The Replaced(73)

Nyla looked like she might argue, but Griffin nodded toward the door—an unspoken order. Nyla stalled, her shoulders, face, and arms tense while her eyebrows drew together in an uncertain line, like she was pained by the decision. Ultimately, though, her need to obey Griffin won out.

When the door closed behind her, Jett took a seat, this time not at his laptop but at one of Griffin’s computers, and went to work. “Here . . . ,” he said.

I watched as the large monitor in front of him came to life, filled with the same NSA logo I’d seen that first day when Agent Truman forced his business card on me, the one with the golden firefly on it that signified his super secret-y Daylight Division. Jett entered a series of commands, line after line of code, as fluently as if he had full NSA security clearance.

I chewed the inside of my cheek while my eyes drifted to my watch, slowing my mind.

When the last of the files unlocked, and the screen in front of Jett, and all of the screens around us, began to fill with information, I took a step back, my eyes wide. There were files that looked like printouts and scanned documents—some official and some not so official. Pictures, old and new.

All about me.

It definitely wasn’t what I’d expected to see. All those images. All those memories. Like a blast from the past. My face, my name, my information. My birthdate, the address of our house in Burlington, my school and medical and Social Security records. My birth certificate with my teeny, tiny newborn footprints. Snapshots of me standing alone and posing for the camera on my first day of school, and then again with Austin on our way to Homecoming in the tenth grade. Portraits of me with my softball teams throughout the years.

And one photograph I didn’t remember being taken—of me on the day I’d returned—in the hospital in Burlington, with those orange and black ribbons I’d been wearing for our championship game still tangled through my hair while I’d been wearing the ugly blue hospital gown.

They all filled the screens. Filled up every last square inch of pixelated space in front of, and all around, us.

“What . . . is this?” It was like staring at an online homage to me. A This Is Your Life, my dad would have said, which was some old-fashioned TV show he always brought up whenever we busted out our family albums.

This was what the NSA—what Agent Truman and the Daylighters—had been hiding inside all those encrypted files? But . . . why? What was so interesting about me?

“Is there one of these on each of us?” It was the only thing that made sense: they were tracking all the Returned this closely.

Thom just closed his eyes, letting me know with a look that I was off the mark with my guess.

“So, what, then? What else was in the files?” I asked.

Griffin was apparently as clueless as I was. “Yeah. What are we missing? What’s so special about her?” I kind of liked the way she said “her,” like I was a bad taste in her mouth. She didn’t even bother looking my way.

Jett did, though. He glanced over his shoulder at me, and there was something in his eyes, those unusual, kaleidoscope eyes that clicked then. I recognized that look—it was the same one Natty had given me just after we’d raced out of the bowling alley, after . . .

He knew. I wasn’t sure how, whether it had been Natty or Simon who’d told him, but Jett for sure knew my secret.

I frowned back at him and shook my head. “It’s not . . . it . . . no . . .” I leaned over his shoulder, scanning the screens and the files for mention of it.

“No, what?” Griffin insisted, turning to scan the monitors. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on? What was so important that you cleared the room . . . ?” But as she finished her sentence, her attention was caught by one of the screens. It was clearly an NSA document, with a red “CLASSIFIED” stamp across it.

I didn’t have to guess who’d told Jett my secret after that; it was right there in black, white, and bright-classified-red. Agent Truman had written up a report all about me. But what I focused on first—and most—was the section on what I’d done to him:


Subject displays an uncanny ability to move objects without making obvious physical contact with them. Subject appears capable of some form of high-velocity telekinesis.

Subject. My very identity had been whittled down to a designation rather than a name.

Agent Truman had put what I could do in writing, in a secret government file.

That I could move things. Without touching them.

“What else?” Griffin demanded. “What else can she do?” Again, she said “she” like it was a dirty word, only this time she was staring right at me.

I wanted to answer her, really I did. I just couldn’t come up with a single response because everything, all of it, being exposed like this, in front of them, felt . . . too personal. Especially with Griffin, who couldn’t even say my name.

“She can see in the dark,” Jett finally blurted out. “And she doesn’t need to breathe as often as the rest of us.”

I hated being set apart like that. Being different.

“So you knew about this?” Griffin asked him.

Jett shook his head. “Not about the telekinesis thing.” He flashed me a hurt look, and suddenly I felt like a jerk for not confiding in him. “You could’ve told me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told Jett. I told all of them.