The Replaced
Page 72
“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.
But Jett just frowned. “Kyra, they have your blood work too. From when your parents took you to the hospital, after you came back.”
I shrugged. “So what. You already told me our DNA’s different. I assumed they knew that much too.” But there was still that feeling in the air and I knew I was still missing something . . . something crucial.
“Yours was different,” he said. “Different from any of the rest of ours. From anyone’s. You’re different.”
Griffin took a step toward me, her expression shifting as she examined me. “Different,” she repeated, and I couldn’t tell if she was saying it in a bad way, like I was one of those chimera-monster things Simon had said she considered us, or whether she was just saying it, like it was a fact—the sky is blue, the earth is round, water is wet—that kind of thing. But she was looking at me differently.
“Like . . . how?” I asked, giving a cockeyed shrug and trying to laugh it off like it was nothing. A mistake.
But inside, where my heart was going a million miles a minute, I understood it wasn’t nothing. I understood it was a huge-giant-enormous something. I could tell by the way they were all looking at me, watching to see if I was ready to hear what they had to say.
Like they were about to unload a pile of Can she handle this? on me.
Unconsciously, I reached up to rub the back of my neck, suddenly thinking it had gotten at least ten degrees hotter in here in the last five minutes.
Griffin didn’t seem to notice. She was impervious to the heat and the constant hum of the computers that was starting to make my head ache, and to the fact that her bra must be at least a size too small to be pushing her boobs halfway up to her neck the way it was, something I’d only just noticed, but now couldn’t stop thinking about. I told myself to look away because it was weird that I was staring at her chest, but it was easier to look there than at the interest I saw spark in her eyes. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “You’re the one they’ve been searching for. Your blood work proves it. And until they find you, they’ll never stop searching.”
“Who . . . the Daylighters?” But yes, that was exactly who she meant. “Why me?” I went on, not needing her to answer my first question. “What’s so special about my blood work?” And what I meant was, what made mine different from theirs, because I already knew mine was different from any normal person’s.
“It’s the DNA,” Jett finally said, pointing at the place on the monitor that had some sort of sophisticated, science-y looking chart on it. “The Daylighters ran an analysis of your DNA, your genetic makeup. I’ve seen some similar blood tests, from some of the other Returned, and the rest of us . . . well, we still have most of our human DNA, mingled with some foreign—or what we suspect is the alien—DNA we told you about. Yours . . . ,” Jett started, but then he hesitated.
“Mine . . . ? Mine, what?”
Jett grimaced. “Yours is missing that.”
I wanted to say something along the lines of, it seemed like they were making a big deal out of nothing, I mean, wasn’t that a good thing, me not having any of that alien DNA mixed in?
Simon jumped in then. “He doesn’t mean yours is missing the alien kind. He means yours is missing the human kind.”
And like Cat used to say: Boom goes the dynamite!
Just like that, the world slanted beneath my feet. I thought I’d heard everything. Or maybe I’d finally just cracked and this was me slipping deliciously-deliriously-painlessly into sweet insanity, because holy hell, who can even handle hearing something like that?
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.
But Jett just frowned. “Kyra, they have your blood work too. From when your parents took you to the hospital, after you came back.”
I shrugged. “So what. You already told me our DNA’s different. I assumed they knew that much too.” But there was still that feeling in the air and I knew I was still missing something . . . something crucial.
“Yours was different,” he said. “Different from any of the rest of ours. From anyone’s. You’re different.”
Griffin took a step toward me, her expression shifting as she examined me. “Different,” she repeated, and I couldn’t tell if she was saying it in a bad way, like I was one of those chimera-monster things Simon had said she considered us, or whether she was just saying it, like it was a fact—the sky is blue, the earth is round, water is wet—that kind of thing. But she was looking at me differently.
“Like . . . how?” I asked, giving a cockeyed shrug and trying to laugh it off like it was nothing. A mistake.
But inside, where my heart was going a million miles a minute, I understood it wasn’t nothing. I understood it was a huge-giant-enormous something. I could tell by the way they were all looking at me, watching to see if I was ready to hear what they had to say.
Like they were about to unload a pile of Can she handle this? on me.
Unconsciously, I reached up to rub the back of my neck, suddenly thinking it had gotten at least ten degrees hotter in here in the last five minutes.
Griffin didn’t seem to notice. She was impervious to the heat and the constant hum of the computers that was starting to make my head ache, and to the fact that her bra must be at least a size too small to be pushing her boobs halfway up to her neck the way it was, something I’d only just noticed, but now couldn’t stop thinking about. I told myself to look away because it was weird that I was staring at her chest, but it was easier to look there than at the interest I saw spark in her eyes. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “You’re the one they’ve been searching for. Your blood work proves it. And until they find you, they’ll never stop searching.”
“Who . . . the Daylighters?” But yes, that was exactly who she meant. “Why me?” I went on, not needing her to answer my first question. “What’s so special about my blood work?” And what I meant was, what made mine different from theirs, because I already knew mine was different from any normal person’s.
“It’s the DNA,” Jett finally said, pointing at the place on the monitor that had some sort of sophisticated, science-y looking chart on it. “The Daylighters ran an analysis of your DNA, your genetic makeup. I’ve seen some similar blood tests, from some of the other Returned, and the rest of us . . . well, we still have most of our human DNA, mingled with some foreign—or what we suspect is the alien—DNA we told you about. Yours . . . ,” Jett started, but then he hesitated.
“Mine . . . ? Mine, what?”
Jett grimaced. “Yours is missing that.”
I wanted to say something along the lines of, it seemed like they were making a big deal out of nothing, I mean, wasn’t that a good thing, me not having any of that alien DNA mixed in?
Simon jumped in then. “He doesn’t mean yours is missing the alien kind. He means yours is missing the human kind.”
And like Cat used to say: Boom goes the dynamite!
Just like that, the world slanted beneath my feet. I thought I’d heard everything. Or maybe I’d finally just cracked and this was me slipping deliciously-deliriously-painlessly into sweet insanity, because holy hell, who can even handle hearing something like that?
