The Countdown (The Taking) (11 page)

I curled my lip at him. “Aren’t you?”

But Eddie Ray scoffed at the idea. “I won’t be anywhere near you by then. But don’t worry, don’t take it personal. In the end, this is really just about business.”

“Business? You mean all of this just comes down to making a couple of bucks? That girl . . . she was . . . you just shot her, for what? Money? If you really believe they’re coming, then you’re talking about an alien race heading to Earth, and you don’t even know what they want.” My voice rose. “How is this just
business
?”

I thought of the message—what Tyler had said, what my
dad had overheard:
The Returned must die
. Maybe I shouldn’t even care about any of that when this was the end for me—they’d already beaten me . . . beaten us.

But I did.

“It just is,” he spat, his patience with me reaching its end. His cheeks and neck and forehead went red and splotchy. “And it’s more than just a couple of bucks. It’s enough to buy our freedom if I play my cards right. Freedom from all this. From the No-Suchers. From pretty much everything. We’ll never have to worry again. All we have to do is deliver you in one piece.” He jumped up, knocking the stool out from behind him. “The thing is, though, it’d be even better if we could’ve gotten our hands on the other one too—that Tyler kid. We could make a helluva lot more for two of you. That was the plan, you know? She was supposed to grab both of you. Her mistake.” He moved to where the blond girl was lying and stared down at her. I couldn’t see her body, but I watched as Eddie Ray nudged the dead girl with his foot. His eyes were glittering when he looked up again. “Like I said, it’s just business.”

Tyler. They wanted Tyler too.

There was no way. That could not—would not—happen.

He came back over to me. “Just tell me where the kid is . . .” His voice dropped all conspiratorial-like. As if we were somehow partners. Pals. “In fact, if you tell me, I’ll put in a good word for you. Let your buyers know how
cooperative
you’ve been. Never know, maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll take it easy on you.” He winked, and bile
blistered the back of my tongue.

I shook my head, emotions pounding through me.

The buddy-buddy expression vanished from Eddie Ray’s face. He gave me a strange look then, one I couldn’t quite decipher but probably it was better that way. I didn’t want to know what was going on inside that head of his.

“I don’t need your help,” he finally said. “I’ll find him myself. I’ll sell you and then I’ll track him down on my own.”

“Please . . . no . . .” But I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or me when I said it.

Because it was too late. He’d doomed himself the moment Tyler’s name had rolled off his lips.

This wasn’t like before, where the sensations began mildly—the slow build of prickling, itching, tingling.

This was wild. Uncontrollable. A storm unleashed.

Like
I
had been unleashed.

And I had been, in more ways than one. Energy tore through my body, blistering from the base of my neck and shooting all the way to my fingertips and toes.

This need to save Tyler made me strong. Stronger than I’d ever been. And before I could think the word “control”—before Eddie Ray realized anything was happening at all—my right hand had yanked free.

But that wasn’t Eddie Ray’s undoing; it was the part where I managed to move the gun.
His
gun.

It was like that night up at Devil’s Hole when I’d mentally stripped Agent Truman of his weapon . . . only this
time I wasn’t trying to disarm anyone.

This time the gun flew directly
into
my other hand. And just like the time with Agent Truman, it occurred so fast, whipping through the air, it was barely a blur.

And because of Natty’s training, I knew how to use the thing.
Eddie Ray had her to thank for that.

Before he’d even recognized the weapon in my hand—the still-bound one—or the fact that the other one was free, I’d reached across and released the slide.

Then I switched hands and raised the gun right at him.

Quickly. In one arcing motion so he didn’t have time to run, or even duck out of the way.

I didn’t ask if he’d change his mind. I didn’t clarify how he planned to track Tyler down, or ask him to explain how he planned to sell him or to whom.

I pulled the trigger.

The gun’s kick threw me back against the steel table. My neck was still bound, so it’s not like I had all that far to go, but the impact was solid, making my vision blur.

Eddie Ray had only been standing a few feet away and I hadn’t missed. It had been like watching the blond girl go down, only in reverse.

The bullet struck him just above his left eye, in his forehead, which hadn’t exactly been where I’d been aiming . . . but it did the trick all the same.

By the time seven minutes had passed, it was down to just me and Natty, and I needed to find her before she found me.

After I’d shot Eddie Ray, I’d scrambled to get off that damned table—I couldn’t do it fast enough, but the entire time all I could think was,
I shot someone . . . I shot someone . . . I shot someone . . .

It made no difference that he meant to capture Tyler, or that he would’ve killed me if I’d hesitated. What I’d done was inconceivable, and I was still trembling. Still, none of that stopped me from snagging Blondie’s boots so I wouldn’t have to navigate the hallways barefoot again.

I hadn’t made it far when the two guys whose names I’d never even learned found me.

When they came ricocheting around the corner, I was almost as surprised to see them as they were to see me. Almost, but not quite.

My hands were shaking but I got off two rounds, one into each of their heads, and then, as if I were as coldblooded as Eddie Ray, I stepped over them on my way out.

Next it was Natty’s turn.

I wish the thought disturbed me more.

The last time I’d seen Natty I’d learned she’d never been my friend. That she was responsible for the Daylighters’ siege of Blackwater. Responsible for me losing my dad and Tyler all over again. Now I had a chance to get my revenge against her for everything she’d done.

A satisfied smile curled my lips.

My borrowed boots crunched across the littered floors. Natty was here—I could feel her. Practically smell her.

If only.

I kept the gun in front of me as I moved from room to room. My only knowledge of searches came from movies and TV, so I was sure I looked like one of those jacked-up cop-actors Austin and Tyler’s dad, who was a real cop, always made fun of.

But so what? All that mattered was that
I
found her before she found me.

My heart was beating against the over-tight muscles of my chest like a mallet. Beat-BEAT, beat-BEAT,
beat-BEAT
. NO way Natty didn’t hear
that
from a mile away.

I stopped when I heard something, but the noise was all wrong.

It came from overhead, not in front or behind me, and I squinted to get a glimpse of whatever was up there, trying my best to see past the rotting rafters. I had to find it—that scuffling, scraping sound. And still, my heart beat-BEAT against my ribs, pulverizing them.

Something came at me then, faster than a shadow.

Flinching, I nearly dropped the gun as I used my hand to shield my face. When I crouched, a nail along the baseboard raked across my knee.

It’s okay. I’m okay
, I told myself, biting back a hysterical bubble of laughter when I realized it had been a bird. Trapped the way I was inside the asylum. It flew down the hall one way, and then came back the other, its wings frantically stirring the dust-filled air as it searched for a way out.

“Jesus . . . ,” I muttered, getting to my feet again.

“Jesus can’t help you.” Natty’s voice was like liquid ice.

Had she been standing there, watching the entire time? Waiting for me to mess up?

When I turned, it was slow and deliberate . . . and not complete. I came to a stop when I saw her. When I saw the gun in her hand, not a handgun like mine, but one so large she had to grip it with both hands.

One that was aimed directly at me.

“I know they’re dead,” she told me coldly. “I know you killed them.”

“I’ll kill you too,” I stated matter-of-factly.

She shrugged, not at all concerned. Not at all believing I would do it. “You know, it was dumb luck that we tracked you down. Your dad made it tough. He was better than I gave him credit for. We had eyes on several state DOT traffic cams for days before we finally picked up that damn truck of his outside Fort Collins. Good thing for us his piece of junk is hard to miss, because he was smart enough to switch the plates.” She took a step closer, and my heart picked up a notch.

“Don’t,” I warned her, but she just kept talking, ignoring the gun I was holding.

“We almost lost you again after you tore outta that campground. If you hadn’t stopped at that diner, things might’ve ended differently. Worked out in the end though . . . at least for us.” She took another step. “Tyler won’t be as hard. He’s a sweet kid. Trusting.” Her voice changed then, and I heard her, the old Natty. The meek girl who’d been my friend. “He’ll believe me when I say I just want to help him find
you.” She squeezed her brows together, a tortured sort of look. “We’re in this together, Tyler. Kyra’s my friend too.” Her voice broke, and if I didn’t know the real Natty, I would have believed she was going to break down and cry.

My shoulders fell because she was right. She was so totally-completely-utterly convincing. Tyler would buy this act of hers hook, line, and sinker. If Natty got to him, there was no way he would ever suspect her of what she really had planned for him.

I couldn’t let her get away with it. I used both hands to raise my gun to point at her head.

When she laughed, it was an insulting sound. “Let’s just get this over with.” She wasn’t afraid of me. She didn’t believe I could do it.

And maybe she was right. Already my hands were shaking again, and the beating in my chest had resumed.

Beat-BEAT . . .

. . . Beat-BEAT . . .

Don’t let her get to you.
It was a silent prayer.

Natty . . . Natty who I’d once believed was my friend. My eyes traveled down to her gun at the same time I concentrated on the one in my own hands. I saw her nod toward me . . . at me.

I recognized the nod. I’d seen that nod on the field a million times. Athletes gave it whenever they were feeling overly cocky. Too confident for their own good. It was a
Fuck you
nod. She didn’t have to say it out loud.

I focused, telling myself Natty was wrong. She was full
of crap. She was the reason I was here in the first place. She was the reason Blondie was dead and I’d been forced to kill Eddie Ray and the others. She was the reason Blackwater had fallen. But she wouldn’t take Tyler.

I slowed my breathing . . . and my heartbeat. I counted to three.

One, two, three.

Beat-BEAT!

Then, like lining up a pitch, I fired.

I HALF EXPECTED FREDDY KRUEGER TO JUMP OUT AT us with his knife-fingers at any second. Vines snaked in and over every surface of the crumbling building, choking it out. The lawn needed a serious dose of weed killer, and the driveway, which had one of those massive iron gates at its mouth, was now a disintegrating mess of broken asphalt, and was lined with creepy, spindly limbed trees.

I wondered what it must have been like, back in the day. Jett had mentioned that people used to drop off their relatives at places like these . . . dump them when no one could, or wanted to, care for them.

What was that like, to live behind these massive brick walls, cut off from the rest of the world?

Nothing like now, I guessed. Now this was a place time forgot. Just like us, I couldn’t help thinking. Now it was an empty shithole crumbling to the ground. I wondered who we were about to come up against in there. And for the millionth time, I hoped to God Tyler was right, that Kyra was inside. That he hadn’t just led us on a wild-goose chase.

“Cut the lights,” Griffin whispered, but I was one step ahead of her, already switching them off. Then, she added, “We should go the rest the way on foot.”

No one said much, not even Jett, who usually rattled off numbers whenever things got tense. This time, he kept his mouth shut. No data about our odds or the probability we could be walking into a trap.

We’d figured that one out all on our own.

Kyra’s dad took his cue from us, and the lights from that piece of shit pickup behind us shut off too. The world—the run-down grounds around us—went black. When we parked, he cut his overloud engine too. If anything had given us away so far, it was that goddamn truck of his.

Getting out of the SUV, my adrenaline kicked into overdrive, pumping so hard I could taste it. I signaled for Griffin to bring her AK-47, and Jett, and to stick with Tyler and me. We’d be going directly through the front entrance. Ben Agnew’s party would take the rear, searching for an alternate way in.

I lifted three fingers—our channel on the two-way—the only way we’d be communicating from here on out. But until there
was something to report, everyone knew to stay off the comm. No point giving those sons of bitches any other clues we were on to them.

I joined my fingertip to the tip of my thumb:
okay?

When there were nods all around, we broke apart. The other group took off ahead of us and disappeared into the night, just as planned. Griffin, Jett, Tyler, and I waited a beat or two longer, giving the other team, Ben Agnew and two of Griffin’s best Blackwater soldiers, a ten-second head start. Then we took off too, slipping silently through grass that reached my knees and overgrown bushes that tangled menacingly along what had once been a driveway.

In operations like these, darkness could be your ally, the shadows swallowing you whole and giving you the element of surprise. But it could just as easily work against you, creating unseen obstacles and making it next to impossible to discern friend from enemy.

I’d been on those missions. Seen allies fall simply because we were shooting blind.

I never wanted to live through that kind of clusterfuck again. If I shot someone, I wanted it to be intentional. I wanted to see their faces when they died.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, I’d heard that somewhere, maybe in school back when things like school mattered.

With each step, I waited for a reaction, equal or otherwise. A warning shout, an alarm, a bullet chiseling through the night. But nothing happened as we got closer to the building. Silence and
darkness seemed to seep out from it equally, and I started to believe Tyler had screwed us. Wasted our time.

No one was here. No one had been here in a very, very,
very
long time.

Griffin and I took opposite sides of the massive entrance doors. They were solid, making them impossible to see beyond, but we stayed to the sides anyway—no point taking a face full of bullet spray if it wasn’t necessary, right?

Griffin and I eased forward, while Jett and Tyler stayed back. Time slowed and I was aware of everything—the stars overhead; the still, almost oppressive heaviness of the air; the sound of every breath I took. I balanced on the balls of my feet, settling my weight as I crossed my left hand over my body to reach for the door’s handle while my right shoulder slid over the heavy wooden door. The assault rifle stayed at the ready in my right hand.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the door locked.

I nodded once at Griffin. We’d been here before, in situations like this, back when we’d both been recruiters under Franco. The job had landed us in some sticky situations. More than once we’d had to bust into private residences, medical clinics, even a police station or two to rescue a newly Returned. Like me, Griffin knew the drill.

Silently, we watched each other, counting in unison. Neither Jett nor Tyler was even aware. It was so ingrained; we didn’t do it out loud.

When I reached three, I stepped out of the way and Griffin smashed her boot near the handle, heel first. The frame
splintered as the door gave, and I rammed my shoulder against it, shoving my way through first.

Griffin and I cleared the entry within seconds, with Tyler and Jett coming in right behind us. We were all armed, although the rifles Griffin and I carried made the others look like water pistols.

“Stay close!” Griffin whispered.

The inside of this place was an even bigger mess than the outside. The guts of the asylum were everywhere; long-dead electrical wires dangling from walls and ceilings, wreckage spewing out of doorways, and a rotted stench that combined everything from human waste to musty decay to something . . . fresher . . .

“Gunpowder,” I mouthed to Griffin. It was a scent I’d have recognized anywhere, even mingled in this shithole of sensory overload. But Griffin had already noticed it, and now she was leading the way, making quick work of picking her way through the rubble.

The first body we came across was facedown. Relief that it was a boy wasn’t a strong enough word. The fact it wasn’t Kyra almost renewed my faith in God. Almost.

The kid was wearing khakis and a T-shirt—normal crap. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, old-fashioned hospital scrubs? Maybe a killer clown or two? Somehow his ordinary street clothes were even creepier in this place.

If he was Returned his body never had the chance to heal. The point-blank bullet through his forehead had sealed his fate the second it had shredded his brain.

Dropping his face back into the debris, Griffin gave the
Let’s go
signal.

Body #2 was another boy, just a few feet from the first. This kid had a gun, but apparently it had done him little good. Same precise bullet hole, same destroyed brain.

From behind me, I heard the two-way crackle to life.

I turned to Jett, who held it to his ear, listening with intense focus.

“They got a body,” he whispered. “Near the rear exit.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I could ask if it was her—Kyra—but knowing we needed to stay off the channel as much as possible. We had no idea who might be listening.

I nodded. We’d get there. At least I hoped we’d get there.

Before we did though, we reached a strange inner chamber. That’s where we discovered another body—a blond girl who matched the image Griffin had found online. It looked like Tyler’s dream had been right after all.

In the center of this room with its over-high ceilings, there was an old-fashioned gurney of some sort . . . an ancient metal table with leather straps. I could only imagine this was where they’d done electroshock or lobotomized the hospital’s residents in days gone by.

There was fresh blood smeared across it, splattered in thick viscous puddles. And all around the table were machines. But not old-school ones. These things were high tech. Monitors, IV stands, machines that had no business in a place like this.

I signaled for Tyler to come around. “That her?”

When Tyler nodded, my breath loosened. Not all the way,
but enough. Someone had been here before us, someone armed. Someone gunning for the bad guys, same way we were.

Still, just because they weren’t on the kidnappers’ side, didn’t mean they’d be on ours. And there might be more of them.

It also didn’t mean we wouldn’t find Kyra among the rubble, a bullet between her eyes too.

All it meant was there were fewer kidnappers to contend with.

“Over here.” Griffin’s voice was less quiet. Less cautious. When I moved around to the other side of the table, I saw it too—body #5, if we were counting the one Ben Agnew’s team had come across.

Strange thing was, Griffin and I recognized this corpse—a guy we’d known years ago, a sneaky little prick named Eddie Ray. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, finding Eddie Ray here, dead at the asylum where Tyler said we’d find Kyra. How the hell did Eddie Ray fit into all this . . . after all this time?

Making our way toward the rear exit, we were intercepted by one of Griffin’s soldiers. He led us to the body they’d stumbled upon, a girl who was lying facedown in the dark.

“Who is it?” Griffin asked from behind me, and I hated her for the almost hopeful edge I swore I heard in her voice. Couldn’t she at least pretend she didn’t want it to be Kyra?

Beside me, Tyler froze, and for the first time we exchanged a look. I hated him because I understood him—the pain in his face.

Ben was kneeling beside the girl, and when he glanced up
and saw us, he simply said, “It’s not her.”

Then I saw how small the girl was, and how short and dark her hair was. Of course it wasn’t Kyra, how could I have been so stupid?

Tyler hunched over her, his brow furrowed as he reached for her. When he rolled her over, I rocked backward.

Just like with Eddie Ray, we knew this girl . . . it was a face we recognized all too well.

Natty.

Things weren’t adding up. What was Natty doing here with Eddie Ray? Natty, who was armed, and had an almost identical bullet hole through her forehead as Eddie Ray and the other two guys. Did it mean anything that the blond girl had been shot through the back of her head and not the front like the others? Had Natty been abducted the way Kyra had? Or was this something more sinister? Did she somehow belong with them?

This time it was Griffin and I who exchanged glances, both of us wondering the same things: Had Natty been involved in the destruction of Blackwater? Had she gotten all those Returned killed? Had she been the one who’d kidnapped Kyra?

If that was the case, I wished I’d been the one to pull the trigger.