The Replaced(8)

For Superman, that enemy was Lex Luthor. For Luke Skywalker, it was his very own father, Darth Vader. For Cinderella, there were three of them out to get her: her evil stepmother and her two ugly stepsisters.

For me, it was Agent Truman. I’m definitely not saying I’m a hero or anything. I was just trying to get by, to survive this craptastic situation I’d been dropped into. But that didn’t make me hate Agent Truman any less. Ever since I’d been back, he’d done everything in his power to ruin my life, which was pretty much my definition of “nemesis,” and why I’d been blindsided when I’d seen his name on that NSA email about Tyler.

So why, then, had Agent Truman referred to Tyler as an “unidentified male” in his email? Assuming they actually had Tyler at all, why had he gone out of his way not to name him? The only thing that even kinda-sorta made sense was that he was worried that if he leaked Tyler’s name that we—those of us looking for Tyler—would somehow find out he’d been returned. That the NSA had gotten to him before we had.

He wasn’t wrong. We had discovered the email, after all.

Still, it wasn’t just Agent Truman and the other No-Suchers I was worried about—I mean, yeah, I was worried about the whole breaking-Tyler-out thing and all. Anything that had Simon packing the SUV full of explosives must be pretty risky.

But as crazy as it sounded, I was almost as worried we would find Tyler as I was that we wouldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to save him or anything—it’s just that I worried about what his return would even look like. And I didn’t mean that in the shallow I-won’t-still-love-him-if-he-has-scars kind of way, because I swear nothing could change my feelings for him, even if he was a complete mess on the outside.

That wasn’t it at all. It was more about what all of this—this being infected by me, and then taken and experimented on—might have done to him on the inside I was worried about.

Being one of the Returned had done a serious number on my head. I’d lost my friends, my family, my home, and even who I was in a sense, since I was now a danger to those I used to care about. Case in point: look at what I’d done to Tyler.

Jett dragged me back to the present when he asked, “What d’ya think that’s all about?”

I glanced up in time to see Natty—my quiet-as-a-mouse Natty—charging like a determined bull toward the SUV we’d just loaded. She was dressed in head-to-toe black—fitted black T, black fatigues, black boots—and her hair was pulled back in a supertight ponytail that made the attack-mode expression on her face seem all the more serious. Hot on her heels was Thom, and he looked as pissed as she did adamant.

When he caught her, he grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop. Fire flared in Natty’s eyes as she whirled to face him. Almost as quickly as he’d touched her arm, she yanked it away from him.

The argument, and it was most definitely an argument, went on for several seconds, and when she folded her arms across her chest, much the way Willow had when she’d been talking to Simon just moments earlier, I was pretty sure she was letting Thom know that whatever she was saying, whatever decision she’d made, was final. Unlike Simon, Thom looked defeated by her refusal to back down, and he just shook his head. And then he did the last thing I expected.

He reached out and brushed an invisible strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it neatly back into place behind her ear.

She didn’t flinch, or even react, but the gesture was so intimate that I nearly did. I’d spent almost three weeks here, holed up with these people, confiding in Natty about Tyler, and somehow I’d missed this . . . whatever it was, if it was anything at all.

But it was something, I was sure of it.

I glanced at Jett and his eyes widened back at me, an I-didn’t-know-either look, before I let myself spy on them once more, feeling more than a little voyeuristic now. And just when I thought the show was over, Thom’s nearly black eyes shifted away from Natty and slid all the way to where Jett and I stood—scratch that, to where I stood.

I wanted to turn away or to blink or anything to stop him from looking at me the way he was, but I couldn’t. The blame I felt coming from him had triggered my defiant streak—it was the same thing that had kept me from speaking to Simon for days on end, the same thing that had caused me to get out of my car after my championship game back on Chuckanut Drive the night I’d been taken in the first place. That condemning gaze rubbed me all kinds of wrong and I knew why, even without being told. I knew that Thom thought whatever Natty was up to was all my fault.

It was Natty who broke up our little staring contest, when she swiveled on her heel and shoved past Thom on her way to where Jett and I stood next to the vehicle.

“Check it out,” I said beneath my breath, trying my best not to crack a smile. “I think Natty’s planning to come with us.”

Jett leaned back on his heels and let out a low, almost inaudible whistle. “Didn’t see that coming.”

“Nope,” I added.

“Man, Simon is not gonna like this,” he stated, like that wasn’t the most obvious thing ever, and then he shut his mouth as soon as Natty was within earshot.

Natty didn’t say a word to either Jett or me, but she didn’t need to. She just climbed into the backseat and waited the remaining—I looked down at Jett’s watch—nineteen minutes.