“And Tyler,” I added, relief overwhelming me.
But Simon just shook his head. “No, Kyra. Tyler will either be gone by then—taken by them—or he’ll be dead. We can’t wait around to find out which. Once we get to Devil’s Hole, we’ll have to leave him there. Even if we had the luxury of waiting around for the next day or so to see if he’s going to be returned or not, people are rarely returned to the same place they’re taken from.” He ignored me then and looked at Willow once more. “We should be meeting you there by morning.”
If it hadn’t been for the morphine, I definitely would’ve changed my mind.
As it was, the screaming had stopped once the drug had finally entered Tyler’s system, which was just about the time we reached the long, barren stretch of highway on our way to Devil’s Hole.
But the screams still echoed inside my head, as did the implications of what I was about to do.
Playing God.
Still, I prayed it worked. That we weren’t chasing a pipe dream. That I wasn’t pinning all my hopes on the impossible.
Next to me, in the driver’s seat, Simon gave up trying to find a decent station on the radio. “Jett was trying to help, you know? That’s just his way,” he explained. “He grew up in Vegas. He was young, but his old man was a bookie, so numbers—odds—come second nature to him. He thinks everyone gets the same comfort from them that he does.” I thought about what Jett had told me, about his dad not being the kind of guy people messed with, and I guess it made some sense.
With the radio off, I could hear Tyler’s gurgling breaths coming from the backseat. It wasn’t that I’d wanted to be in front with Simon, but I’d been too afraid to sit in back with Tyler. I didn’t want to accidentally brush any part of his skin, which had broken out in large lesions. My jaw tensed as I turned to check on him.
“Well, Jett and his stupid statistics only made me feel worse,” I shot back under my breath, not wanting to disturb Tyler. “Now it’s all I can think about.”
And it was true, I kept turning the numbers over in my head.
Most people who were taken were never returned, that much I’d already known—Willow had said as much—but Jett had hammered the point home. He didn’t have any hard numbers, but his best guess had been somewhere around 33 percent. That was one person returned for every three taken, he’d clarified.
I hated to think what might have happened to the other 67 percent.
Maybe they were returned, too, and had never come forward. Or maybe they were failed experiments. Maybe they hadn’t survived whatever torture we’d been put through.
Maybe we were all expendable.
I couldn’t afford to think that way, not when I had Tyler’s life in my hands.
According to my father’s records, Jett explained, the likelihood of being taken from Devil’s Hole was higher than anywhere else. In the past five years there had been seven people reported missing from that area. That was the highest incidence of repeat “takings” ever recorded.
Seven people missing. It made sense that Tyler had a chance of being taken if we could just get him there in time.
The problem was, of those seven people, only one had returned.
One.
That was only 14 percent, Jett had explained. Considerably lower than the 33 percent average. The idea of subjecting Tyler to those odds made me sick.
But listening to Tyler breath now, I knew time was against us. Devil’s Hole was his last chance.
“Can I ask you something?” I probed, trying to push aside numbers and statistics because Tyler was more than that. “Why do you think they’re doing it? The experiments, I mean? What’s the purpose? What are we being put back here for?”
Simon stared out at the road for a long, long time, and for a long, long time I waited. After a while I gave up, turning my attention to the road, too, convinced he had no intention of answering me.
And then I heard him. “I ask myself that every day. Every day since I realized what I was. We all have. A lot of what Jett does is search for theories. He coordinates with other camps and even tracks down the lone Returned, trying to come up with some . . . reason for what’s been done to us.” He went silent again, and I remained rigid. Eventually he sighed. “I think there must be a reason; we just don’t know what it is yet. But it’s something big, and I think the No-Suchers think so, too, and that’s why they want to get their hands on us so badly.” Swallowing, he looked over at me. “I believe there’s a reason you were gone so much longer than the rest of us before you were returned. That they’re perfecting what they do to us, preparing for something. And those things you can do that we can’t, I think they’re important.”
I shook my head, afraid he might be able to see how much he was scaring me with all his talk of plans and something coming. “I think you’re wrong,” I denied in a whisper. “I think we were just in the wrong petri dish at the wrong time.”
Simon smiled at me. “Maybe you’re right. I think that, too, sometimes. That they’re just fucking with us because they can. That it’s all just a game, and we’re the pawns.”
I turned away. I hated to think my life had been turned upside down for some cosmic chess match. “How much longer till we get there?”
Simon looked at the gauges in front of him. “About two-and-a-half hours. Three at most. It’ll be dark by then.” He cast me a wry look, and I knew he was making a mental list of things I could do that the other Returned couldn’t. “But that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
I leaned my head against the window, wondering how I’d last for three more hours listening to the labored sounds coming from the backseat and wishing I could stop myself from asking “How much longer do you think he has?”
Simon didn’t stop to ponder his answer the way I would have. He didn’t candy coat it either. “He might not survive the trip.”
It was a strange location. Not as hidden or off the beaten path as I’d expected, considering all the weird things Jett had told us about the place.
Because he was so into legends and facts, and where the two intersected, Jett had given us the exact coordinates, along with driving directions for how we could find the real Devil’s Hole.
The directions, however, were relatively simple to follow, and like Simon had predicted, it was just starting to get dark when we pulled off the main highway and onto the gravelly side road that Jett had marked for us.
After a couple of turns, we found the place at the end of a dirt road. No warning signs—no signs at all.
The only thing that struck me as unusual were the crickets, which shouldn’t have since we were out in the middle of the desert. Even with my window up I could hear them, giving the whole scene—the dry, weedy grasses and scrub brush for as far as I could see—a poetic vibe.
I twisted around in my seat as we came to a stop at the top of the short hill where the road ended. I was relieved that Tyler was still breathing.
Reaching out to Simon, I let out a shaky laugh. “We did it.”
Simon shut off the engine, his expression reserved. “Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves. We haven’t done anything yet.”
I frowned at him, wanting him to be more optimistic. This had to work.
Glancing back at Tyler once more, I bit my lip. He was still unconscious, and I told myself it was the morphine. “Hang in there,” I whispered softly.
Beside me, Simon reached over and pressed his hand over mine. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.” He withdrew his hand. “You need to be prepared, because this might not work, Kyra. He might not be taken. And even if he is . . .” He didn’t finish.