The Replaced(63)

We stayed like that for hours, huddled side by side. Sometimes he’d talk and sometimes I would, and sometimes we’d just stay silent. But for the first time in weeks I anticipated the morning, because this time, when the sun rose, there wouldn’t be the familiar stab. Tyler was back at long, long, long last.

Except, the moment the first streaks of dawn finally appeared, gilding the desert with its warm blush, I knew I’d been wrong.

Tyler wasn’t the cure.

I nearly doubled over as the sun ascended, crippling me as it claimed its place in the sky.

“Are you okay?” Tyler worried. “Should I get you back?”

But I shook him off, biting my lip until the pain had passed. “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just so glad we have each other.”

He reached over then and squeezed my hand in that sweater-hug safe and comforting way that blew the fireworks and sparks out of the water, and I leaned my head against his shoulder to tell him a silent thank-you while I finally let the tears fall.


Natty pounced on me the second Tyler had delivered me back to our tent, just the way he’d promised Griffin. “Ohmygosh, Thom told me all about it. How you found Tyler . . . right here, in Blackwater,” she gushed as if it had been accidental that we hadn’t run into each other sooner. Like Griffin hadn’t had a hand in keeping us apart.

It would take a while to break Tyler of whatever hero worship thing he had for Griffin, but I had every intention of dethroning her and reclaiming my place in his heart.

I knew it sounded like I wanted to control Tyler, like this was some sort of catfight where Griffin and I were fighting over a boy. But it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t about to fight Griffin, and I certainly wasn’t fighting for Tyler. I knew you couldn’t control a person and you couldn’t force someone to love you—you should never have to. What I was fighting for was a chance. Our chance.

I just wanted him to remember who I was. Who we were . . . together.

And if, in the end, he remembered all that, and he still chose Griffin, then so be it.

The thing was, I didn’t think that would happen. I believed, to the very core of me, that if his memories returned, he’d still want me.

And if they didn’t . . . well, if he didn’t, then he’d fall in love with me all over again, because it wasn’t circumstance that had made us the couple we’d been, it was us. It was ingrained in us. It was who we were.


In the same way Griffin had immediately disliked Willow—the way some magnets repelled each other. Tyler and I were the ones that attracted. The ones that, no matter how far apart, would forever be drawn together.

Meant to be.

I didn’t always believe in such things, but now, finding Tyler in this Utah compound with Griffin and her fanatical militia . . . now I couldn’t believe otherwise.

“It was perfect,” I told her.

“So he remembered you?” she asked nervously.

It didn’t matter that she’d asked it nervously or that she hadn’t guessed right. “No. But he will.” I sat on my bunk. “What about you? Have you been here the whole night?”

Natty perked up. “Thom was here. They’re letting us see each other. He just left.” It was the most animated I’d ever seen her.

I wasn’t sure what to say, what I should say. If it were Cat, I’d ask what they did . . . like exactly what they did. But that definitely felt like prying. “Did you . . . have fun?”

So. Awkward.

Natty didn’t notice. She beamed as she nodded, her eyes gleaming. “We talked all night.” She lowered her voice, letting me know she was sharing a secret. “He told me more about Blackwater, and he said they call this part of it—where they’re keeping us—Paradise.”

I leaned closer. “Did he say why?”

“It’s like what Willow said about not trusting the government names that sound the most innocent. That if you hear something called Operation Rainbow, it’s gonna be majorly bad. Paradise is where they keep the people they don’t trust.” She shrugged with her face, her eyebrows rising and her mouth drooping. “Like us.”

I wondered if letting Thom spend the night with Natty might be a step in the right direction toward letting us off house arrest, if we might be earning our way out of Paradise.

But then I remembered the look on Griffin’s face when she’d busted Nyla for sneaking me away to meet Simon, and I sincerely doubted it. Thom and Natty might earn their freedom back, but Simon and I would likely be trapped in Paradise forever.

Just then there was a knock, or as much of a knock as there could be on a tent door, kind of a flapping sound against the canvas. I jumped up and pushed the opening aside.

I felt a surge of triumph when I saw Tyler standing there, back so soon. “Couldn’t stay away?” I beamed, unable to contain myself.

He held his hands behind his back. “I brought you something.” He said it like it was no big deal, but he was self-conscious, and he bit his lip. It was completely adorable. “It can get kinda boring here.” And even though I understood what he was saying, I couldn’t disagree more. At this moment there was no place in the world I’d rather be than right here. This camp was the most exhilarating place I’d ever been.

He clumsily withdrew his hands and presented me with a book, his hands shaking. “It’s my favorite,” he told me, holding it gingerly, and my face nearly crumpled as I reached for it, pressing my hand over its paperback cover. The edges were worn, tattered.