The Replaced(83)

I concentrated again and wondered if I even had it in me to do what needed to be done. That thing up there was a gazillion times bigger than any library book or T-shirt. But this wasn’t just fear I was channeling. I was learning the feel of this ability. I knew the way it moved through me and how to draw it out.

Biting my lip, I dug deep, tracking the drone for one . . . two . . . three seconds, less than one full breath.

It wasn’t kinda like being on the mound; it was exactly like that. That same level of intensity. What coach and my dad called single-mindedness. Until there was only me and the drone. Nothing else.

Then I unleashed everything I could muster. I let it pour through me, out of me, and I released it—whatever it was—at that thing that threatened us, the same way I had when Agent Truman had threatened my dad, the same way I had when Simon had made me mad in the library.

I meant to send it swerving, to divert it so far off its flight path, it couldn’t find us again.

And at first I thought I’d done just that, as it wavered.

But I’d misjudged my own strength, just like when I’d tossed that softball to Tyler, and it didn’t just shift off course. My stomach plummeted as it went hurtling, rotating, spinning out of control. My hand covered my mouth as I shot all the way to my knees, trying to track its trajectory.

“What the . . . ?” I tried to say, but nothing came out of my mouth, not even a breath.

Everything slowed as I watched the drone’s nosedive descent. Behind me, Simon slammed on the brakes just as the aircraft slammed into the earth.

The blast was more massive than the missile’s had been—the flames wider and hotter, the black smoke greasier as it choked me, and the caustic odor singed my nose hairs.

“I take it that was a mistake,” Simon said blandly.

I tried to nod, but I could hardly swallow. I felt paralyzed.

“I’d like to see what you can do on purpose,” Tyler threw in.

A tightness spread across my chest, and then I turned to Simon. “We have to go back. We have to see if the pilot . . . if anyone . . .” I knew it was useless, but I couldn’t stop myself from needing to know. “. . . survived.”

Simon half smiled, a small, wry smile. “Kyra, that was a drone. An unmanned drone. There was no one flying it.”

If I’d been standing, my legs surely would have buckled. As it was, I let my forehead drop against the back of the seat as a shaky laugh escaped my lips. “Are you kidding me? Oh my god, I thought . . . I thought I killed someone.”

But it was Tyler who interrupted my internal cheers. “The question is, how did it know where to find us?”

I looked to Simon. “They must’ve known where we were going. Did you tell Thom?”

“No, only Griffin and Jett.”

I thought about Griffin, and the way I’d once suspected her. But there was no way. She hated the Daylighters, and her father even more, for what they’d done to her.

That left . . . “You don’t think . . . ?” My mouth went dry just thinking it. “Could it have been Jett?”

“No way. Not Jett,” Simon insisted. “You don’t know him. Not like I do.”

I frowned. “How do you know him? I mean, I know he wasn’t at Blackwater with you and Willow, so where did you meet him?”

Simon ran his hand over his head. “When me and Willow found him, Jett was in Nevada.” Simon grinned. “He was all alone. The three of us started our camp together. I’d trust him with my life.”

I glanced to Tyler. “Who, then? How?” I chewed the inside of my cheek as my eyes nervously drifted downward, to check the time.


And my stomach dropped.

Thom.

Thom was the traitor. Thom had been feeding Agent Truman and the NSA’s Daylight Division information all along. It was probably the reason he hadn’t let Natty go with us to the Tacoma facility without him—he didn’t want us getting her captured.

But it was also the reason he’d taken an interest in me after we’d arrived at Silent Creek, once he’d learned I might be different from the other Returned—that I had night vision, and could go longer without oxygen and could heal faster. The telekinesis just confirmed what he already suspected, that I was a Replaced.

“Thom gave me this.” I unstrapped the watch I’d treasured from the moment he’d given it to me, and threw it at Simon. “Soon after we left Tacoma. He said it was a present. It’s this. This is how he’s tracking us.”

“That son of a bitch,” Simon fumed.

Simon picked it up by the pink band and inspected it, probably thinking the same thing I had: How could something so harmless-looking be so deadly?

He gave it one last hard look before hurtling it into the desert. “We got less than half an hour to get to our rendezvous point,” he said, putting the Jeep in gear and leaving the still-flaming crash, and the tracking device Thom had planted on me, in our wake.

We drove toward a completely unknown future, leaving everything—our friends, allies, pasts, and even our identities—behind to start over again.

We had to hope Thom didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve.

I had to hope Simon knew what the hell he was doing.

And most of all, I prayed Agent Truman, or Dr. Bennett, or whoever he was now, never, ever found us again.