“Things like . . .” I turned a pointed glance in the direction of my arm, letting Simon know what I thought of his tactics. “Cutting someone open?”
“Worse,” he informed me, his nostrils flaring and the muscle in his jaw leaping. “Way, way worse.”
My mind reeled with the implications. “You mentioned that some people are taken and never come back. What happens to them?”
He paused, reaching for a wet wipe and absently scrubbing at the blood on his own hands. “We think those people don’t survive, like failed experiments. For all we know, we’re just lab rats to them. Expendable. And I’ve never heard of anyone who wasn’t a teen being returned. Maybe we’re the only ones who are ever truly taken in the first place. Maybe the rest who say they are . . .” He shrugged. “Really are just crazy.”
“Teens? Why’s that?”
He turned his palms over and got lost in examining them. “Beats me. Maybe because our bodies are stronger and can survive all that shit they do to us.” Sitting straighter, he rubbed his hands over his knees, his eyes searching me out. “Or maybe it’s just that teens are more disposable. You can yank them out of their lives for a few days and then drop them right back in, and it’s just a blip on the radar. Younger kids get AMBER Alerts and milk cartons. Families send out search parties because they were likely abducted by some psycho sex offender. People are quick to give up on teens, to call them troubled or runaways . . . especially those who’ve been fighting with their parents.” He raised his eyebrows at me.
My dad and I had been arguing.
“When we turn up again and can’t remember what happened, either no one believes us or they suspect we’ve had some sort of drug-induced blackout.” He shrugged. “You know, because that’s what teenagers do.” Something flashed behind his unusual eyes.
“Is that what your parents thought happened?”
“They never came out and said it, but I knew they never bought that I didn’t know what happened to me.” He shook his head, shrugging it off. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago.”
“Where are they now? Your parents?”
His brows squeezed together, and this time his pain was evident. “I couldn’t stay. Eventually I had to distance myself from them to keep them from asking questions about why I wasn’t getting any older.”
“Why didn’t you just tell them?” I couldn’t imagine not telling my parents something so huge.
But then I knew I was lying. That had been the old me. The me from five years ago who had parents I could confide in and trust, and whose dad was her number one fan.
Now . . . I wasn’t so sure.
Simon wrung his hands in front of him, and I realized the subject was just as touchy for him as it was for me. Families were a complicated matter. “I tried once.” He exhaled. “I tried to tell my dad because we were close like that and I used to be able to tell him anything. But when I tried to explain . . . to tell him I’d changed . . . he wanted nothing to do with it. He said it was crazy talk, and if I ever said it again, he’d have to send me away . . . to get help.” His copper-colored eyes sought mine. I thought of the way I’d shunned my dad when he’d tried to share his theories with me. “We never mentioned it again, but my dad . . . he never looked at me the same after that.” He curled his fingers around his knees and squeezed them while he leaned back. “I’m not the only one with a story like that, or with no place to go once the lack of aging becomes too obvious. The camp gives us a place to go, and others who understand what we’ve been through.”
The sound of a car’s engine beyond the metal door made us both freeze. I held my breath as my gaze shifted between the entrance and Simon, wondering what we’d do if the NSA had somehow followed us here and was surrounding us at that very moment. From what I’d seen, there wasn’t another way out.
When the car kept going, passing us by entirely, I released the breath I’d been holding.
Simon voiced the concerns I’d been keeping bottled up inside. “We can’t stay here. I have no idea how long it’ll be till they figure out where we are. If we leave now, we can be back at my camp sometime after midnight.”
I nodded, but only because he was right about leaving. The storage space wasn’t a good place to hide out.
He went to the bay door and opened it, the noise echoing off the walls around us. He checked both directions before coming back and getting in the car.
“I’m not going with you,” I told Simon when he started the engine. “I have a family here.” I was surprised to hear myself say the words, surprised by how strongly I felt about the thought of abandoning them again: my dad, my mom, even Logan. “And someone else.”
“Yeah. Tyler Wahl. I saw you with him, at the coffee shop.” He grinned at my surprised expression. “I’ve done my homework. I guess I also expected you to say that.” Shaking his head, he forced me to meet his gaze. “I can’t make you come with me, but you’re taking a huge risk, Kyra, and, to be honest, I think it’s a big mistake.” He reached into his glove box and dug out a new cell phone. This one was way less fancy than the one he’d destroyed. “It’s a burner, but it’ll do the job. Plus it can’t be traced to anyone. Only turn it on when you need to use it—my number’s programmed.”
I took the phone, relieved that he wasn’t trying to stop me.
“I’ll drop you someplace safe,” he went on. “But you have to promise you’ll be careful. You can’t go back home, even if your family insists. The NSA will be waiting for you, and no matter what they or anyone else says, they can’t be trusted. Understand?”
I nodded numbly.
“Be careful, and trust no one.” He nodded toward the car door, indicating for me to close it. “I’ll stay in town for the next twenty-four hours. But I definitely think you should reconsider coming with me. It’s the safest option—for everyone. There are things about us, Kyra, that make us dangerous to be around—and I’m not just talking about the NSA. Call me when you’re settled somewhere.”
Simon’s idea of a “safe” place was literally a travel agency called Safe Travels that he dropped me off in front of. If we’d been playing a game, which we weren’t, I’d have given him minus five points for lack of creativity.
But he’d earned at least fifty bonus points when he handed me a wad of cash stuffed into a manila envelope along with a fake ID that, when I saw my face staring back at me, was so convincing I almost believed that my name really was Bridget Hollingsworth. As cool as the whole falseidentity thing would have seemed at any other time, it was less cool right now, while I was still attempting to process what he’d just told me. About me being different from everyone else.
I tried to convince him there was no way I’d need the driver’s license or the three hundred dollars he’d given me, although, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t hate the driver’s license.
But Simon had insisted I keep them both, and ultimately I’d agreed to hold on to them for the time being, with the promise that I’d give everything back once I could convince my parents to square things away with Agent Truman, which shouldn’t take long. Regardless of what Simon had told me about what I could or couldn’t do now, I was counting on them to clear up this whole mess with the NSA.