The Replaced(85)

“Jerk.” But even as I said it, I was trying not to smile, and not to cry at the same time.

“Remember what I told you, Kyr. You’re as human as anyone. You have to believe that.” He leaned down, giving me one final kiss—a soft one, supersoft, right on the tip of my nose. And then his copper eyes, those eyes I’d noticed the very first time I’d seen him, looked into mine. “I do.”





EPILOGUE


I WOKE WITH A START, MORE BECAUSE I’D ACTUALLY been sleeping than from any dream or because I wasn’t sure about where I was or anything.

I’d been sleeping.

That by itself was disorienting.

I glanced around. The embers of the fire my dad had made before “hitting the sack” were still smoldering, but the last thing I could remember was poking at the flames with a stick, while Tyler and I had been swapping childhood stories. Mostly embarrassing ones. And mostly embarrassing ones involving Austin. It was good to laugh again. And especially good to laugh where it concerned Austin.

I felt better about the way things had ended up, even between Austin and Cat. Tyler said they were good together. That they made each other happy, and they’d gotten each other through the rough parts of me disappearing. How could I possibly fault them for that all these years later?

Then Tyler had leaned in and confessed—again—how, even as a kid, he’d always had a crush on me.

I’d loved watching him admit it, even for the second time. The way he got all flustered and his cheeks flushed and his dimple carved into his cheek. It was sweet, and it had been almost the exact same way he’d acted that first night he’d said those words when we’d been on the swings, the night I’d returned.

The night he told me he’d never forget me.

The only thing we didn’t talk about was my dad’s story, about what happened to him that night up at Devil’s Hole . . . after the fireflies had come. But my dad had told me about it.

Like Tyler, he’d claimed he didn’t remember vanishing, even though he was sure that was what happened since he’d woken up in his van the following morning, just north of San Francisco in a Walmart parking lot. Nancy had been there, too, licking his face, like it was any other morning.

Except for the part where he didn’t know how he’d gotten there.

I knew exactly how he felt.

Basically, Tyler and I had talked about everything in front of that fire except what was really important—our relationship before he’d been taken.

Tyler still didn’t know how close the two of us had gotten, or that I was the one responsible for poisoning him and forcing this new and far-too-isolated life upon him.

Every time I meant to tell him . . . every time I opened my mouth to even try, the words just . . . evaporated. Like steam in a kettle that was boiled too long.

Or a boy taken in the night.

Poof!

Gone.

But we had gotten closer these past days, being on the run together—me and Tyler. I guess it was like that when you shared harrowing experiences; they drew you together. Bonded you.

I tried not to think about what Simon had said back in the library . . . right before we’d kissed . . . the thing about feelings being intensified due to guilt. That was different.

Besides, Simon had been wrong about the guilt thing. My feelings for Tyler were real. They always had been.

I got up and dusted myself off, wondering how I’d managed to fall asleep on the ground. I brushed sand from my hands, hair, and face, from where my cheek had been smooshed into the dirt.

I wondered where Tyler was, and thought maybe he’d gone into the tent with my dad after I’d fallen asleep, but somehow I doubted it. There was barely enough room in the two-man tent for the one grown man and his giant mutt of a dog, and I knew for sure Nancy hadn’t left my dad’s side because I could hear her in there, sleep-whimpering.

At times like this my super night vision came in handy. I followed a pair of tracks that led through the sand from our campsite out into the desert.

Tyler was there, standing before an enormous rock wall that stretched high overhead. In the light of the chalklike moon, I hardly needed to see in the dark to recognize his ghostly outline.

I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but his actions were crisp and short and choppy, and as I approached, I could hear him muttering beneath his breath.

“Tyler?” I called when I was close enough, and I thought he’d hear me.

Not so much as a flinch.

He was completely engrossed in whatever he was doing, and as I approached, more slowly now, I studied him . . . taking it in.

He was drawing.

He was using the sharp edge of some sort of stone to draw on the sheer face of the cliff wall. I watched, stunned. Completely and absolutely speechless.

I had no idea what it was, but it was a masterpiece.

Lines intersected curves that crisscrossed over clearly marked points and more lines. There were circles, and shapes, none of which made any sense but surely had a purpose . . . at least to Tyler.

And the entire time he kept saying, “Ochmeel abayal dai . . . ochmeel abayal dai . . . ochmeel abayal dai . . .”

I put my hand on his shoulder, and he jerked to a stop.

I nodded toward the wall again. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “What is it?”

He looked back at it. “Ochmeel abayal dai,” he said again, and it was weird, so weird, because it almost didn’t sound like him. The voice—his voice, I had to remind myself because it was his—had a strange wheezing quality, like he needed to clear his throat.