Griffin took it all in, from Tyler’s far-too-eager-to-please expression to my less-than-thrilled, arms-crossed-over-my-chest stance. She was in her element, being in control like this. Having the final-ultimate-absolute say in whether we would be alone or not.
All I could do was wait, telling her with my own eyebrows to give it a rest. But all the while my lungs were paralyzed as I waited for that single, almost imperceptible nod. And when she gave it, I tried not to be too obvious. The last thing I wanted was to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had me all twisted up inside . . . even though she totally did.
I’d have done anything for her in that moment. Traded anything.
Given up everything.
“Have her back in her quarters by dawn,” Griffin told Tyler as he passed her. “She’s staying in Paradise. Sector nine.”
Tyler paused and shot her a puzzled look. “Paradise?”
She lifted a brow, letting him know the conversation was over, and Tyler just shook his head.
“Come on,” he said, reaching for my hand. When his fingers closed over mine, I didn’t shy away from him the way I had from Simon. I let our hands melt together, our fingers interlocking as if they’d been made for this—two halves of one whole that fit together, like jigsaws in a puzzle.
He dragged me enthusiastically, and I followed, just as eagerly, impatient to make him remember he loved me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MEMORY WAS A TRICKY THING.
As much as I wanted to fix the gap in Tyler’s mind, the place where I should’ve been—where we’d spent our time together—it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t just hand the missing chunk back to him.
I understood, of course; I’d lost time too. Five entire years. I mean, it wasn’t exactly the same since I’d really been gone that whole time and his was more of a glitch in his memory, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get how weird it would be if I were to just spring it on him, the news that we’d been a thing, he and I, something he had absolutely no clue about.
Instead, it was like a do-over, like I was meeting seventeen-year-old Tyler that first time. He was looking at me and thinking about me the same way he had been that first day I’d come back.
Except this time we had something new in common: we were both Returned.
We walked in silence past the training field, and for several long, almost too long, seconds I thought maybe we’d have nothing to say to each other. It was strange, seeing him and trying to put myself in his shoes. He’d been here at Blackwater ever since he’d been sent back, which, if everything I’d been told about the whole forty-eight-hour thing was right, must have been several weeks already.
That was a long time to be indoctrinated into Griffin’s way of thinking. To be training with her so-called army.
I understood how Tyler could end up in a place like this. I even understood why he’d want to stay.
It was terrifying being one of the Returned, finding out you’d been taken and experimented on, and you could never go back to your old life. It made it easier to know there was someplace you could go, someplace safe, with others who’d been through the same thing you had.
I wouldn’t want to go through it alone.
Heck, if Griffin had found me first, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t be one of her soldiers now too. Instead, I’d ended up with Simon.
But who’s to say that had been the right choice, that there weren’t other camps, with other leaders, and other causes that might have been better, safer . . . righter.
It seemed like a crapshoot if you asked me, and my dice had just so happened to land on Simon. Tyler, well, he’d gotten Griffin. And Natty, she’d rolled Thom.
“I like your new hair,” Tyler finally said, glancing down at me once we’d cleared the fields and were in almost the exact same place Simon and I had just been when Nyla had snuck me away from the showers so we could meet in private. He grinned, and that dimple of his, the one I’d spent so much time thinking about, obsessing over just a few short weeks ago, made a welcome appearance.
I smiled up at him, and he scratched behind his ear. “Weird, right?” he asked. “This. Running into you here, of all places.” And then his dimple vanished. “And both of us being, you know, Returned . . .” It was almost comical the way he said “Returned,” like he hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea yet, and I wondered when I had, because it hadn’t been all that long ago that I’d said it the same way he did.
There was a large flat boulder, low to the ground in front of me, and I kicked it once. I wasn’t sure how to respond, because everything I wanted to say was unsayable. I couldn’t tell him I loved him or that I’d missed him, because as far as he was concerned, five years had passed, and the last time I’d seen him he’d been a kid. I propped one foot against the rock, struggling for the right words.
“Is this Simon guy your leader? Have you been with him all this time?” Tyler asked, searching my face through the darkness.
“No . . . I, uh . . .” How could I even start? “I only just came back a few weeks ago. Right before you were taken.” I wondered if now was the best time to tell him the rest.
His eyes widened like he hadn’t even considered that. “So this is all new to you too?”
“Pretty much,” I admitted. And then, because I was dying to know more about him, I asked, “So what happened? Where did you wake up?”
He moved closer, and I had to stifle a shiver that had nothing to do with the night air. He sat on the boulder and tilted his head back so he could look at me. “Somewhere not far from here, I guess. I honestly don’t know exactly where I was or what I’d have done if Griff hadn’t’ve come along when she did.” Somehow I managed to keep the cringe off my face when he mentioned Griffin, saying her name the way Simon did, but I felt it deep in my gut. I didn’t want him to be grateful to her. I didn’t want him to be anything to her, which made me feel petty on top of everything else, considering she’d saved him and all.