The Countdown (The Taking) (15 page)

“Can you get up?” I winced when I saw the way he clutched his wrist to keep his arm from dangling; his elbow bent at an unnatural angle.

It was hard to distinguish where all the blood had come from, whether it was his or Chuck’s. Likely both. But even if it were Thom’s, the fact that his blood—
our blood
—was toxic to the non-Returned wouldn’t make a difference to any rescue workers who arrived at the scene. It had to be fresh to do its damage. After sixty seconds it was no longer dangerous.

Thom was riddled with scrapes and bruises, but he managed to stagger to his feet, and staggering was enough.

While Thom lurched toward the passenger door, I slipped
over to Chuck. I had to work fast, and I did, rummaging through his back pockets for his wallet, not bothering to assess whether there was anything beneficial inside. I searched the floor, and beneath the seats. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding.

I had to climb over Chuck, my fingers delving into the cavity between his seat and the driver’s side door, but when my fingers closed around the gun’s grip, I almost sighed out loud.

My relief was short-lived as the sirens came closer and closer.

Then, right before I was ready to follow Thom out the passenger’s side door, I hesitated and turned back to Chuck, his mangled body. I told myself forget it, even as I climbed back over and stripped him of his watch.

I pocketed that, along with the wallet, and shoved the gun into the back of my jeans before hopping out of the cab as I half limped half ran into the thick brush that skirted the length of the freeway where Thom was already waiting for me.

Now, more than ever, we needed to get west . . . to safety.

If there was such a thing anymore.

Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.

—Charles Darwin

NOTHING SCREAMED LUXURY LIKE A THREADBARE motel bedspread. But after being strapped to a rusting metal gurney for almost a week, I lay back and spread my fingers wide, running my hands over the green and yellow stripes, petting the polyester fibers like they were spun from gold. For the first time in days, my damp hair didn’t contain bits of other people’s brains, and even the scratchy motel robe was heavenly against my clean skin. I felt like I’d won the freaking lottery.

I was free. Not safe. Not yet . . . just
free
.

It was crazy how low my expectations had dropped.

At least I no longer hurt. The breaks in my right arm and wrist, and the cracked ribs—however many of them had been broken—had healed. I think my lung had been damaged too, punctured maybe by one of the ribs, but eventually even that had mended, and I could breathe just fine now.

The cuts and bruises were gone now as well, and I wondered when I’d ever get used to that, the remarkable healing abilities of this strange new body of mine. Also, when I’d get used to calling it “this strange new body of mine,” since I still felt like just plain old me.

If only that were true.

As soon as Thom and I had run far enough from Chuck’s “accident” to feel like we wouldn’t draw too much attention to ourselves, we’d stopped at a small gas station where I’d planned on using the pay phone in the lot to call a cab. All we really knew was we were somewhere outside a town called Umatilla, a place so small I was pretty sure even the gas station would qualify as a recreational outing.

Turned out, though, that phone booths these days were really just props. The phone itself wasn’t just dead; the handset was missing altogether.

So Thom and I had done our best to clean ourselves up in the dingy restrooms out back so we could go inside to see if there was a phone we could borrow. But there wasn’t enough cheap hand soap in the world to make Thom presentable and he’d had to wait outside.

The kid behind the counter had been cool about it when
I’d asked to use his phone, not mentioning the smears of pink I’d made on my own shirt when I’d tried to blot away the blood. He’d passed me a grease-covered cordless phone that had a retractable metal antenna, circa 1990. But at least that phone had worked, and the cab had come for us within twenty minutes.

For an extra twenty bucks, the cabbie had even taken us as far as Pasco, Washington, which was back over the bridge Chuck had just brought us across, but it was also the closest place he said we could catch a Greyhound bus.

The bad news was that the next bus wasn’t scheduled until eight the next morning.

The good news was that Chuck’s wallet had been fat with cash; over three hundred bucks worth, which was partly why it had been like winning the lottery. If you could say “winning the lottery” after some guy blew his brains out while being hijacked by an interstellar transmission.

So, yeah, winning the lottery might not have been exactly right, but Chuck’s money meant Thom and I could get a motel room for the night while we waited for the next bus to Portland, where we’d buy our connecting tickets.

It also meant I was able to take a nice hot shower. It was crazy how hard I’d had to scrub to get all the dried bits of brain matter off, both Blondie’s and Chuck’s.

While Thom took his turn in the shower, I switched on the news to search for reports of the crashed semi.

What I was really looking for was anything that said the cops had known Thom or I had been there. I had no idea
how—fingerprints or witnesses—whatever it was they did to locate people.

“Anything?” Thom asked, when he came out of the bathroom. He was cleaner after showering, but he’d already put on the clothes he’d been wearing before, the ones we’d had to “borrow” for him back at the asylum. The sweatpants were loose on him, and not his usual neat, khaki style. Made worse now because they were torn and stained.

Chuck’s cash would come in handy for more than just motels and bus tickets if we planned to go unnoticed.

I shook my head. “Not yet.” I turned the volume all the way down, but left the newsfeed on, just in case. “You look better.” And he did. The cuts on his face had healed, only a faint pucker remained to show anything had happened at all. With a little more time, those too would fade. Eventually there’d be no evidence at all.

He flexed his arm, nodding. “I feel better.” Then his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I half shrugged and shook my head. “Don’t.” But then something heavy settled in my stomach. “Not about that anyway. Can I ask you something though?”

“About Natty?” He sat in one of the chairs at the small Formica table next to the bed I was on. He leaned forward on his elbows as if one had never been busted up in the first place.

“Yeah. About her.” I sat up too, facing him. “What . . .
happened
? Did you have any clue . . . what she was up to?”

Thom looked offended. “God. No. I can’t believe you’d
think that. I mean, of course you would, but . . . no.” He rubbed his face, his dark, straight hair falling over his forehead. “I figured it out though. When we were at Blackwater. That last day . . .” He paused and cleared his throat before continuing. “I was actually stupid enough to think . . . well, I’m sure you know what I thought. I thought me and Natty, I thought we . . .” He gave me a chagrined smile.

“We all thought that,” I told him, hoping it made him feel better to know he wasn’t the only one who’d fallen for her innocent act. “She made it pretty clear she was into you.”

“Yeah, well . . . she wasn’t.” He shrugged, and I knew he wanted to drop that part of it. “Anyway, Natty and I had gone for a walk that night, and she said she was going back to her tent. Said I didn’t need to walk her back, but of course, I insisted. But she insisted just as hard.
Insisted
. I should’ve realized something was up—she was acting strangely. But I let her go.” Watching Thom, I could see the truth filling in the gaps. He shoved his palms into his eye sockets. “The thing is, it bugged me, so I followed her anyway.” He was still at the table, and he leaned his head back against the chair. “She didn’t head for your tent after all. I guess I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been and she caught me when she came out of the communications tent. I thought she was in trouble—that’s what I thought was going on when I followed her. I had no idea she was armed, or how far she’d go to stop me, or anyone else who tried to stop her.” He looked up and watched me earnestly. “The worst part is, she knew my authorization codes. That’s how
she sent the message out. She led the No-Suchers right to us. Christ, Kyra, it was my fault. I even
told her
I was turning her in—like she could be reasoned with. But then she pulled her gun on me, and the next thing I know Eddie Ray and the others were there. The next thing I knew . . .” His voice cracked. “She wasn’t the person I thought she was. I didn’t know her at all. I never had.”

He didn’t have to say anything else, because I already knew the rest of the story. I’d lived it too. At the asylum, drugged and tortured, and who knew what else they’d have done if we hadn’t escaped when we had.

If I hadn’t killed them all.

“I’m so sorry,” he mouthed.

“Like I said, no apologies.”

The phone on the bedside table rang, and Thom’s head jerked up. He gave a quick shake, but I was already reaching for it.

“Hello?” I said into the avocado-green receiver.

It was the clerk on the other end—the older woman who’d talked my ear off when I’d checked in. She hadn’t balked at all at the fifty bucks I’d offered if she’d give us a heads-up if anyone came around asking questions about us. I got the feeling we weren’t the first ones to check into this motel who wanted to be left alone. “You know how you told me to tell you if anyone asked about you? Well, a man just checked in, askin’ about the boy you were with. Showed a picture and everything.” Thom was standing right next to
me now, his ear pressed to mine so he could hear every word she said. I would’ve asked her questions about the man, but I was waiting for her to take a breath, something she didn’t seemed inclined to do. “I didn’t tell him nothing, just like you asked. Said I’d never seen the boy before.” The money thing had been risky. Truth was, someone else could easily have offered her more, but Thom and I needed to hold some of Chuck’s money back for other things. “I don’t think he bought it though. He’s in the lot now if you wanna get a peek at him.”

My pulse hammered hard in my throat. “Thanks, Mabel. I appreciate the tip.”

“Anytime, doll. You kids take care—”

But I’d already hung up, and was racing to the window. I was careful with the curtains, not wanting to move them too far or fast. I didn’t want to let whoever might be out there know we were here. That we were watching him.

“Goddamn it,” Thom cursed from beside me, when he saw who I saw.

Even with an entire parking lot and a window to separate us, I felt my heart explode. It was my one true nemesis.

Agent Truman.

I glanced to Thom, a knot forming in my gut as I weighed everything he’d just told me . . . everything I knew about him. “How did he find us?” I asked. I reached for my clothes, piled on the edge of the bed. I yanked my pants on beneath the robe, my eyes never leaving Thom. He couldn’t
be the traitor after all this, could he?

“Kyra . . . ,” Thom answered slowly. “I swear it wasn’t me.”

I wanted to believe him.

“How then?” I refused to turn my back, so I was forced to pull my shirt on in front of him. “How on earth did he know we were here?” I didn’t expect an answer, but I searched Thom’s eyes as I moved back toward the wall.

“You have to trust me. We’re in this together. I have no idea how he found us, but you heard Mabel—it’s me he’s after, not you. For all we know, he doesn’t even know you’re here.” He started to take a step toward me, but I held up my hand to stop him. “You can still get away. If you go out the back, I’ll turn myself in. You can get a head start.”

After a second or two, I dared another quick glance out the window.

He was still there.

Agent Truman hadn’t always been part of the Daylight Division. Once upon a time he’d been the infamous Dr. Arlo Bennett. Aka, Griffin’s dad. None of us had known the two were one and the same, not until he’d shown up with his army of Daylight Division goons to storm Blackwater Ranch.

That’s when he and Griffin had come face-to-face for the first time in decades. The reunion hadn’t exactly ended well.

I hadn’t envied Griffin before then, when I thought her dad was a scientist who’d sacrificed her to the aliens just so
he could experiment on her when she returned.

I envied her even less once I knew her dad had changed his identity and was working with the feds to round us up. And then he put the cherry on the worst-dad-ever award by shooting her right in front of me.

It made no difference that he was a Returned too.

The last time I’d seen Agent Truman had been at Blackwater, right after Willow had taken a baseball bat to his head.

He’d said that being older than the rest of us meant he healed slower than we did, but I had to say, considering less than two weeks had passed, he looked pretty good. It made me wonder what he’d told his cohorts . . . how he’d explained his miraculous—and exceptionally speedy—recovery, since after Willow had gotten done with him he’d looked like a crash test dummy on its way to the dump.

Now he glanced up, his eyes scanning the length of the building.

He saw us . . . he saw us . . . somehow, I’m sure he saw us . . .

Run.
Thom wanted me to run. To get a head start. Did that prove it, that he wasn’t a traitor? That he hadn’t led Agent Truman right to us?

I let my eyes drop to Chuck’s watch, dangling loosely on my wrist. The sight of it slowed my heart rate. Calmed me down.

Then I saw Agent Truman pull out what looked like a handheld radio or walkie-talkie, but with a screen. He entered something and held it out and up, toward the motel.

“Hey!
Jesus!
” Thom reached up and slapped his neck,
right below his right ear. “What the . . .
Did you hear that?
”

I slid my gaze sideways at him, and then back to Agent Truman, who was grinning now, and taking sure steps in our direction, his eyes moving upward, to the second floor where our room was located.

“Oh my god, Thom. It’s you.” I had to think fast. We had to act fast. “You
are
the reason Agent Truman’s here. Somehow they . . . he or Natty and Eddie Ray . . .
someone
put some kind of tracker in you.” I pointed to his neck, to where he was still rubbing the place beneath his ear.

I dropped the curtain, my mind spinning as I rubbed the back of my own neck. My blood was pumping hard. We only had seconds until Agent Truman would be here, and I doubted he’d give the courtesy of a friendly knock when he arrived.

“Okay,” I said. “I got it. You have to stay here.” I grabbed the gun I’d shoved under my pillow. “I’ll be right here, ready to surprise him.” I ran to the bathroom. “Hopefully he thinks you’re alone.”

I didn’t give Thom time to argue—we didn’t have time. I slipped on my boots—Blondie’s boots—and disappeared into the still steam-filled bathroom. The near panic of waiting to be caught by Agent Truman was too much, and my chest constricted to the point I almost couldn’t breathe.

I turned those emotions inward, focusing, trying to harness them into a storm I could use against Agent Truman in case the gun wasn’t enough. In case it jammed. In case I ran out of bullets. In case Agent Truman disarmed me.

My ability—could I do that? Could I call on it at will?

I could try.

Suddenly this plan I’d come up with—granted, on the spur of the moment—this whole thing where I would ambush Agent Truman, I realized it was amateur hour. It was me trying to pass off a blob of unsculpted Play-Doh to a snooty art dealer.

I couldn’t do this. It was pathetic. This was Agent Truman, a seasoned veteran. A man who carved up Returned just to see what made them tick.

What was I thinking?

Then I saw the window, the one above the tub, and I heard Thom’s voice in my head: “Go out the back . . . you can get a head start.”