  PART TWO

  And so it goes . . .

  —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Day Twenty-Eight

  Just outside Zion National Park. Somewhere in Utah.

  DRIVING AT NIGHT SHOULD’VE BEEN PEACEFUL, and in a way I guess it was. Thom and Simon sat in front, with Simon doing most of the driving and only handing over the wheel for a two-hour stretch somewhere between Twin Falls, Idaho, and Salt Lake City. That part wasn’t relaxing, though, since Simon muttered beneath his breath almost the entire time about how slow Thom was driving, even though the speed limit on the side roads was well below the fifty Thom was going.

  Natty sat next to me, and continued to gawk at me with that weird fascination that made me worry she was gonna blurt out that I was some kind of superhero, the same way Tyler had when he’d learned I could see in the dark and hold my breath for crazy long. Or that she was going to ask me to levitate something, like it was some parlor trick I could conjure on command. If only it were that simple.

  I kept frowning at her, reminding her it was our secret and that she needed to keep her mouth shut. Then she’d just nod, like she’d known that all along and I could totally trust her.

  Her lips were sealed, she’d tell me with those placating looks.

  It went on like that for hours and miles, but at least I wasn’t forced to talk to Simon, to rehash those last few minutes we’d spent alone together in front of the library, because whenever I thought about that, the tops of my ears burned and my toes curled tightly.

  What had I been thinking, kissing him like that? Had it really been the only way to avoid being noticed by those cops?

  Because now . . . now all I could think was: I’d kissed Simon. And not only that, but he’d kissed me back.

  Even worse, I felt guilty because Tyler might be out there somewhere, newly returned and trying to find me the way I was trying to find him. I was ashamed because maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny part of me that hadn’t hated that kiss. Did that make me the worst person ever?

  Probably.

  Whenever I caught Simon shooting me glances from the rearview mirror, I pretended not to see him. I picked my fingernails and acted like the darkness and the scenery outside were the most fascinating things in the world. Pretty much anything to avoid his gaze.

  I didn’t want to know what he was thinking, and I definitely didn’t want to give him any idea what was going on inside my head.

  “We’re getting close,” Thom said as he sat up. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  I looked around. We were surrounded by desert that was hardly at all like the desert we’d left behind in Washington, which had long, flat stretches that seemed to last forever.

  Here, the land was uneven and rocky, with tall cliffs that sprang up on both sides of us. The rock sheers looked like they’d been hand carved, and even in the darkness I could make out intricate ridgelines and seams that felt like they had a story to tell, marking their passage throughout time. I wondered what they’d look like in the light of day.

  “What are we watching for?” I asked, scanning for signs we were no longer alone. It seemed unlikely, though. We were on the only visible road—with no obvious signs or manmade structures in sight.

  “Trouble,” Simon warned, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

  Natty leaned over the top of me, her breath fogging the glass as she searched too.

  “Why would there be trouble?” I asked. “I thought you said they would help us.”

  From the passenger seat, Thom was looking too, but I wondered if he could see anything but blackness. “We had no way of letting them know we were coming. Far as they’re concerned, we’re trespassers.”

  “It’s late,” Jett said quietly. “They probably don’t even know we’re here.”

  “Oh, they know, all right.” Simon’s ominous whisper sent a shiver of trepidation down my spine, as an eerie hush cloaked us.

  The ambush, when it finally came, struck Simon’s side of the SUV first. It made sense, I suppose: if I were planning to ambush a vehicle, I’d go for the driver first.

  The driver’s-side window shattered, and Simon flinched the way anyone would if the glass next to his head had just exploded without warning. The SUV swerved hard to the right, driving all the way off the road and leaping wildly over the rocks and bushes beside the smooth asphalt.

  Simon regained control quickly. But then something solid and hard struck the windshield as well. It was crazy loud, and even though it wasn’t totally unexpected this time, I flinched even harder than the first time. I couldn’t tell whether we’d been hit by a rock or some kind of ball bearing, or whether it was something even more dangerous, like a bullet, but it didn’t matter. The windshield began to fracture, splintering from a point directly in front of Simon’s face and spiderwebbing out in all directions, looking like cut-glass lace.

  “Get off the road!” Thom yelled, and before Simon could react, I felt Willow climbing over the top of us, her boots gouging into my thighs as she clambered past us, and into the front seat between Thom and Simon.

  She gripped one of the weapons we’d packed before leaving Silent Creek, a long black rifle-looking thing that was as foreign to me as one of Jett’s motherboards.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t the one who had to fire the thing.

  “I told you this was a bad idea!” Willow shouted as she shoved Thom against the passenger-side door.

  Neither Simon nor Thom answered. Simon kept his head low as we barreled along; only his eyes were visible above the dash. Willow leaned over the top of him and aimed the nose of the gun out the shattered side window.

  “Cover your ears,” she called out absently, and it was hard to tell if she was talking to Simon, who could only cover one of his ears since he was driving, or to the rest of us.

  I didn’t take any chances, and stuck my fingers in my ears just as she pulled the trigger.<
br />
  It turns out, fingers make poor earplugs, especially in tight quarters. The sound rattled the inside of the car, and my ears rang in a way that felt like I might have suffered permanent damage. Still, as long as Willow was playing Annie Oakley, I kept them plugged.

  “Why are they shooting at us? Can’t we just surrender?” I yelled, wondering if anyone could even hear me.

  We drove in a crisscrossing pattern that I assumed was meant to give whoever had ambushed us a less . . . stationary target. One second I was colliding against the glass on my right, and the next I was crushing Natty as she was shoved against Jett on the other side of her. I was grateful I’d never been prone to motion sickness because this was like being on the world’s worst roller coaster.

  Willow, who was on her knees now as she crouched over the top of Simon and used his shoulders to support her elbows, hollered back at me, “That’s what we’re doing!”

  It took me a second to process what she’d said. Surely I’d misheard her—maybe my ears really had suffered permanent damage.

  There was a brief pause, and then Simon answered me. “Trust us—” he called back.

  He was about to say more, but was cut off when a sudden jolt came from the front of the car. The entire vehicle shook, and then it wobbled hard, and eventually it just seemed to lose steam all at once.

  Willow fell forward, smacking her head against the dash, and before she could regain her own balance, Thom reached around her waist and dragged her up again, so she was out of Simon’s way while he wrestled with the steering wheel. This time, when the SUV bounced over the rocks at the side of the road, we rapidly lost speed, and the roller coaster felt more like bumper cars.

  “What was that?” Natty asked.

  “Spike strip,” Simon replied. “They just blew out our tires.” He slammed the brakes and shoved the car into park, his fingers working deftly to unbuckle his seat belt as he whipped around to face us. “Everyone, out. Now!”

  But before I’d even released my own seat belt, I saw them. Coming out of the dark, and not just a few of them. We were surrounded.

  “Kyra?” Jett said, glancing over at me, my hand frozen in place on my seat belt. “What is it?”

  The rest of them couldn’t see what I did. They couldn’t see in the dark the way I could, and didn’t know there was a legion of soldiers approaching, armed way beyond anything we had packed inside this car. “There are so many of them,” I whispered, my voice shivering as I worried that those people out there might somehow be able to hear what I was saying. “They have guns. A lot of them,” I relayed to my friends inside the car, not wanting anyone to get hurt.

  “When you get out, keep your hands in the air,” Simon ordered. “Don’t make any sudden movements. These guys aren’t messin’ around.”

  I studied those approaching us. Some were shielded behind bandanas that masked their noses and mouths, looking like Wild West bandits, and others wore nothing over their faces, just leers.

  Thom added, “Do as he says. Get out slowly, arms raised. Follow their orders.” He opened his door, leading the way as he lifted his hands up in surrender. His last word was almost inaudible as at least five of those surrounding us descended on him. But I heard him call out, just before he landed on the ground, face first. “Submit.”

  Me, Natty, Jett, and Simon got out on our own, and were all thrown down the same way Thom had been, and suddenly all that scenery I’d been admiring—the desert—was in my nose and my eyes and inside my mouth, tasting a lot like the modeling clay I’d once licked off my fingers in first grade.

  Willow had to be dragged out, and even though she’d just told me we were surrendering, she went down exactly as I’d expected her to: combatively. It wasn’t pretty.

  “They were warning shots, you idiots! Do you not know the difference?” she screamed when they finally pulled her, flailing, from the SUV. “Take your hands off me!”

  I tried to see what was happening, but there was a knee digging in the center of my back, pinning me to the ground. All I could make out were the two front tires of our SUV, which were torn to scraps by the “spike strip” Simon said they’d used. I had to blink against all the sand being kicked around, scraping my eyes.

  Above me, I heard the murmur of voices:

  “ . . . Griffin won’t like this . . .”

  “You freaks lost or somethin’ . . . ?”

  . . . and something about “. . . familiar . . .” but Willow’s shouts made it impossible to hear the rest of what they were saying.

  “Let. Me. Go!” Willow insisted again. There were boots grinding in the sand and bodies bumping together and grunting, lots of grunting. I couldn’t pinpoint where any of it was coming from. One second it seemed far away, and the next it was right on top of me. But the entire time I heard Willow, screaming indignantly to be released.

  I told myself this would be the perfect time to “get pissed” as Simon called it. Except I wasn’t so sure what I would do, exactly. Move some sand around? And against what . . . an army of weapons?

  Besides, those weapons they had weren’t just aimed at one person. Even if I could manage to knock one of these guys out with a rock, or some other suitable object I just so happened to find lying in the middle of the desert, then what? Wouldn’t that just make the others trigger-happy? I couldn’t risk putting my friends in danger just to prove I had some control over this strange ability of mine.

  After several seconds of struggling, there was the sickening flat and hollow sound of meat slapping against meat—and I knew someone had struck Willow. Then she was silent too.

  I tried to roll away from whoever had me pinned, but Simon was right, these guys weren’t messing around. And before I realized what happened, I felt a sharp slam against the side of my head. Stars swirled behind my eyelids and it took several attempts before my vision cleared. But unlike Willow, I only had to be warned once to stop my struggling.

  When I was yanked to my feet, I saw Simon shoot a concerned glance my way.

  “What?” I mouthed, trying not to draw any more attention than necessary.

  Simon lifted one shoulder, indicating the right side of his face. But he didn’t mean his face, he meant mine.

  My face.

  The guy who’d had his knee digging into my back let go of my arm. I brushed my fingertips across my temple, to the place where he’d smacked me with his rifle. Tentatively, I pulled my fingers away and glanced down at them.

  There was so much blood.

  “Oh, no,” I breathed. I glanced uneasily at the swarm of people who’d just disabled our vehicle and were holding us at gunpoint. “You’re not . . . ,” I started to ask the guy almost absently, and then my eyes shot back to Simon as I mouthed, “They’re all . . . ?”

  There were so many more of them than us, and they so didn’t fit the image I’d conjured in my head ever since Jett had used the word “activists.” I expected throwbacks to the Flower Power communes of the ’60s rather than the militant-looking, gun-wielding combat mongers they’d turned out to be.

  But now that I was looking—really looking—they appeared too much like normal people. The idea that I might have just poisoned them, the same way I had Tyler, made my knees wobbly.

  Simon just shook his head, looking around at our abductors. “Returned,” he mouthed back.

  I exhaled audibly. They’d be okay. And then I realized that the kid next to me, on closer inspection, really was just a kid . . . a boy. He wore a sleeveless shirt and flexed biceps that were a little too defined for how short he was, almost like he had a kid-sized head on a man’s body.

  I realized then that my first impression of them was somehow . . . off.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t have a military vibe, because they sort of did. But only in the sense that they all carried guns—rifles, handguns, that sort of thing. It was more the way they were dressed that I’d gotten wrong. These kids weren’t dressed for combat, not like the guys back at the Tacoma facility, the ones wear
ing fatigues with the black grease paint smeared over their faces.

  Heck, not even like Natty had dressed for this operation.

  No, these kids looked more like they were heading out into the wilderness, ready to go backpacking or mountain climbing. They wore hiking gear—boots and vests. Plus there was that whole bandana thing. I didn’t think it was Old West–y. Instead, I wondered if it wasn’t for keeping the dust out.

  I glanced uneasily at Simon, and then to Thom, silently letting them know what I thought of their having brought us here. Returned or not, we didn’t belong here.

  “How’d you do that?” the kid next to me asked curiously, when I’d healed in less than thirty seconds. “Never seen anyone do that before. Not that fast.”

  I was saved from having to explain when a girl with a shaved head shoved Simon from behind, giving him the Start moving signal.

  “Where we going?” Simon asked, even as his shoes started crunching softly in the sand beneath him.

  The girl shoved him again, harder this time. “No questions.”

  I got the same nudge, and without looking, I was pretty sure Thom, Natty, Jett, and Willow had gotten it too. Since there were no more arguments coming from Willow, I assumed she’d finally taken Thom’s advice and submitted.

  Around us, the footfalls of dozens, maybe a hundred or more, fell in sync. We didn’t bother trying to run. Our car was out of play and there was nowhere to go for miles. Even if there had been a town, who would we run to? The authorities were out of the question. Our parents, those of us who even still had parents, were just as bad—my own mom had tried to hand me over to Agent Truman in the first place. My dad . . . well, who knew where he was now.

  We were on our own, and our best hope was here, holding us at gunpoint.

  Seventeen minutes into our trek, Thom finally broke the silence. “Where’s Griffin?” he asked.