“Really long,” I finally answered.
Tyler might be like me in the sense that we could heal faster than the Returned, which was already pretty darned impressive, but I had a few other new talents he didn’t. Maybe because the aliens had taken me for five years versus Tyler’s five days. I could see in the dark and hold my breath for forever. I could also throw crazy hard—something Agent Truman had discovered when he’d been on the receiving end of my new killer fastball and ended up with a broken hand.
And sometimes, when I concentrated just right, I could even move things with my mind. Even I had to admit that last thing was pretty freaking cool.
I lowered my hand to his jaw. He didn’t move, and our eyes stayed locked while my stomach flipped. I swallowed nervously.
“Your eyes,” Tyler said, his voice thick now. Low too. “They’re doing that thing again.”
I studied his eyes back, only slightly brighter than they’d been before, but definitely greener. Then I blinked deliberately, intentionally casting a long slow shadow over his face.
Another of my freaky new talents.
“They always remind me of fireflies, when we’re in the dark like this.” He spoke softly, his eyes fastened to mine.
I shuddered. That word, fireflies, raked up my guilt all over again.
I tried to shrug it off. There were so many things I wanted . . . needed to tell him. So many things I needed to confess, starting with Devil’s Hole—the night I’d let him be taken.
For me, it may as well have happened yesterday. There wasn’t enough bleach in the world to scrub the memory of those bugs, all those prickly firefly legs swarming over my skin, tangling in my hair, and finding their way up my nose right before Tyler vanished. I’d felt choked by them, smothered.
He was right about my eyes, though. Denial didn’t make the truth any less real. There were times, especially at night, when my eyes flared like strange glowing orbs—impossibly-ridiculously-comically bright.
So, not only could I see in the dark, but if the moment was right, I could also be seen. I’d become a human beacon.
Tyler ran his finger along my cheekbone. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not really your eyes I’m thinking about.” This time, I didn’t blink to get a reaction from him; it was strictly knee-jerk. But the glow from my eyes, which was too intense for the kind of blackness out here in the dense woods, flashed over his face all the same—once, then twice, and then a third time, while my breath faltered.
Simon had the worst timing and chose that moment to pop into my head, all grinning and smug-like. Typical.
“You know, if we have to be going through all this, I’m glad we’re in it together.” Tyler’s gaze shifted, moving to my lips.
My stomach dropped as I tried to blot Simon from my mind’s eye. He was a serious mood killer.
A week ago, I’d have begged Tyler to look at me like that. For his lips to find mine.
But that was a week ago, before I realized he wouldn’t remember who we were to each other, and what we’d been through. And before Simon had planted that stupid, stupid, stupid kiss on me at the last minute, right before he’d left me and Tyler with my dad.
Now . . .
Maybe it would do me some good to kiss Tyler . . . to rid myself of Simon once and for all.
So why didn’t I then? Why couldn’t I just let things go back to the way they were . . . the way I wanted them to be between us? Clearly Tyler had feelings for me. I mean, he was standing here ready and willing to kiss me, wasn’t he?
But was that really enough? Could I really pretend nothing had changed, when everything had?
That’s the thing. I couldn’t because this wasn’t about Simon.
It wasn’t enough for Tyler and me to share the same DNA—to be part of the same species—because even if he never remembered who we’d been, there was no way we could move forward until he at least knew the truth about what I’d done to him. About my part in his abduction.
As much as I wanted him to love me the way he used to, if I didn’t come clean, anything we started would all be built on lies.
“I need to tell you something,” I said.
“I need to tell you something too,” he answered. But the way he was looking at me, his gaze flicking back and forth between my mouth and my eyes made it all too clear we were not on the same page.
Please don’t kiss me . . . I thought achingly, wondering if I’d even find the will to stop him if he did.
Oblivious to my psychic petitions, he lowered his head, and my heart stumbled hard as it tried to wedge its way into my throat.
I tasted his breath and his lips ever-so-lightly feathered across mine. And just as my mind was screaming at me to pull away, he stopped moving . . . going inexplicably-unnaturally-morbidly still.
And then, before I had a chance to process what was happening, Tyler grabbed me by the arms and hauled me deep, deep beneath the water.
CHAPTER TWO