The Replaced (10 page)

I clutched my bowling ball against my chest as I took my first step.

One . . . I took a step and eased my arm down in front of me, letting it fall to my side. Two . . . Another step as I lunged with my left knee and I began the forward arc of the ball. Three . . . I released it, not early, and not late the way Natty had, but just as I reached the line at the top of the lane.

I knew the moment I let it go, though, that I’d done something wrong. I was stunned as I watched the heavy ball barrel down the lane so fast it was a singular black smudge.

It reached the end of the lane and ripped through the pins on the right side, exactly the way it should have. But
instead of landing in whatever opening was back there waiting to swallow it and carry it back to the return the way the rest of the balls did, this one just kept going. It hurtled right over the top of the chasm.

The sound that followed was a terrible screeching noise. Not a crash, but almost like metal scraping, or crunching, or collapsing. It was loud and harsh.

I heard Natty gasp, and even without looking, I knew Simon had jumped to his feet behind me.

This time the eyes that turned our way were not disinterested in the least.

They were interested-fascinated-
downright stunned
. And I couldn’t blame them.

“Kyra?” Even Simon forgot to call me by my fake name as he appeared at my back.

I stammered, “I don’t know . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” How could I make him understand? It was like the time I’d jokingly chucked the softball at Tyler, only it hadn’t been funny when the ball had rocketed toward him rather than lobbing the way I’d meant it to. I’d nearly torn a hole through the backstop that day.

“Crap,” Simon—whose new ID said his name was Barry Pomeroy—whispered as he gripped my shoulder and dragged me stumbling back to where Natty was already frantically stripping off her rental shoes and looking around anxiously. “Take these back and get ours.” He handed his shoes to Natty while I kicked mine off too.

Natty had just gathered all three pairs when the
scoreboard over our lane began to flash. Clearly whatever had happened back there, where that god-awful sound had come from, my ball had caused a malfunction of some sort.

Nice. Way to
not
draw attention.

“It’s fine,” Simon told me while my heart hammered and my gaze slid uneasily around to the other lanes, to where everyone had all but stopped what they were doing, and their watchful stares were pinned to me now. “We’ll just get our things and go. No one’ll ever even know we were here.”

Except he was wrong.

The guy trudging toward us had a look in his eyes that made my heart stutter. And from the way his nostrils were flaring as those eyes locked on us, I knew we were in seriously deep shit. His blue-and-black bowling shirt—the same color-blocked kind the waitress and the guy behind the shoe rental counter had been wearing—strained around his bulging belly with each heavy step he took. But he had an air about him that made it clear: this was the guy in charge.

“You goddamned kids!” he bellowed before he’d even reached us. “Always breakin’ things! Always up to no goddamned good! What’d you do this time?”

Simon stepped forward, but I slipped in front of him, pasting on my most innocent it-wasn’t-my-fault expression. It was a look I generally reserved for crisis situations, and even then only pulled out for those of the male persuasion—I’d used similar looks on my dad, Austin, and on guy teachers and coaches. Women tended to be impervious since most of them kept similar looks of their own
for just such an emergency.

“It was an accident,” I explained, wrinkling my nose and hoping I looked distressed rather than like I was sniffing something revolting. “I have no idea what happened.”

He just scowled back at me, propping his ham-sized fists on his hips. He wasn’t buying my little damsel-in-distress display. “All I know is, I just got lane one up and running again, and now you kids”—he eyeballed Simon behind me, his bulging eyes getting even bulgier behind his greasy cheeks—“you come in here and fuck it all up again. Do you know how much trouble you just cost me? Not to mention how much goddamned money?”

Natty came back and was holding our shoes. She kept glancing toward the door and then back at the people—at the crowd that was gathering around us—and back to me and the boss man. She reminded me of a frightened animal, which irritated me since she was part of my team, and I was counting on her to have my back. Cat would’ve had my back.

Simon had had enough, and he finally tried to smooth things over. “Look, we don’t want any trouble. Can’t we work something out?” He reached for his pocket, and I thought that would be the end of it. He would buy our way out of this.

Natty must’ve thought the same thing I did, and she took a step toward me, handing me my shoes.

But the boss guy didn’t even blink. He wasn’t interested in making any
deal
with us.

When I reached for my shoes, it set the guy off. Rage sparked behind his eyes. He’d had enough of us
goddamned kids,
and one of his ham hands snaked out, his fat fingers closing around my wrist. I had to give the guy credit—he was strong. Not super strong like me or anything, but strong enough, and when he squeezed, I felt my bones pop.

“Where d’ya think you’re going?” he sneered in a menacing voice.

Dizziness surged through me, and I realized that no amount of sweet-talking or cash was going to get us out of here unnoticed.

“Get your hands off her!” Simon insisted, forgetting all about trying to pay the guy off as he tried to shove him away from me. But Simon couldn’t stop what had already started, and the scene we were causing made us a million times more interesting as several more of the nosy bowlers packed in around us.

The boss guy started dragging me toward the shoe rental counter. “We’ll see what the sheriff has to say ’bout all this.” He nodded to the pimply-faced kid who’d taken our shoes. “Call Sheriff Hudson. Tell him we got trouble here.”

When the kid picked up the phone, it felt like the guy had just wrapped his hands around my throat instead of my wrist. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe.

If they called the sheriff on us, eventually someone might realize we weren’t who our IDs said we were. They might even figure out who we really were. And if Agent Truman was notified . . .

There were people standing in our way, and not just Simon and Natty, but a full-blown crowd now too. I wondered why none of them jumped in or tried to tell this guy he’d crossed a line by manhandling one of us “goddamned kids,” let alone a girl, but they all just stood there, gaping with morbid fascination.

Chicken shits!
I wanted to scream at them, but all I could think was that they were all seeing our faces. With every second that passed, the chances they could identify us grew.

The guy didn’t slow, and as much as I wanted to try, I was afraid that if I did try to hit him or kick him, that I might not be able to control my own strength and it would end up like the bowling ball incident all over again. What if I hurt him? Or worse?

What if that just gave these people even more reason to recognize us?

“Please. She didn’t mean it,” Natty begged, getting in front of us and trying to slow him down.

But Natty was no roadblock, not for this whale of a guy, and she might as well have been a bug in the path of a car. He swept her aside with his free arm, sending Natty sprawling backward. Her head made a hollow
thwack!
sound against the hardwood.

Seeing her on the ground like that triggered something in me. “Lemme go.” I thrashed, wringing my wrist in the circle of his unflinching grip. “I can explain. This was all a big mistake.” I couldn’t dislodge myself. All I managed to do was make him yank my arm even harder.

“The only mistake is letting
you kids
in here . . .”
You kids
. We were all alike to this guy. “Little fuckers are always messin’ things up, thinkin’ you can call your daddies and have ’em bail you out.” He was muttering as he half shoved, half dragged me. “Not this time. This time you can answer to the law.”

Hot sparks exploded behind my eyes. It wasn’t pain, though, not this sensation. It was sheer-complete-
utter
panic.

Above us, the monitors and TV screens began to blink, flashing erratically.

Somewhere, down on the lanes, several pins crashed together loudly. The jarring and unexpected sound was followed immediately by another set of pins falling, then another and another. And after each crash, there was the mechanical whir of the automatic pin machines as they worked to set the fallen pins up once more.

Heads whipped around to see what—or who—was causing all the pins to collapse, but the lanes were all deserted since everyone had gathered around us.

Now we weren’t moving at all—me, the boss man, no one in the bowling alley.

“What the—” he whispered, but instead of loosening, his grip on me got tighter, more painful.

He was going to turn us in and Agent Truman would put us under a microscope . . . body part by body part.

My skin felt like it was on fire, and just when I thought I might combust from the inside out, the trophy case erupted like a bomb had been set off within it. Pieces of glass flew
outward, sailing in every direction. The kid behind the counter barely ducked in time to avoid being impaled by one of the trophies—an enormous green one with a giant gold star on top—as it hurtled end-over-pointed-end right for him. It smashed into a gazillion plastic bits against the wall behind him.

“Kyra.” The warning in Simon’s voice made me pause as I searched for him among the sea of faces.

He was scolding me, like I’d done something wrong.

I wanted to tell him he was confused, that it was the other guy—the one who had me in his death grip—who was the bad guy here. But I knew what he meant. The truth was reflected on every aghast face staring back at me, every O-shaped gape and horrified gaze. Even they knew.

I’d done all this—the blinking monitors that were still flashing wildly, the unexplained pins toppling over, the shattering trophy case.

Me.

“Crap,” I said, and then looked up at the boss guy, who’d finally released me so he could pick a small fragment of glass from his forearm. “I’m sorry.”

Natty gathered our shoes and gave me a pointed look. “Let’s go.”

This was our chance, she was telling me. While everyone was too dazed or too afraid to realize they could still stop us. They didn’t know my limitations.

And no one even tried, not even the boss guy. The crowd just parted. But there was no mistaking the whispers of “
Did
you see that?
” and “
What is she . . . ?”
all jumbled together.

I’d gone from minor spectacle to full-blown freak show in the space of less than ten minutes. Must be some sort of new world record.

And now we weren’t just trying to go unnoticed in this nothing of a town until it got dark. Now, because of the scene I’d just caused, we had to seriously lay low, since I was pretty sure every single person in that bowling alley could probably describe all of us to a police sketch artist if asked.

Impressive
.

WE HEARD THE COP CAR, WITH ITS SIREN BLARING
, before we’d even cleared the parking lot of the bowling alley. If only that pimple-faced jerk behind the counter hadn’t been so quick on the dial, or if his asshole boss would have just made the deal when Simon had offered it . . .

Then we wouldn’t be in this mess now.

The black-and-white car turned into the parking lot just as Simon and Natty and I rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. I didn’t even have my shoes on yet before we were sprinting down a crushed gravel road, dust flying behind us. I could feel the sharp rocks poking at me beneath
my socks. But we didn’t slow down.

Simon slammed into the wobbly wooden fence at the end of the road, scaling it in a single, nimble leap. Without hesitating, I followed, although I was far less graceful and suddenly wished I’d focused more on track over softball. When I landed in more gravel on the other side, I gasped, but Simon covered my mouth to shush me.

I stayed low, crouching the way he was as I searched the shabby-looking houses around us. Laundry waved on drooping clotheslines, and somewhere, inside one of the houses, a baby wailed. But other than the baby, it was silent. There were no dogs barking, no people talking, not even a television or radio in the background. No reason to think anyone knew we were back here.

Natty landed beside me and stared at me with her ginormous saucer-sized eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Simon, because I
was
sorry, for messing up something as simple as trying to stay hidden for just one day.

Apparently that was all the confirmation Natty needed. “So it
was
you? You did all that back there? The breaking glass and flying trophies? All without even touching them?” She didn’t ask it like she was accusing me of doing something shady. Instead, there was this hint of amazement, like she thought I’d done something really,
really
right.

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Holy crap,” she breathed. “And what about at the lab? That giant tube thing? That was you, too?”

“It’s not as cool as you think,” I whispered.

At any other time, I’d have been lying. The fact that I could make things happen—move things with my mind—even when I didn’t mean to, was sort of awesome. It was the part where it happened outside of my control that made it disturbing.

Besides, it was bad enough having Willow mooning over me because I’d saved her. I didn’t need Natty acting all weird too.

“Can you do it again?”

“I have no idea. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but I can’t figure it out. So far, I don’t know how to control it. I’ve been trying to move things for weeks.” I cringed, thinking of the scene back at the bowling alley, not exactly rolling a pencil across a table. “I have no idea why this was different from all those times.”

“What about the bowling ball?” she asked. “I saw you
throw
that. That wasn’t the same.”

Again, it was something I didn’t totally understand. “For some reason, if I’m not overthinking it, I can throw super hard, too. But like the moving things without touching them, it doesn’t work just because I want it to.” I’d practiced that too. After a successful attempt, in which I’d done some major damage to one of the storage buildings at Silent Creek, I’d moved my target practice into the woods and tried honing my skill there. But the results had been less than encouraging.

To prove my point, I punched Simon in the arm. “See?
Just because I can throw hard sometimes, it doesn’t mean I can just turn it on and off. And it doesn’t seem to work for things like hitting.” I eyed Simon, who was dramatically rubbing his arm.

“What if you’d been wrong?” he griped.

I shrugged unrepentantly. “Then I guess we’d be having a very different conversation.” Turning back to Natty, I said, “Seriously, though, you can’t tell anyone. Not even Thom or Jett. And especially not Willow.” I didn’t want her to have any more reason to worship me. “Simon’s the only one who knows.” I gave her a serious look to let her know I meant what I said. “And now you.”

Simon threw my shoes at me. “And now half this town. Since they know what we look like, we need to find someplace to stay hidden for the next . . .” He hesitated, clearly irritated that I’d put a kink in our plans.

I glanced at my new watch, trying to be helpful. “Two and a half hours,” I offered.

“Two and a half hours,” Simon huffed, shoving his feet into his own shoes and pulling me up by my arm. I’d clearly landed on his shit list.

He dragged us behind the run-down houses, keeping close to shrubbery whenever possible.

We hid behind garbage cans and cars and anything else big enough to conceal us. I was anxious, because what if it was already too late? What if the sheriff, or whoever had been called to the bowling alley, had put two and two together and figured out we were half of the missing teens
the Daylighters were searching for?

For all we knew, Agent Truman was already on his way.

When we made our way back to the main road, just a few blocks from “downtown,” I pointed at a house that looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. “There.” It had pink trim and light blue shutters, and on the large wraparound porch there were two rocking chairs painted a bright shade of yellow. It was cozy, in a gingerbread house kind of way, and made me wonder what kind of life-sized Barbie doll might answer if we knocked. Except we wouldn’t have to knock on those doors to get inside this Dreamhouse.

Columbia Valley Library, read the pink-and-gold sign planted in the front yard.

“The library?” Simon asked skeptically.

But I was already dragging Natty across the street. “Think about it—it’s perfect. The cops probably won’t look for us there, and if we’re lucky, whoever works there won’t have a clue what just happened at the bowling alley.”

Natty chimed in. “Besides, it wouldn’t be weird for us to be hanging out in a library for a couple of hours. That’s what they’re there for, right?”

“I don’t know . . .” Simon hesitated. “I’m not much of a reader.”

“Okay. Sure. I understand.” But we were already on the porch, and I grinned at him over my shoulder. “If you need help, let one of us know. We can help you sound out the big words.”

The inside of the library was nothing like the outside. And while it barely resembled a Barbie Dreamhouse, it was hardly like a library either, at least not the library we’d had back in Burlington, which had these enormous windows and tall ceilings, state-of-the-art computers, and neatly organized shelves and displays.

This place was dark and dusty, and the books were scattered around in almost total disarray. If there was a system—Dewey decimal or otherwise—it wasn’t apparent. The only similarity I could see between this and the Burlington Library was the fact that it called itself a library. That, and the fact that there were, indeed, books.

Still, I was surprised by the guy who came down the stairs to greet us. He didn’t look all nerdy and bookish, which despite not being library-ish, was the kind of Norman Bates vibe I’d expected in a place like this. But instead of wearing a sweater vest and bow tie, this guy had on baggy jeans and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt. He looked like someone’s slacker brother who should be stuffing his face with Cheetos and playing Xbox in the basement.

“So, let me know if you need help finding anything. Nonfiction’s in the back . . .” He pointed through an opening that might have once been a dining room or a living room, but now had stacks of disorganized shelves covering the walls. “And fiction’s through there.” Again, he pointed, this time through another opening, on the opposite side of
the stairs. “If you need to use the computer, lemme know—I’ll give you today’s password.” He nodded at a desk in the corner. Next to the desk, a sign read:

We’re sorry!
Due to national security concerns, we are unable to tell you if your
internet surfing habits, passwords, and email content are being
monitored by federal agents; please act appropriately.

My breath snagged in the back of my throat at the mention of federal agents, but the guy just shrugged and said, “Patriot Act,” like that explained everything. Then he threw in, “Just try to stay off the porn sites. Gives us all kinds of viruses.”

I raised my eyebrows at Simon, just the tiniest bit, making it clear I doubted the guy was talking to Natty and me. Simon scowled back, letting me know he didn’t think I was funny, even the tiniest bit.

Natty didn’t hesitate, and took off toward the fiction section, while Simon stayed with me. I was tempted to ask for the computer password so I could maybe go to my dad’s old online forums, those weird conspiracy theory sites he used to frequent. I doubted he’d risk visiting them now, but there was a part of me that thought if only I could spend a minute or two in the places he used to spend hours-days-months of his life before I’d returned, maybe the ache I felt to see him might dull, even if it was only temporary. Even if whatever connection I’d feel wasn’t real.

But I was equally nervous that somehow Agent Truman might expect it and be monitoring those sites, waiting for me to slip up like that so he could track us down.

“Thanks,” I told the librarian politely as I made my way, instead, to the nonfiction section.

I examined the jumbled collection of books that included everything from local history to crafts to finances. I paused when I reached the meager section on relationships, and I ran my finger over a spine with an image of a couple kissing.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I hadn’t even realized Simon was standing right behind me until then, and I dropped my hand.

“What if he doesn’t come back?” He went on, not waiting for me to admit that I knew exactly who he meant. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but eventually you have to ask yourself: When is enough enough? When do you give up?”

I hugged myself tightly as I turned to face him, wondering why he was bringing this up now. My stomach and my throat clenched painfully.

I’d already asked myself that same question a hundred times:
When
would
I give up?
Problem was, there was no good answer.

I took in every detail of Simon’s face, like it might somehow make a difference in the way I answered—his dark lashes, the golden specks that floated in his strange eyes, the curve of his full lips. He watched me with a kind of fascinated intensity that made me hyperaware of the way I
held myself, and made me notice the way I pressed my toes against the bottom of my shoes. I traced my tongue back and forth along the roof of my mouth—a nervous habit.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You didn’t know what would happen to him. I should have told you what they did—the DNA replacement—so you could make an informed decision.”

I shuddered, because I wasn’t sure it would have made a difference. Tyler would have died if I hadn’t let him be taken. Could I really have let that happen, even knowing he wouldn’t come back fully human?

“You did what you thought was best.” Simon’s voice was lower, huskier now. “But at some point you have to forgive yourself.” His words were hypnotic.

The moment I licked my lips, I regretted the action. There was something about the way Simon was looking at me, about the way he was watching my mouth a little too closely, his eyes darting back and forth to mine, almost like he was asking—no, begging—me for permission. I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea, and I was afraid I’d just sent out some sort of
kiss-me
signal. I swallowed super hard, my mouth feeling like it was suddenly stuffed with cotton. “What if I can’t forgive myself?”

“Kyra.” His hand nudged my chin upward and I literally thought my heart would explode like the trophy case at the bowling alley. “You get that the two of you weren’t together for that long, don’t you?” He scowled down at me.

It took several seconds before his words finally penetrated
my brain, probably because my feelings were so mixed up. But once they did, I recoiled, shoving away from him. “Wait. What are you trying to say?”

Simon wasn’t nearly as confused, and he repeated, “I said, it’s not like you were together all that long, you and your boyfriend.”

“Are you being serious right now? You think that makes a difference,
how long
we were
together
?”

“I’m just saying isn’t it possible your feelings for him . . .
how strong
you think you feel might have at least something to do with guilt?” His shrug was almost too much, and my mood shifted. “Think about it, Kyra. You almost killed him, and then you had to send him away to aliens to be forever transformed. That would be tough on anyone. It would make anyone see things . . .
differently
. I can see why you’re having a hard time moving on.” His smile was probably meant to be sympathetic, but it had the exact opposite effect, and I felt myself losing it.

“And by moving on, you mean getting over him, is that it?” I poked Simon in the chest, glad when he winced. “And then what? You think you can just jump in and take his place? What do you want me to say, Simon? That I’d rather be with some bossy jerk who keeps secrets and thinks he knows what’s best for everyone? That if you just give me a few more days, I’ll be over Tyler and you can step in and take his place?” My hair whipped against my cheeks as somewhere in the room I heard something crash to the ground. “Well, I won’t. And you can’t. It’s not that simple.
I’ve known Tyler his whole life. His brother and I were best friends
way
before he was my boyfriend. Not everything is about—”

I was about to explain a hundred different reasons why I’d never get over Tyler, when I saw the book slam into the back of Simon’s head. “Jesus—
what the
. . . ? Did you see that?” His hand shot up to the base of his skull. And then with an incredulous look, he asked, “Did . . . you . . . did
you
do that?”

I was about to deny it, because there was no way it was me, when I looked down at my hand. It was still outstretched.

My eyes got huge when I realized what I’d been thinking right before that book had pegged Simon in the head. Because that was almost exactly it, what I’d been wishing for: something to throw at him.