The Countdown (The Taking) (10 page)

Climbing the rubble I hadn’t yet cleared, I hit the release lever to the exit. Relief coursed through me as the crisp nighttime air rushed in and I lifted my face to meet it.

This was it. I was going to make it. Just a few more steps and I would be free from these lunatics forever.

My feet sank in the unmowed lawn. It was soggy and damp, and its moss-laden patches were soothing to my bare feet as I ran.

When the alarm shrieked, it wasn’t a result of the door
I’d opened . . . not even a delayed response would have been
that
delayed. But the sound was more intense than anything I’d ever heard, causing me to stumble.

Reaching up to cover my ears, I scanned for its source, concentrating on each step I took . . . one and then another. The noise filled my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull and making my teeth rattle. My steps felt sluggish.

When I staggered again, I glanced up. Planted around the perimeter, high on tall steel posts, were loudspeakers. Ones I hadn’t noticed before.

I noticed now, though.

The pain in my head was a thousand times worse than the cuts and tears that had shredded my feet, and I wondered if this was the kind of damage that could ever be repaired.

Like Eddie Ray behind me, I finally gave in to the assault and dropped all the way down, even while I told myself . . . screamed at myself to run, run . . .
run
!

Except . . . I couldn’t manage it. And in a single instant I knew: there’d be no escaping. Not today.

There was only this . . . folding in on myself, tucking my knees to my chest as I covered my ears against this horrible, incessant blaring that rattled and echoed and made my brain vibrate.

When the hands closed in on me I knew . . .

It was over. They’d beaten me.

And then somewhere, in the jumble of noise and ache in my head, I felt it again, the stab . . . the sting . . .

“HOW MUCH FARTHER?” IT WAS THE ONLY QUESTION that mattered, and Jett answered without skipping a beat: “Less than two hours.”

He’d already done the math; that was two hours taking into account our breakneck speed.

One hundred twenty minutes.

A lifetime.

I liked Jett, maybe more than I liked anyone else in the vehicle we were in—one of the two we’d taken. Ours was the SUV. Ben took his truck, along with two of Griffin’s guys, and Nancy.

I liked that Jett thought in terms of numbers. Statistics. Percentages.

I’d never been a numbers whiz, I was always more into books and music and art. But Jett didn’t make me want to shove my fist down his throat the way Simon did. Jett was ordered, logical. Simon was rude. The kind of guy my dad always called an SOB.

Even more though, I liked that Jett was almost as anxious to find Kyra as the rest of us, but without all the ulterior motives Simon and I had. Jett didn’t have something to prove. He wasn’t thinking about her lips or how he could convince her to choose him.

Or at least if he was, he was hiding it like a champ.

“What have you found out about the place?” I asked.

“It’s an asylum,” Jett announced. “Look.” He turned the beat-up laptop he carried everywhere and showed us some sort of official site with titles or deeds or something.

I leaned forward to get a better look even though I had no idea what I was looking at. “I didn’t even know those things existed anymore.”

“They don’t. Or this one doesn’t. It was shut down in the early seventies. According to the public records, it’s been bought and sold a couple times, but never actually converted into anything useful. Empty mostly. The bank foreclosed on the last owner over five years ago.” He tapped the screen again.

Simon, who just had to know something about everything, added, “Makes it the perfect hideout.”

Jett nodded, as usual agreeing with everything his fearless
leader had to say. The hero worship was nauseating and a strike against Jett as far as I was concerned. Beside me, Griffin stayed silent, which from her was as good as agreement. An asylum it was, I supposed, and prayed Jett was half as smart as these people thought he was.

I leaned back and looked out the window, thinking of what I would say when we finally found Kyra.

I wasn’t sure I’d know until I saw her face. I wished I could be like her and remember everything she did—the things she’d told me about. I know she said some of them were bad, but some of them . . .

My breath had fogged the glass and I absently traced a pattern with my finger.

Some of them must’ve been good too. Kyra had said so.

She’d told me she loved me.

Two more hours. Two more hours until hopefully, with an arsenal to outfit a small army and some luck, we’d get Kyra back and maybe we could talk again. Maybe she’d help me sort it out . . .

I could tell her all the things I’ve been thinking . . . feeling. About her.

I looked up at the words I’d written in the steam:

I’ll remember you always . . .

“HEY, SLEEPYHEAD.” THE SINGSONG VOICE sounded like it was echoing down a tunnel. “Someone slept the whole day away. Glad you decided to join the land of the living.”

Living. Is that what this was?
If my head hadn’t been pounding and my ears ringing, I might have laughed. As it was, all I could manage was to open my eyes. Not bad, all things considered.

When I turned, Blondie was at the monitor, observing my heart rate.

Ever since being returned, I’d been envious of normal
humans—people who needed a solid eight hours sleep. Now, if I never lost consciousness again it would be too soon.

Although I wasn’t sure you could really compare the comatose state these freaks had been keeping me in with
actual sleep
.

“Go to hell,” I rasped.

She chuckled. “Aw, don’t be like that. Did you think we
accidentally
left you all by your lonesome?” She made a
tsk
-ing sound while she came around to check me out. “Come on, Kyra. You’re not stupid. Natty told us what you could do . . . that little trick—moving things with your mind. Eddie Ray just wanted to see it in action. Have a little fun with you.” Her mouth twitched slightly. “Guess he didn’t realize how much damage you’d do.”

But I was too focused on the other thing she’d told me, about my escape not being an accident. My chest felt heavy. “So . . . you . . . were just messing with me?” Why hadn’t I considered that sooner?

Shrugging indifferently, she tapped an IV line that I assumed was how they kept me in various states of consciousness. “Just separating truth from fiction, so to speak. Eddie Ray likes to test the merchandise—calls it quality control. Plus, we needed to find out whether that little trick of yours was something we could defend against.” Smugly, she kept talking as she moved around, checking machines and connections. “Those sirens . . . those were my idea. You dropped like a rock. They should give us a good second line of defense against you since the meds haven’t been as . . .
effective as we’d hoped. Not bad, huh?”

I blinked, my eyelids still heavy from the sedation. “They seem pretty effective to me,” I told her, thinking about the way I’d missed entire days . . . entire sunrises.

“That’s because you’re on a dose high enough to kill an elephant, and even that has to be on a continuous drip or your body just”—she chewed her lip—“metabolizes it.”

“What’s to defend against? What did I ever do to you?” My voice wobbled. I tried to turn away, but the collar around my neck prevented me.

Blondie grinned. “Might as well get comfortable. We can’t transport you until we can guarantee it’s secure.” My face screwed up as I tried to figure out which part to focus on first. She must have thought she could pinpoint my confusion. “Oh, the transfer. Yeah, we’re not keeping you here forever. We’re just the . . . how do I say this? We’re what you could call brokers.”

“Brokers?” I managed to squeak out.

“That’s right, middlemen.” She cocked her head to look down at me. She was definitely enjoying this. “We’re not the ones you should be afraid of. The folks who bought you paid a lot to get their hands on someone like you.”

“Who is it, the Daylighters?” But of course it was Agent Truman or one of his lackeys. He was probably already here somewhere, waiting for his chance to take me into custody. To strap me to some other table in some other lab and start experimenting—slicing and dicing. “Are they taking Thom too?”

She made a face. “No. I mean, yes, we’re selling Thom to the Daylighters, but not you. You should be so lucky. Once your buyers get their hands on you, they’re never gonna let you go.” She said it as if Agent Truman would have, and I think we both knew that wasn’t true.

I wasn’t sure who I was more sorry for: me, heading off to the unknown, or Thom, who’d be passed off to the dreaded Daylight Division. But all I could focus on was the one word she’d used:
never
.

She and Eddie Ray and Natty were planning to hand me over to someone who had no intention of letting me leave. Ever.

I practically choked myself trying to turn away again. I didn’t want her to see the tears building behind my eyes. I hated crying, but I was far too groggy to stop it. Even though I’d healed and my body was 100 percent, I was finally realizing that she and Natty and Eddie Ray had beaten me. I was thoroughly-completely-
utterly
defeated.

Even though I didn’t respond, my elevated heart rate probably said it all.

I’d never see my mom or my dad again. Never get the chance to see my little brother, Logan, or Cat or Austin.

I’d never get the chance to tell Simon how grateful I was that he’d saved my life. How much I appreciated everything he’d done for me, to keep me safe, to reunite me with my dad and Tyler.

But even I knew I was a liar, because my feelings for Simon weren’t all about gratitude. If whoever they were
planned to kill me, or let me die, then why shouldn’t I at least be honest with myself?

Simon mattered. More than I meant for him to.

And if I was really playing the truth game, so had that kiss . . . the one he’d given me when he’d said good-bye.

That sweet, demanding, puzzling kiss that reminded me so much . . . too much of Simon himself. Demanding and complicated. And sometimes, when he really wanted to be, sweet even.

I squeezed my eyes shut and my vision blurred. Hot streams poured down my cheeks.

Then there was Tyler. I’d never see Tyler again.

“Don’t you want to ask again? I heard you asked Natty
why you
. Don’t you want to know the truth?” Blondie tugged the tube that disappeared beneath the sleeve of the hospital gown I was wearing. She didn’t try to be gentle since she must know by now that my skin had definitely healed around it, locking it firmly in place.

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon. It was more fun when you were playing along,” she coaxed.

Any other time I would’ve added a little something to my inflection, but I had nothing left to give. “Screw you,” I said flatly.

She laughed, because that’s what I was, a big, fat joke.

Kneeling down so she was right in front of my face, she whispered, “But here’s the thing—I wanna tell you. No harm in it, I suppose. It’s not like you can tell anyone, right?”

She reached out, her cold, spiderlike fingers stroking my cheek, and even though I felt dead inside, I couldn’t stop from inwardly cringing. “You’re not like us,” she said, like this was some major revelation.

It didn’t matter what she said. If she was right, if they were planning to pass me off to someone else—someone who’d apparently paid a lot of money for me—then I didn’t give a crap what their reasons were. My fate had already been decided.

It didn’t stop her from pretending we were having a conversation. “What?” she chided. “You think I mean that you can do things we can’t?” She spoke quietly, a whispery sort of venom to her tone. “Did someone forget to tell you the part where those things up there might not be as peace-loving as we’ve been led to believe? And . . .
whatever you are
. . . whatever they made you into . . .” Her fingernails sank sharply into the flesh of my cheek. “Don’t even kid yourself we’re the same because I know what I am.
I’m
still part human.”

She may as well have jammed Lucy right into my heart. I could no longer ignore her, even though part of me was convinced she was insane—the way she touched and prodded me, her low, boastful voice.

What was she saying—that it really was us versus them? That I was the enemy?

“You’re wrong,” I started, and then changed my tactic. Pissing her off seemed like a seriously bad idea. “You’re confused. I want the same thing you do. We’re on the same side.”

She leaned closer, and the notion she might be crazy amplified. “This is bigger than us. Way, way bigger. You know they’re up there. I know you know it. You feel them, don’t you?” She did that thing my dad had, where she nodded skyward as if to say,
Them, the aliens
.

This conversation was getting weirder and weirder. “What do you mean?” I asked, wondering where she was going with this.

“I mean,” she insisted, her nostrils flaring angrily, “tell me you don’t you feel them. You don’t sense them getting closer?”

Feel them . . . ?

I blinked, not sure how I was supposed to respond to that. Not sure what she was even saying. How would I know if they were getting closer?

Then I thought about my dad saying he thought they were trying to send me a message—through those hikers.

“We’ve seen you, each time it gets close to sunrise, the way your pulse and your blood pressure skyrocket. How long has that been happening? Days? Weeks?” She grinned, standing upright. “It’s getting stronger, isn’t it? Those people who want to buy you say it’s only a matter of time now. They think it’s not much longer ’til they get here. Is that what it meant, the number I heard you saying?”

Sweat broke out on my upper lip as I thought about the knife-twist that came with each sunrise, and the way it had gotten stronger, more intense each dawn.

With each passing day.

Even for a girl who’d lost five years of her life, whose memories were now thriving inside an entirely different body—
an alien body
—this was almost too much. What if she was right? What if I could somehow, some way, sense their approach? “So why me? If you’re right, why do
I
feel them?”

She shrugged. “Because you’re one of them? Because they want something from you?”

“Want what?”

“How’m I supposed to know? My job is to make sure you’re delivered in one piece.”

She continued to watch me, and I wanted to tell her to look away, even as the thought struck me: my obsession with time. My preoccupation with the passage of days, hours, minutes, and seconds . . . ever since I’d returned.

Was it possible . . . could that have been why all along? Had my body been somehow programmed to sense their arrival?

“So what . . . I’m some sort of . . .
clock
? Like a countdown—”

Blood sprayed across my face, almost before the sound of the gunshot split the air.

I blinked blood out of my eyes, and tasted it between my teeth. It had splattered all over my arms and on the blue-green of the gown I was wearing. No wonder it took me so long to register what had happened.

Blondie never had that luxury—that moment of clarity—before her eyes, which had been clear blue and laser-focused on me just a second earlier, had gone suddenly and absolutely blank.

Then every muscle in her body wilted as she’d collapsed to the floor. On her way down, her forehead banged solidly against the side of the metal gurney I was strapped to. It was the only sound I’d heard, other than the bullet that disappeared inside her brain.

I was still gaping. Trying to comprehend what . . . and . . . why, when I saw Eddie Ray standing in the doorway, holding a gun.

“Oh my god . . .” I gasped at him. “What . . . ?
Why did you do that?
” Chunks of bone and flesh clung to my skin.
Blondie’s
bone and skin.

“She’s a talker.”

I shuddered at his icy explanation, the realization that the head shot wasn’t the kind of wound Blondie could heal from finally sinking in.

“About . . .
me
? Y-you . . . you didn’t have to . . . kill her.” I’d never stuttered before, not the old me, but my teeth were chattering and my words tripped over my tongue. “Sh-she . . .” My throat stung. “Said it d-didn’t matter if I knew. She s-said I w-was never getting away.”

“Not her place to decide.” Eddie Ray set the gun down next to one of the monitors. I had no idea how he could be so cavalier, so
whatever
about what he’d just done.

This time, drugs had nothing to do with the spinning of the room. I needed to get a grip. To be as collected as Eddie Ray was. “Was she right? About what she said?
Am
I some sort of countdown clock?”

Eddie Ray reached for a stool, one that didn’t look as
ancient as everything else in this place—this asylum. He avoided Blondie’s body, parking it instead on the other side of the table. Straddling the seat, he cocked his head to look at me.

Then he reached down and brushed at something near the corner of my eye, and I felt it . . . like he’d picked a wound that hadn’t quite scabbed over all the way. I knew what it was: a piece of Blondie.

I was wearing a dead girl all over me.

He chuckled.
Chuckled.
Like this was somehow funny. Like there was even the remotest humor to be found in any of this. He leaned close and the urge to flee kicked in.

I’d heard of animals that had literally chewed off their own limbs just to escape the jaws of a bear trap, and that’s how I felt. Like I would be willing to chew off one of my own arms or legs if it meant getting away from Eddie Ray.

“According to our buyers, those alien fuckers are already on their way . . .” God, why did everyone have to do that eye tic thing? I knew who he meant. “It’s just a matter of when. Could be days.”

Days.

I concentrated on that rather than the stomach acid eating my throat. Days could mean anything. Days could add up to weeks or months, or even years.

I thought of all the mornings I’d been gripped by pain . . . was that what I’d been sensing? Their approach? Their nearness?

How many days had there been already?

I thought of the way I’d been tracking time, the strange numbers I’d heard in my head and wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.

I concentrated, trying to remember what today’s number was. Which number was repeating itself in my head right now, at this very moment?

Thirteen. That was the number.

Was that the countdown to their arrival?

They were coming. But why?

“So?” he asked. “Are they right? Can you feel those little mothers?” Eddie Ray angled his face so our mouths were almost touching and I wished I couldn’t taste the rancidness of his breath.

I refused to answer him. No way would I ever, not in a million years, tell him anything.

He didn’t seem to need my answer. “Are you afraid?” he asked, grinning down at me.