The Replaced(13)

“Okay. New plan,” I said as firmly as I could, and before I had the chance to change my mind. “I’m on Team Two now.”

“What? No . . . ,” Jett sputtered, getting out the same door I had, right behind Natty.

But Simon put his hand on Jett’s shoulder to stop him. “Why?” he asked, his copper eyes probing mine.

As far as I was concerned, there was no question. “Because Team Two is going after Tyler. That puts me on Team Two.”

I thought Simon might throw a fit, extolling the dangers of marching into the lion’s den or some other such crap, and I braced myself for it while Thom opened the back hatch and started sorting the gear. Instead, after a few seconds of staring at each other like that, like we were in a silent standoff, Simon just . . . shrugged.

And that was it.

“Okay. So, Jett—I mean, Team One—you take Thom and Natty.” The two teammates in question exchanged a look, and I tried to decide if I could decipher any hidden meaning there, something to tell whether or not there really was something more than just leader and devoted follower between them.

Simon flashed Jett a wry smile. “Sorry, you’ll have to make do with a regular flashlight,” he added. “Willow and me’ll take Kyra. We’ll wait out front ’til we get word that the coast is clear.” Then his eyes dropped to the key card in his hand. “You sure this thing’s gonna work? Those of us on Team Two are counting on you.”

Jett practically beamed back at Simon. “I guess we’re about to find out.”





CHAPTER FIVE


BOOM!

The explosion wasn’t so much a sound, the way I’d always imagined an explosion would be, but more like a vibration. Except that wasn’t exactly right either. It reminded me more of thunder, that deep booming feeling that seemed to center somewhere in my chest or belly and was trying to rumble its way out, jangling my bones and my teeth, and making my skin scream. My eardrums seared like someone had stabbed them all the way through with just-sharpened icepicks.

The whole thing lasted only milliseconds, even though it seemed like forever, especially since so many things went through my head at once, like: Where had the blast come from? Had Jett caused it, or were they in trouble because they’d walked into some dangerous NSA booby trap? What if we were all walking into traps?

And where was Team One now?

My eyes had gone wide and I was buzzing with excess energy. I knew this was what my science teacher meant when he explained fight-or-flight, which meant I was on high alert for attack. But the weird thing was, I felt numb at the same time, and that confusion was making it hard to focus on any one thing. Just when I thought my head might finally be clearing and I was about to tell Simon we should make a run for it, I saw this plume of black smoke rising from behind the building, and every light inside the facility shut off all at once as it went entirely black.

Behind the glass entrance, sirens blared to life.

“That’s our cue!” Simon shouted above the alarms as he pulled out the key card Jett had given him. But instead of using it to access the security panel beside the door, Willow pulled out a long, metal crowbar-looking thing and smashed the glass entrance to smithereens. When I didn’t follow right away, Simon asked, “You coming?”

“Wait! That was the plan? No one mentioned an explosion!” I knew I was yelling, but I couldn’t help myself. From inside my head, my voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.

Simon grinned and lifted his finger to his lips. “Don’t worry. We got this. Jett knows what he’s doing,” he said, a million times more quietly than I had.

So Jett’s part of the plan was to draw them away from the front entrance by blowing up the back one? Subtle, I thought, squeezing my eyes shut. The increasing pressure behind my ears made my skull and teeth ache. Whatever did the job, I supposed.

But even as I thought it, I could already feel my body reacting to the assault, curing whatever in my head felt . . . broken. Healing me.

I wasn’t sure whether “our cue” had been the sirens or the smoke or the brain-jarring blast itself, but I wasn’t about to be left behind, so I ducked through the hollowed-out frame. My feet crunched over broken glass as I hurried after Simon and Willow. The siren sound was louder, and there was some sort of generator or emergency lighting system that had kicked on, bathing the entry in a ghostly red pall that made everything seem super creepy.

“Which way?” Simon asked Willow.

Willow grunted and pointed down a deserted hallway. I wondered where all the people were. Scary-cute name or not, the Daylight Division was part of the NSA, after all—the dreaded Tacoma facility—shouldn’t there be an army guarding it?

As if my thoughts were being transmitted along the earsplitting sirens that cut through the air, Simon told us both, “We won’t have long before they figure out the detonation was just a diversion. We need to hurry.”

Hurrying wasn’t a problem. Now that we were in here, I felt trapped. That sledgehammer sensation in my chest was no longer from Jett’s distraction, but was exactly what it was supposed to be—my heart trying to crack a rib. Simon hadn’t explained in detail what would happen to us if we were caught, but he’d explained enough and my imagination had filled in the rest. In my mind, there was no amount of self-regeneration that could undo the damage Agent Truman and his buddies had in store for us.