The Countdown (The Taking) (27 page)

My heart was pounding when Simon cleared his throat, letting Tyler and me know in his less-than-subtle way our time was up. Tyler pulled away gently and stepped back, his eyes never leaving me.

When it was his turn, I thought Simon would say something corny, or give some big speech to convince me he was the right choice all along.

Instead, he whispered, thinking Tyler couldn’t hear, “You made up your mind before we ever even met.” And then he kissed me . . . a small, sweet kiss that wasn’t meant to sway me at all.

It was what it was—a good-bye kiss.

As the elevator doors closed behind them, I silently allowed myself to decide between them, once and for all.
I said the name in my head the one and only time I would say it—Tyler. Tyler, who I would have picked, who I always would have picked if things could have been different.

If I could have survived all this.

And then I shut my feelings down because I had a job to do. One that didn’t allow me to think about either of them.

Any of them.

As long as this place was still standing, everyone was at risk.

Dr. Clarke had given us a brief rundown of the systems, on the off chance we found the codes we needed. I gave the others a twenty-minute head start to get as far as they could from here, which was generous. They’d need at least three minutes just to get back to the main level, and then another five to clear the facility altogether.

Beyond that, I couldn’t let myself worry about them. I had to hope they’d find Agent Truman’s car and would drive as far away as possible.

If not, they’d have to run and hide and hope the blast stayed fairly contained.

If they were hurt, they’d heal.

If they were killed . . .

I refused to let my mind go there.

This wasn’t about us.

I pressed my palms to the CPU’s fingerprint recognition software and shot a burst of current through the system, hacking into their mainframe.

Overhead, the red lights stopped flashing, blinked once,
and then once again. And then remained on.

A new loop began on the speaker system:
“Destruct sequence activated. All personnel evacuate the building. This is not a drill.”

A new countdown clock had begun.

I PRESSED THE BUTTON IMPATIENTLY, SHIFTING anxiously on my feet.

Overhead, the monotone voice echoed off the walls.
“All personnel must now be evacuated. Autodestruct set to commence in two minutes.”
That was new, the audio countdown.

This whole ordeal was almost over.

I jammed my thumb at the elevator’s button one last time, deciding some kind of security protocol must have overridden the system and I’d missed my chance.

Then, just as I was about to give up, the doors slid open and
I leaped inside. I still had Dr. Clarke’s key card, the one Kyra had given us in case we came up against any security measures, and I swiped it, my pulse pounding recklessly.

“All personnel must now be evacuated. Autodestruct set to commence in one minute forty-five seconds.”
I didn’t want that to be the last voice I ever heard.

When the doors slid open again, I was facing a room full of computers. I did a quick survey, all the time I could afford, and an unsettling thought knocked the wind out of me: something had gone wrong. Kyra had made a run for it.

Then . . . I sensed her.

She was still here, just not on this floor. My mouth went dry as I stabbed the button again.

As the doors finally opened, I exited to the main floor, and I felt her presence . . . her awareness that I’d come back . . . her confusion and anger and reluctant pleasure all mixed up, all at once.

“Tyler? What the hell?” Kyra said, wasting no time coming to me. I wondered if she knew her cheeks flushed when she was pissed, and that it only made her more beautiful.

The voice intruded on our reunion.
“All personnel must now be evacuated. Autodestruct set to commence in one minute fifteen seconds.”

“That?” she said, pointing at the ceiling despondently. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Shut up,” I told her and reached for her. “This isn’t the time to tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing.” I put my mouth to hers, not a kiss exactly, but the promise of one. Her
lips parted and I could taste her breath. I could feel her heart beneath mine. “You said no one wins the girl, but you’re wrong.”

And with that, I made good on my promise, kissing her so completely, so thoroughly, she didn’t have the chance to argue. Her tongue was sweet and familiar, and I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever forgotten her. Forgotten this.

I felt whole and alive.
This
was where I wanted to die.

Overhead, the speaker announced two more countdowns, leaving us less than a minute by the time I released her.

“Why’d you come up here?” I asked gently. Softly.

“I knew I couldn’t make it out in time, but I thought, maybe . . . maybe I could find a place to see the sky . . . the stars one last time.” Her lips were swollen and her eyes were glossy. “You should’ve gone.” But this time when she said it, she gave me a crooked smile and I knew, even without reading her, she didn’t mean a single word.

“Liar.”

She shrugged, and I pulled her into my arms.

“All personnel must now be evacuated. Autodestruct set to commence in thirty seconds.”

Against my chest, she jerked.

“You scared?” I whispered.

“
So
scared,” she answered truthfully. “How do you think it’ll happen?”

I half shook my head and half shrugged because I had no idea. But I all-the-way held on as tight as I could. I listened to her breathing . . . in and out, in and out, until the voice gave us our fifteen-second warning.

“I’ll remember you always,” I told her, this time out loud because I wanted the last things we said to each other to be spoken . . . human.

She looked up at me, her eyes fat with tears as she answered back, “
I’ll
remember
you
always.”

“THREE . . .”
THE VOICE OVERHEAD DRONED ITS final notes.

It was okay. I was okay . . .

“Two . . .”

Tyler was here. We were together.

“One . . .”

The first blast came from several floors below—the Basement most likely, where the ships were. Followed immediately by a second and a third. I didn’t even flinch as Tyler’s arms closed around me, trying to shield me from whatever was coming.

When the flashes came, they weren’t in sync with the explosions, but I felt them all the same . . .

Tiny pinpricks, like holes being cut right through me . . . all over my body. A million, billion, trillion infinitesimal stingers plunging into my skin.

Tyler must have felt them too because I heard him gasp.

From somewhere I smelled burning chemicals and smoke, and the ground and walls around us were rumbling. There were more eruptions now, closer to us.

And right before everything was over . . .

Right before the whole place went up in flames, I heard him say . . .

“. . . always.”

THE STARS OVERHEAD GLOWED IN AN UNNATURAL way. Beautiful, but unnatural.

It took me several tries to figure out why.

Plastic.
They were the plastic glow-in-the-dark kind that parents stick on kids’ ceilings.

I stayed where I was, studying them for an eternity, trying to decide if they were familiar or not. They gave me the strangest sense of déjà vu, and I felt like I
should
remember them even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the memory.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 4:13, but I
was
awake
-awake so there was no point trying to go back to sleep now. I chucked the covers aside and made my way to the kitchen in search of coffee.

The hallway was dark but I’d been in this house my whole life, I didn’t need a light. Still, everything about this was wrong somehow.

I had the strangest sensation I was sneaking around someplace I shouldn’t. Trespassing.

I froze when I reached the kitchen and saw Grant standing over the sink, loading dishes in the dishwasher.

Grant.

I knew him—his name, his face . . . and he obviously recognized me, because he grimaced when he saw me. “Sorry. Did I wake ya, slugger?”

Slugger? Was that really his nickname for me?

I tested it out, and the whole déjà vu thing tilted . . . right, but not quite.

“No,” I answered, when he just stood there, waiting for my response. “I . . . uh . . . bad dream, I guess.” I shrugged.

Was that the truth? It could’ve been a dream as easily as anything else.

He nodded, his eyebrows tugging downward. “Your dad again? I’m sorry, slugger. It’ll get easier.” He reached for a dish towel.

My dad
. . .

Just the mention of him brought an overwhelming
something
almost into range. A memory I couldn’t quite reach, but there was a sharp stab of pain.

Again, I couldn’t help thinking none of this was right.

I took a step away from Grant before he could finish drying his hands. I didn’t want him to try to hug it out or anything, and for some reason I got the feeling that’s where this whole touchy-feely conversation was headed.

“All right,” he called after me as I staggered down the hallway to my bedroom. “I’ll be here if you wanna talk.”

I slammed the door behind me, and did a quick inventory of the room. It was mine, but not mine.

Mine from before
, came the thought, hitting me like a freight train the same way the pain had. All these things were things from my past. From another me.

It all came rushing back at me then. The Returned, the camps, the No-Suchers and Agent Truman, the ISA. Adam and my dad.

The explosion.

So how was I here now? Why hadn’t I been blasted into smithereens when we’d destroyed the ISA facility and their fleet of spaceships?

And what had Grant meant about my dad? Why was he acting so weird?

I looked around, at the plastic stars and the purple walls. At the stuffed animals and the trophies. Why was my room back the way it had been before I’d been taken all those years ago?

Then, on my nightstand, I saw the program from a memorial service, and I knew whose it was before I even picked it up.

In Loving Memory
the heading read, and below that my dad’s face stared back at me. Not the way I’d last seen him, with his soft gray beard and bloated cheeks. In the picture, he was clean-shaven and clear-eyed, as if someone had decided an image from the past would better represent him.

But I knew better. I missed my messy dad. The one who’d waited five years for me to come back and then hugged me so hard he’d almost choked me. The dad who’d gone on the run just to keep Tyler and me safe. The dad who’d sacrificed his own life to make amends for what he’d done all those years ago.

I bolted upright.
Tyler.

If I was here . . . back from . . .
wherever
, was it possible Tyler was too?

Yanking on a pair of sweatpants I found on the floor, I decided to find out. I didn’t want to risk another share-your-feelings moment with Grant, so I climbed over my window ledge and bolted across the street to a house I’d once spent as much time in as my own.

The house was dark, but I went straight around the back to Tyler’s bedroom window and tapped on it. The entire time my heart was going a hundred miles a minute in my chest. I had no idea what I’d do if he wasn’t in there, if I had to go through
this
. . . whatever was happening to me, all alone.

When the bedroom light turned on, I closed my eyes and whispered a silent prayer, and with each footstep that came closer my stomach did a little flip.

Please don’t be his mom . . . please don’t be his mom
. . .

Then, on the other side of the glass, Tyler’s face appeared. I waited a second to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, and then gave a little wave to say,
It’s me
.

His eyebrows squeezed together as his green eyes took me in. It hadn’t occurred to me until this very second that the two of us might be back at square one. That he might not remember anything . . . not just about the ISA and the Returned. But about us.

My heart plummeted, I wasn’t sure I could do this again.

“Hey,” I said, when he opened his window, not sure how to go about testing the waters.

“Hey. What are you doing here so . . .” He leaned back and looked at something—his clock probably. “So
early
?”

“Jeez, Tyler.” Suddenly I felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry.” I bit my lip. “I . . .” I sighed. “I don’t even know what I wanted. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

I turned around and started to cross the street, deciding I had to be the most embarrassing person who ever lived. Behind me, I heard his feet land in the gravel. I hesitated.

“I’ll remember you always.” I almost missed it, he said it so quietly. Less than a whisper.

I closed my eyes, begging myself not to completely lose my shit, before I trusted myself enough to turn around again.

Tyler started grinning, that dimple making an appearance at last when he saw the tears gushing down my cheeks. “I’ve been waiting almost a week, but I knew you’d eventually figure it out,” he told me, sounding even more relieved
than I felt. “I knew if I gave you enough time, it’d all come back to you too.”

“Shut up,” I told him, right before I ran and jumped in his arms and forced him to kiss me.

It took another two days for me to sort it all out.

There were so many details to get straight, like why our parents—my mom and stepdad, who I was now officially calling Grant, and Tyler’s folks—had different memories from our own.

“It was the fireflies,” Tyler insisted, every time I challenged him on something that didn’t make sense, most importantly why we’d survived the explosion at all. “You didn’t feel them? You don’t remember?”

Except, that’s the thing. I sort of did. My memory was still coming together in pieces, but it was coming.

In those last seconds, right before we were completely surrounded by smoke, right before the heat from the flames became too much, I’d felt something on me. Something swarming over me.

I remembered that sensation from before . . . from Devil’s Hole when Tyler had been taken. That creepy-crawly feeling of all those fireflies on my arms and legs. In my nose and hair.

I thought the flashes of light I’d seen had been explosions, but the more I thought about it, I was pretty sure Tyler was right. It had been the fireflies after all. The M’alue had rescued us . . . given us an eleventh hour reprieve.

It was the only explanation that made sense, considering we were still alive and all.

And trust me, I wasn’t complaining. Things were good for the most part. Tyler and I were back together, and as weird as it was being home again, I didn’t mind being with my mom either. She was different now too, but not in a bad way. She was definitely trying.

Simon and the others had made it out in time, and were living in whatever strange alternate reality we’d been thrust into. Agent Truman was still NSA—still Daylighter—although now, considering what we knew, we weren’t even sure the Daylighters had a purpose. I definitely no longer lived in fear they’d land on my doorstep. None of us did.

We hadn’t quite figured out what this was, our new version of reality. The year hadn’t changed—we hadn’t gone back in time or anything. But we were definitely not the same as we’d been a week ago. Before the ISA explosion.

So here’s what we knew for sure . . .

Fact: I’d been taken and returned. Even my mom and Grant remembered me coming back after a five-year absence, even if they didn’t know I’d been abducted. The whole Austin-Cat storyline still existed in whatever dimension we were in.

Fact: I’d infected Tyler when I’d cut myself in front of him. This information however is on a need-to-know basis. Meaning, yes, all of us who were Returned know. Agent Truman knows. My mom, Grant, and Tyler’s parents . . . not so much. All they remember is that Tyler and I got into some
trouble and took off for a few weeks.

Fact: Tyler and I both landed ourselves under strict lockdown restriction after we’d come back. This makes sense considering our parents think we’re moderate delinquents.

Now here’s where things got sticky . . .

My dad.

I could end right there and that would be enough. I missed my dad more than I would ever find words for.

As far as my mom and Grant—and pretty much the whole world—are concerned, my dad died in some sort of horrible accident. I try my best not to get all prickly whenever my mom talks about him, about how much he’d changed after I disappeared. How he was never the same.

But it’s tough. She didn’t know him the way I did. She has no idea he died a hero.

Here’s the other really weird thing: none of us—not me or Tyler or Simon or any of the Returned are any different from anyone else anymore. As in, as far as we can tell, we’re back to being ordinary humans.

I know!

It started with my eyes. My normal not-glow-in-the-dark eyes, which also happen to
not
see in the dark. That would’ve been strange enough, except for the part where I could no longer hold my breath super long or control things with my mind.

I could still throw super hard, but that’s because I’m a pitcher—I’ve always had a killer fastball.

The healing thing was up in the air. I was too afraid to
test it. After what happened with Tyler, I couldn’t take the chance.

But Simon and some of the others had—cut themselves, I mean. And, sure, they healed. But faster? Maybe. Simon thought so. But definitely not alien-DNA-fast.

We weren’t sure what that meant. Was this all part of the M’alue’s promise of no more Returned? Had it extended to us as well?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered is we were here . . . together . . .

Safe.

“Hey, slugger. Your boyfriend’s here,” Grant teased, tossing me a towel so I could dry my hands.

I caught it, wiped my hands, and kicked the dishwasher door closed. “That’s it,” I told him. “Final night of KP.”

KP—kitchen patrol. Grant’s cute name for kitchen duty aside, that last load of dishes signified the official end of my grounding.

Grant held out my phone and the house keys as a reward. “Home by midnight,” he instructed, and I wondered when I’d stopped caring that he took such a fatherly tone with me.

I saluted him. “Yes, sir.” I snagged the phone, and patted Nancy on the head before rushing out the back door.

I’d wanted a dog for as long as I could remember, but my mom had always had a strict no-dog policy. She almost gave in once, if my dad promised to find a breed that was hypo-allergenic and didn’t shed.

Nancy was neither of those things. Plus, she stunk. But according to Grant, after my dad’s funeral, Nancy had refused to leave my mom’s side. Mom swore the dog was a major annoyance, but whenever she thought no one was around, I caught her slipping Nancy treats and cooing at her in baby talk.

I practically ran into Tyler as he was coming up the drive. “Come on, let’s bail before they change their minds.” I grinned, and reached for his hand.

I thought he’d have some big date night planned for our first free outing—dinner and a movie or something like that. Instead Tyler pulled his car into a Park ’n’ Ride, steering to a spot way near the back, away from the bus garage, where the lot was mostly empty.

I gave him a long silent look before asking. “All right, I give. What are we doing in this super romantic parking lot?”

He grinned, nodding toward the glove box. “I got you something.”

Eyeing him skeptically, I popped it open and started laughing. “You’re not serious.”

“If you could read my mind, you’d know I totally am.”

I hit him with the DMV pamphlet.

“Look,” he said, defending his actions as he waved his keys at me. “I just think if we’re gonna do this whole human thing, it’s time you get your own driver’s license.”

I leaned closer and snatched the keys from his grasp. “Oh, you do, do you?”

Before I could back away, his finger caught me just
underneath the chin. That small action, his simple touch, made my breath catch.

“I do,” he said. His voice was low and reached into me, reminding me of a time, not so long ago, when he didn’t even have to speak for me to hear him. “And I definitely think we should do this whole human thing. You and me, together.”