The Replaced(12)

Instead of thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and all the things I couldn’t do, I forced myself to focus on the things we could control—just like in a big game.

“Let’s run over the basics one more time,” Simon said. “Just to be sure everyone’s got it down. If you have questions, now’s the time.”

Jett broke out his trusty laptop and opened up a blueprint, and I wondered again where he’d even gotten a blueprint of a secret government installation. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing you found on Google.

“What’s the ‘Daylight Division’?” I’d been so focused on the ins and outs of the plan, I hadn’t noticed the watermark running across the top of the schematics before.

Jett gave me a curious glance. “That’s the name of their division, the underground branch of the NSA that your Agent Truman and the other No-Suchers searching for the Returned belong to.” He pointed at the screen again. “The NSA is headquartered back east, but this place, the Tacoma facility, is the Daylight Division’s main base of operations.”

It was a strange name. “Why the Daylight Division? It seems a little . . .” I shrugged, because I wasn’t quite sure what it seemed. “. . . innocent sounding.”

“That’s the point,” Willow said. “It’s always the opposite of what it is with this government shit. Like, if you hear of something called Operation Rainbow, it’s probably nuclear f*cking winter coming.”

Jett nodded in agreement and then got back to the task at hand. “We already agreed to break into two groups,” he explained eagerly. “Team One, that’s my team—” he started.

“Team One?” Simon interrupted cynically from the front seat, giving Jett a pointed take-it-down-a-notch look.

“Fine,” Jett conceded, lowering his enthusiasm a degree or two. He tapped the screen. “So, Team One will come around back with me, while Team Two waits near the entrance for the all-clear signal. Team One already called dibs on Kyra.”

“Me? Why me?”

Jett perked up, and Simon flashed him that look again. He withered, putting his business face back on. “Because. It’s dark and you can be my eyes. You’re like a human flashlight.”

I would’ve argued, or pretended to be embarrassed, but he wasn’t so far off. They might not know I’d moved things just by concentrating on them—even if it only had been a couple of times—but there were things they did know about. Like that I could see in the dark and hold my breath underwater for what seemed like forever . . . and that I could throw crazy hard. I almost smiled, because that last one was the reason Agent Truman had been wearing a cast the last time I’d seen him.

I might not have liked that I was different from the others, but there were definite advantages.

“So you really think you can disable their security system?” Willow asked.

“Not disable exactly. If we shut it down, then they’ll know there’s a problem and come looking for it.” A sly grin slid over his face. “I was thinking a more subtle approach is in order. Something that makes it so they never see us coming.”

Now that we were here, I tried not to freak the hell out. We were a group of perpetual teens about to break into an undisclosed government facility with state-of-the-art security.

When I thought about it like that, the whole idea sounded half-baked. But instead of losing my shit, I forced myself to stay calm, centered, reminding myself we were no ordinary kids. We were different . . . special.

Me most of all.

My concern must’ve been telegraphed all over my face because Simon’s sympathetic look almost did me in. “You can do this, Kyra. Just . . . breathe.”

I swallowed my doubts as I rubbed my sweaty palms over the tops of my knees, and then nodded again while I kept my eyes trained on his, hoping to soak up some of his confidence.

Jett tapped Simon on the shoulder and handed him a white key card, turning his attention back to the plan, while I thought about what Simon had said about everyone having a weakness. He was right, at least as far as I could tell. We might be able to heal faster than normal people, me more so than the rest of them, but that didn’t mean we were invincible. Not by a long shot. Simon had made it more than clear that these “Daylighters” knew ways to kill us.

“Team Two,” Jett said, his finger dropping to a place in the center of the plans on his computer screen—a place that looked like a large, open space that could be any kind of room. “Once you’re inside, you locate the central lab. That’s your best chance of finding Tyler if they’ve got him.”

Lab. I swallowed a golf ball–sized lump that formed in my throat every time they used that word. It conjured gruesome images that made my stomach pitch. I was sure I didn’t want to know the answer, but it didn’t stop me from asking, “What do you think they’re doing to him in there?”

“Nothing good.” Jett shot me an apologetic look as he snapped his laptop shut, and then his fingers drifted to the spot on his arm again. “We need to be in and out as fast as possible.”

No one said anything more about the lab thing as we piled out of the SUV. We were parked in an ordinary public lot and our vehicle looked like all the rest, blending nicely in a sea of other SUVs, minivans, and sedans. But even so, I hoped there weren’t cameras out here, already keeping an electronic eye on us, because if there were, we were screwed.