But what if Simon was right? What if I could allow myself to believe what he’d said about what made me human? What if all these memories and thoughts and feelings really were enough?
I had to cling to that, because deep down, I knew who I was. I was still Kyra Agnew, regardless of what my blood tests showed. No one could take my past, my history, the narration of my life away from me. Although, evidently, they could take away my freedom. Exhibit A, the claustrophobic cell I was now confined within.
I forced myself not to think too long about how dark and narrow this space really was. It made the first place we’d been contained in seem glamorous and roomy by comparison. If I stared for too long at the walls, or considered how far one of them was from another, I got that tight-chested feeling that was almost claustrophobia. Yet another reminder that I was more than just a bunch of chromosomes strung together, because that squeezing in my chest was part of what made me the same as I’d always been.
Instead I looked out, past the narrow bars—because yes, there were bars just like in a real jail—to where two of those thugs were guarding me like there was some chance I might somehow rip off the bars in a fit of rage and try to escape. I wondered what they’d been told about me. I wondered, too, what they thought I was actually capable of, because there was no way these bars were budging. Trust me, I’d tried.
If only I could bend iron with my cool telekinesis thing—that was what kept looping through my mind.
And, of course, Tyler. I thought about Tyler a lot.
But also the bending-bars thing, because how cool would that be, if I could just King Kong my way out of here with my mind?
And then maybe I could find something to knock those two goons out with . . . again with my mind since, hello, they were giants.
But as far as I could see, there was nothing I could use against them. Nothing I could levitate with my new “alien ability.”
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?”