The Replaced(15)

“What are you doing?” I whisper-accused when he reached for the thin casing, but already my skin buzzed like the tube, anticipating what might be hidden there.

Just then, there was an abrupt hush. The alarms went suddenly and totally silent. Simon’s face, still frozen in shock or horror or . . . revulsion, stayed that way as we looked around us like stupid, startled rabbits.

The absence of sound was a million times more disturbing than the shrill warnings had been. And when the red lights switched off too, and there was that brief moment when there was total blackness—just the blackness and the silence—I knew we were done for.

It took a second, but then one at a time, and row by row, the white fixtures on the ceiling high, high, high overhead began switching on. The lights were blazing, so bright I flinched as if I’d just accidentally looked directly into the sun. And while I waited for my eyes to adjust, I found myself studying the floor and I realized that the glass tiles weren’t red at all, but were actually an eerie shade of blue.

We heard shouts—a jumble of voices mingled with footsteps that were heavy and hollow—that could have been coming from above or behind, or right in front of us, for all I could tell. It was like being in a twisted version of a carnival funhouse. One where the end result was being strapped to a metal gurney and being dismembered.

Beside me, I jerked Simon away from the canister or tube or whatever it was, deciding we needed to get the hell outta Dodge at the same time he whispered, “Run,” as he reached for my hand.

I no longer cared that just seconds ago I’d wished he’d been punched in the face. I was like that, I guess—fickle.

Blood rushed past my ears as he dragged me. I glanced behind my shoulder, and then up to the observation room and all around us, convinced that at any second we were going to be caught. Willow was already gone, and my fingers clung to Simon’s.

The exits no longer seemed like viable options—we had no idea which direction they’d be coming from when they finally arrived. Ahead of us, though, there were several vents of some sort, giant grilles in the walls. Instead of waiting to find out if Simon had a plan, I let go of him and rushed to one of them. I tried to pry it off myself, but my hands were fumbling and awkward. The voices grew clearer, louder . . . sounding like they were right on top of us.

“Here,” Simon said, coming in behind me. His breath was hot against my cheek as he leaned over the top of me, his fingers surer than mine as he removed the grate deftly. “It’s okay. Trust me.”

I hated the way he said it, like he was my hero, but I didn’t have time to complain. Instead, I eased into the dark opening behind the wall, with Simon coming in right behind me. He reached for the cover, and within seconds, he’d managed to secure it back in place. Just as the central lab was swarmed with an army of footsteps.

The only light came in through the vent openings, from the lab beyond. It was bigger back here than I’d expected, more like a hallway than a space behind the walls. I leaned my head against the wall, trying to slow my breaths and waiting . . . waiting to see if we’d been discovered. We stayed like that for an eternity. I was terrified that the slightest sound, the barest scrape of my hair or the rasp of my breath might give us away. And the entire time my heart was ripping a hole in my chest.

“They got away,” a man’s voice said from inside the lab.

“You!” someone else shouted—an order, “Take a team to sweep the perimeter. Make sure they don’t get too far. But suit up, and be careful. These kids are dangerous. I don’t want any Code Reds on my watch.” My skin crawled with recognition. The voice . . . the man giving the order, I knew it. It was him . . . Agent Truman.

“Sir, there aren’t enough bio-suits for everyone,” the other man responded.

There was a pause, a heavy, thought-filled pause, and then Agent Truman answered, “So pick your best men and suit them up. We need to shut this down. And fast.”

My eyes went wide as a flurry of activity came from inside the lab and then it grew somewhat less frantic.

He was here. Agent Truman was here, right on the other side of that wall. My head swam as I considered just how close he was. How easy it would be for him to find me. To capture me.

Not only that, they knew it was us they were after.

“We have to go!” I half mouthed through the semidarkness. “There,” I said, pointing because Jett hadn’t been wrong about that human-flashlight thing. Here, I definitely had the advantage.

Ahead of us, there was a staircase. I had no idea where it led, except down. But since our alternative was to turn ourselves in to those Daylighters in the lab, I figured it was worth a shot.

The moment I started toward it, Simon reached for me, and, feeling somewhat smug to have the upper hand, I repeated the words he’d used on me back in the lab: “It’s okay. Trust me.”

I half worried Simon would trip since the stairway was so steep and I was practically running down them. When we reached the bottom, I glanced around wishing I’d spent more time studying Jett’s blueprints.

It was as if we’d entered a giant hamster maze, those colorful plastic ones you find at pet stores. Except instead of being plastic and colorful, like the hamster tubes, the ducts we were standing in were industrial and metal and supersized. We wouldn’t have to crawl on our hands and knees.

It was the sound that made me realize what this was: the kind of ductwork that circulates air through office buildings, the constant whoosh-whoosh. And I was right, there were fans every twenty paces or so all along the corridor behind these enormous screened openings—even bigger than the one we’d crawled through. And when we rushed past them, which we did because the sensation of being sucked at creeped me out, the whooshing sound grew louder and my hair whipped my cheeks.