The Replaced(66)

I pictured him the way he was now, aged so much slower, the way all of us would age. He looked older than the rest of us, sure, but not by much . . . twenty, maybe twenty-one years old, but definitely not an old man.

I’d vaguely considered the way I’d had to leave my friends and my parents so I couldn’t hurt them, but I’d never really thought about what they would mean down the road. Like what my life would be like in twenty . . . thirty . . . fifty years.

As far as I could tell, from the way the other Returned were living, it would be exactly the same as it was now. I’d be living the same way, with the same people . . . trying not to be caught by those who hunted us.

The idea was depressing.

No wonder Griffin was angry.

But Simon was still talking. “To hear her tell it, when she tells it at all, she might as well have been the first.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Dear Old Dad wasn’t quite done with her after she was returned. He wasn’t satisfied with making her a sacrifice. He was a scientist, and he wanted to know just what they’d done to her, and how—if at all—she’d changed. She became like his very own home science kit.”

“That’s sick.”

“You’re telling me,” Simon agreed.

“No wonder she hates the government so much. Her dad must’a done a number on her head.”

“Her dad and everyone else at the lab. She became property of the US military after that.”

“For how long?” I asked, feeling a stab of guilt for judging her so quickly and so harshly.

Simon’s voice bled into the shadows. “Until she killed him.”

“Her own dad?” I asked, rubbing my arms absently. “What happened?”

“He never realized how much she hated him for what he’d done. One day, he came to take a blood sample from her, and when he wasn’t looking, she cut his safety suit with a scalpel she’d stolen. She’d been waiting for an opportunity like that . . . for her chance to get even.

“She could’ve used the knife to cut through her straps and escape—she’d had the time. But instead she’d hidden it and plotted her revenge. The thing was, he didn’t even realize what she’d done right away; it wasn’t until the symptoms started setting in that they even thought to check his suit for damage. He never suspected she was planning a thing, and he didn’t take enough precautions against her. His own fault, really. He was a goner the second the exposed air reached his lungs. Poor guy never had a chance,” Simon finished.

But I didn’t share Simon’s sympathy for Griffin’s dad. It was hard to feel bad for a man who’d sentenced his very own daughter to a lifetime of being less than human. He’d taken away her chance at an ordinary-everyday-normal life. Of growing up and growing old. Of going to school and graduating and having a family. “That poor guy was responsible for changing her in the first place. She never asked for what he did. For the rest of us, it happened by chance. What he did was on purpose,” I argued.

Then something struck me.

“Kind of like what I did to Tyler?” I asked, but I asked it flatly, and Simon just shook his head, wearing an expression that said he saw right through me: I didn’t mean it. Which was true, because I didn’t.

“That’s not even kinda the same.”

I’d known Tyler would never be able to see his friends or his family again when I’d decided to let him be taken, but I hadn’t known a thing about the not-human part. Besides, even if I had, he would have died if I hadn’t done anything at all.

Not much of a decision, if you asked me.

But understanding more about Griffin, suddenly I wasn’t so sure I didn’t want to stay with her at Blackwater. To train with her army.

Except I knew that wasn’t true either, not really. I was angry—for her and for myself and for all of us—but I’d never be that angry. I’d never been a rage-against-the-machine kind of girl.

Cat had been the one who had causes. She’d been the one to boycott big businesses and start petitions and join groups to raise social awareness. I’d always been along for the ride. Even if I did stay at Blackwater Ranch, that’s what I’d be doing, going along for the ride.

I didn’t have that kind of fire in my heart, no matter how much I hated the way the Daylight Division was relentless in their pursuit to capture us. I would still rather steer clear of them than try to take them down, because to me, you might as well be Jack trying to slay the giant. Even if we managed to take one down, they always had more giants.

They had more resources than we ever would.

Besides, I still couldn’t wrap my brain around this whole us-versus-them thing.

In my mind, I was still one of them. Maybe not Agent Truman and his Daylight Division, but regular people, like my parents and my little brother, Logan. Like Cat and Austin and all the kids I’d gone to school with, who even though they were older than I was now, were still the same ones I’d grown up with my whole life. It didn’t matter that I could see in the dark or needed less sleep. None of those things changed the fact that when it came down to it, I was the same dorky girl I’d always been. I still liked to watch The Little Mermaid over and over again and to sing at the top of my lungs in the shower, and I wanted to play softball and be kissed like I was the only girl in the world.