The Replaced(71)

“Who are you?” a voice, so small and so frail, asked from behind us.

I practically jumped out of my skin, spinning to see who was there, and even though I could see in the dark, the person was nearly invisible in the shadows, making it impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman asking.

“What do you want?” came the whisper of a voice again.

I gripped Simon even tighter. What if those guys out there had heard? What if they came in here to find out what was going on? We had to shut whoever it was up before they got us caught.

I let go of Simon and crept over to the center of the room.

I nearly hesitated when I reached the bed, but then leaned down and pressed my lips together. “Shhh,” I said almost inaudibly to the tiniest, most fragile-looking woman I’d ever laid eyes on. She had an oxygen tube tucked beneath her nose, and her skin was mottled with brown spots, skin so thin it was nearly transparent—Simon might not have known this, not in the dark, but I could see it clearly. Her eyes were pale, milky even, and it was a wonder she’d seen us at all. “We’re only staying for a minute,” I crooned softly, hoping she could even hear me above the still-beeping equipment surrounding her.

She frowned, and I worried she was going to argue or call for help, or maybe try to find enough voice to scream. She had that look, like she wanted nothing to do with a couple of kids, strangers, in her room at this hour. I bit back the knot of fear, the sheer and utter panic, as I cast quick glances over my shoulder, while Simon continued to watch the door.

“I’m sorry. We can’t stay long,” I said, taking her hand and hoping I could convince her not to rat us out . . . at least not just yet. Her hand was delicate like a bird, her bones hollow and light, her skin papery and warm.

Her face lit up when she smiled up at me as her gnarled fingers closed over mine in a grip I wouldn’t have imagined possible from her. “It’s okay, dear,” she said back to me. “I know you try. You do what you can. I know that.” And then she let go and her head collapsed back to her pillow, and all at once her eyes closed.

I waited for a minute, listening to the machines and hoping she hadn’t just up and died on me. But the beeping noises continued, and so did her almost imperceptible shallow breaths.

She’d only fallen asleep, that was all.

I let out a sigh of relief as I released her hand, patting it once to let her know I was sorry I wasn’t whoever she’d thought I was. I felt bad for this woman, wondering if there really was a girl—maybe my age and maybe not—who didn’t come by often enough to visit.

Simon was behind me then and when I turned to face him, his fingers bit into my arm as he made a screwed-up face. But it was the way he was looking at me that told me something else was wrong. “Aw, hell . . . Kyra, we gotta get outta here.”

Frowning, I asked, “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

He was still cringing when he shook his head. “It’s your eyes,” he said, like it was a bad thing . . . a really frickin’ bad thing. “They’re . . . I swear to Christ they’re glowing.”

I flinched, and my hands automatically flew up to touch them. I turned to the sink, which had a mirror above it—the metal kind that, even in the light, would have made me look distorted. But Simon was right; there was a too-vivid quality to my eyes that made them almost luminescent.

Like phantom fireflies.

Simon’s grip on my wrist drew me back to the situation at hand. “We need to get you the hell outta here before these guys come out of that room and find us. I have a feeling they’d way rather have you than that kid in there.”

“What about Alex? Shouldn’t we try to figure out a way to get him too?”

“It’s too late for him,” Simon whispered insistently. “Even if they didn’t come all the way from Tacoma, I doubt they’re planning to leave ’til they know for sure if he’s one of us. Agent Truman made that mistake with you—I doubt these guys plan to repeat it.”

He eased the door open and when he gave me the all-clear signal, I followed him. As we passed room 2046, I could hear them in there, talking to the boy, to Alex Walker, and my step faltered, knowing what he was in for. I couldn’t believe we were about to leave him behind.

Simon must have sensed my reservation because he reached for me, pulling me faster as we hurried, running now, down the hall, this time passing up the elevator for the stairwell beyond.

We took the steps two at a time, almost tripping in our effort to get down them, and away from the two starched-suit men, who Simon believed would just as willingly, maybe more so, take me rather than Alex back to the Daylight Division.

So they could flay me open to see what makes me tick.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


NYLA HADN’T WASTED A SECOND WHEN WE’D raced out the ER doors; she was there with the engine already revving. She’d seen them too—the Daylighters—when they’d strutted right past her.

She’d spared me only the briefest of glances when I’d jumped in the backseat, right before saying, “Well, that’s new,” and I knew she meant the whole glowy-eye thing since that’s where she was looking, directly at my eyes. But then she’d jammed the Jeep in gear and peeled out of there, not bothering to look back—either at Delta, which faded in the distance, or at me.