The Taking

by Kimberly Derting

  I grinned, unable to stop myself. “They’ll be glad I’m yours?” I teased.

  He dropped his hands to my waist and tugged me until my hips were pressed against his. “You know what I mean. I think you need to tell your parents the truth. What you told me. They’ll help you figure out how to handle that agent guy, and if he’s really as dangerous as you say he is, they’ll keep you safe. That’s they’re job. That’s what parents do.”

  Tyler stopped talking, and his eyes flicked down to my lips, lingering and clouding over. He inhaled, as if it was taking every last ounce of will to keep from kissing me, and I didn’t want him to hold back. I wanted him to give in. I wanted to feel like a normal girl. Like me. So I stepped up, balancing on my tiptoes, and wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck.

  He surrendered easily, lowering his head in an instant. A sound somewhere between a growl and a moan escaped his throat the moment his mouth covered mine.

  And then we were lost, the two of us. And I no longer cared about whether I was a normal sixteen-year-old girl . . . or something different. Because I was Tyler’s.

  He’d said as much with that amazingly perfect, ravenous kiss.

  It was that very same kiss, though, that masked the footsteps. And it was the kiss, too, that kept me off guard, making me unaware that we were no longer alone.

  It wasn’t until I heard the click—until we both heard the click—that we jumped apart. My lips were still swollen and pulsing, but my heart raced like mad.

  I fixated on the gun, so when the guy spoke, it took me a second to realize it wasn’t Agent Truman talking. “Don’t move.” The voice—and the gun too—crushed any hope I’d had that everything was going to be okay, that I would just go back to being plain old Kyra Agnew, regular girl. The guy behind the gun was a younger, fresher-faced version of the stiff NSA agent who’d been shadowing me wherever I went.

  Like the others back at my house, this agent had one of those walkie-talkie things, and he lifted it to his mouth and pressed a button. “I found her,” he spoke into the crackling radio. “We’re at . . .” He shot a quick glance at Jackson, who was cowering in the doorway behind him. “Where are we?”

  “Second Chance Comics and Books. On Pine.” Jackson answered, keeping his gaze on the gun in the agent’s other hand, the one he was holding on Tyler and me.

  The agent repeated what Jackson said into the radio and then told Jackson, “Good. Now go out front and wait for someone to arrive so they know where to find us.”

  Jackson flashed Tyler an “I’m sorry” expression even though he didn’t say a word. He avoided my gaze altogether and did as he was instructed, leaving us alone with the young NSA agent.

  “What do you want?” Tyler asked the agent, taking the lead and moving to stand in front of me, putting me out of the path of the gun.

  I didn’t have a plan—everything was happening too fast to think. But I didn’t stay where Tyler put me. Instead, I reached down and snatched the box knife off the floor, clutching it in my palm.

  The agent saw what I’d done, probably because I hadn’t been exactly smooth about it, but he stayed where he was, his gun still cocked and trained on the two of us. I didn’t blame him, really. I guess he’d heard the expression “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

  “Son,” the agent said to Tyler like he was decades older than we were, even though he looked like he’d barely graduated from whatever training academy the NSA sent their agents to. “You need to step away from the girl. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. She’s putting you in danger.”

  That was when I realized it, the way he held the gun. He’d never really been pointing it at me at all.

  He’d kept it aimed at Tyler the entire time. And the way he looked at me, all meaningful, the way he challenged me with his steady gaze, made it more than clear that he was in on my little secret, and he suspected what I did: that it wouldn’t do any good to shoot me.

  Not that I was immune to pain or anything—I’d definitely felt the blade when Simon had cut me. But I’d healed all the same. And, most likely, if what I’d learned then was true, I’d probably heal from a gunshot too.

  Tyler . . . not so much.

  “Turn yourself in,” he told me, “and no one has to get hurt.”

  “Don’t do it, Kyr.” Tyler ordered, his eyes never straying from the agent’s. He reached into his pocket and tossed me his keys. “Run.” He said it so calmly it was hard to believe he’d even noticed the gun at all. “Get out of here. Now!”

  I looked from Tyler to the agent with the gun and down to the gun itself. There was no way I was leaving him.

  It was over. The NSA had found my Achilles’ heel.

  Still clutching the box cutter, I held up both hands, showing the agent that I surrendered.

  Grinning with a kind of condescending arrogance, the agent took a step toward me. “I knew you’d make the right choi—” He stopped then, right where he was, midsentence and midstride. His eyes flicked down to my right arm, falling to my wrist.

  I looked too.

  A trickle of blood made its way down my arm from my closed fist where I clutched the razor-sharp blade curled against my palm. I recoiled, opening my fingers, but it was too late. The blade had already done its job, cutting a wide trench across my hand.

  The pain was there again, a sting that started in the cut and burned all the way up my arm to my shoulder.

  “Kyra!” Tyler started to lunge for me but stopped himself. His eyes were trained uncertainly on my injury, and I suddenly hoped he wasn’t one of those people who fainted at the sight of blood.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, nearly forgetting we weren’t alone. “Wait . . . watch.” Already I could feel the telltale prickling sensation that told me the wound was beginning to heal. The tingling that meant my body was working. “It’s okay. It’ll heal.”

  But he was shaking his head, his actions slow and skeptical. Despite everything he’d said, he hadn’t been entirely convinced. He remained where he was, transfixed, and he saw the same thing I saw.

  It did heal. Same way as before. First the flow of blood around my palm became a mere trickle. And then the wound began to mend itself. To close, until there was nothing but the streaks of blood to indicate it had ever existed at all.

  Tyler was still shaking his head when the agent lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “We have a situation here,” he stated numbly, his eyes as wide as Tyler’s. “I repeat,” he said, this time taking an entire step back from us. “We have a . . .” His eyes dropped again to the blood that had dribbled down my arm. I didn’t know this guy, but if I had to guess, I’d say something about me or my cut had frightened him. “We have a Code Red,” he finished.

  He lowered his weapon. “Come with me, son,” he said to Tyler, using the barrel of the gun as a pointer, indicating Tyler should step away from me too.

  When we heard a door opening at the front of the store, the agent stopped backing up and whispered to Tyler, “It’s too late for both of us.” And then he closed his eyes and lifted his gun to his temple.

  I gaped at him, at the scene unfolding in front of me, wondering what the—

  But Tyler didn’t hesitate. He grabbed my hand, the one without the newly healed cut on its palm, and he dragged me. We were running when we reached the door that led to the alley, and were still running when we spilled out into the narrow, garbage-filled street, to his awaiting car beyond.

  Running away from the earsplitting sound of the gunshot that came from the bookstore behind us.

  * * *

  We sat dazedly in Tyler’s car while we tried to collect ourselves after what we’d just witnessed, which we still weren’t entirely clear about. Had that agent really just shot himself?

  Tyler recovered before I did. I wiped the blood on my already-stained jeans and stared blankly out the windshield at the quiet street beyond, trying to take a page from Tyler, the way he seemed to be able to channel that silent
inner calm whenever he was thinking. It was hard, though. I wasn’t like him.

  Are you sure? I silently asked, my brows pinching together as I nervously gripped the cell phone he’d handed me. I’d already tried calling my dad again, convinced it would be easier to explain things to him since he already believed half the stuff I had to say.

  Turning to my mom was an entirely different story. She’d always been more practical than he was. She was all about facts and numbers and puzzles—things that made sense. Things that were normal and fit and didn’t disturb the status quo.

  Things unlike my dad and his alien conspiracy theories. And surely unlike a daughter who was no longer like everyone else.

  Tyler clutched my hand. It’ll be okay, his squeeze assured me.

  I glanced down at the scribbling on my damp palm—the one I hadn’t cut—surprised that the marker had survived all the perspiration and blood and scrubbing with Wet Ones. The numbers were blurred around the edges, but it was still my handwriting, exactly the same as it had always been—reassuring considering so much else about me wasn’t.

  I checked the time and then dialed hastily, before I could change my mind. Holding my breath, I waited to find out if Tyler was right or not.

  Even though no one said hello when the phone stopped ringing, I knew it had been answered. “Mom?” My voice was timid and shaky.

  “Kyra? Oh my god, where are you? I told you to stay home.” Her words came out in a rush, her relief audible.

  “Mom, I need you to listen to me. There were these guys from the National Security Agency who came to the house—you can’t trust them. I can’t explain why right now, but you have to believe me. They’re after me, and they want to hurt me.” I looked to Tyler for strength before going on. I choked on a breathy chuckle. “I know it sounds like I’ve been drinking from Dad’s crazy Kool-Aid, but what I’m saying is true. These guys are bad, Mom. Don’t tell them anything.” When she didn’t respond right away, I asked uncertainly, “Mom? Did you hear me?”

  There was a pause, and then my mom repeated, her voice quieter, more hesitant than before, “Where are you now? I . . . I can come get you.”

  I heard someone else then, in the background. It was Tamara Wahl. “Is Tyler with her? Ask her if Tyler’s with her. Is he okay . . . ?” It was strange, the way her voice warbled, and I knew even without seeing her that she’d been crying. The end of her sentence trailed off, like she’d been dragged away from the phone.

  It was all so weird, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “I—I can’t tell you where I am right now.” I shifted, intentionally avoiding Tyler’s attentive gaze. And then things started to click into place. “He’s . . . he’s not there now, is he? The NSA guy I was telling you about?”

  “Kyra, please. He says you need help.” Her voice cracked when she tried to talk this time, and I could hear her trying not to fall apart the same way Tamara Wahl had. “He says you were infected with whatever that guy from Skagit General Hospital had. He says you’re contagious.” She was shouting now, and I didn’t know if she was shouting at me or just shouting because she wanted me to pay attention to her. “He says you’re a danger to others, Kyra! He says you need to come in right away to be treated—” Her voice broke, and I could picture her covering her mouth.

  Contagious? No wonder Tamara Wahl had been crying—she probably believed it, too, that I was out here infecting Tyler as we spoke.

  I shook my head. “He’s lying, Mom. I’m not infected with anything. That’s not what he wants from me. He wants to do experiments—to hurt me.”

  But when she answered me, there wasn’t a hint of flexibility, and she no longer sounded like she was losing it. “No, Kyra, you’re wrong. You’re confused. You need to turn yourself in so he can help. That’s all he wants, is to help you. They all just want to help before it’s too late.”

  My face fell as I turned to stare out the side window. “Mom—”

  I thought about the message she’d left me, the text that had been on my phone right before the people from the NSA had pulled up in front of our house: Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be home soon.

  She hadn’t been on her way home. She’d known then. Agent Truman had gotten to her and filled her head with lies, and she’d given him permission to come and take me. To “help” me.

  For all Tyler’s words about family and that it was a parent’s job to protect us no matter what, my mother had been willing to hand me over to a bunch of strangers who’d lied to her, without even talking to me.

  Simon was right; I couldn’t trust anyone.

  Not even my own mother. My mom.

  I hung up on her and sat there clutching the cell phone in my fist while tears streamed down my face. I wondered why—when I’d been taken—they couldn’t have stripped me of my emotions too. Because it sucked to feel this way: betrayed and alone.

  Tyler didn’t move or say anything right away. He knew, of course. It was written all over my tear-streaked face.

  And then the phone in my hand made a strange, clicking sound, and my eyes flew wide as I gaped at it. The call was over. But the phone had come back to life, and the screen was all lit up.

  The message on the face flashed: CONNECTING . . .

  CONNECTING . . .

  CONNECTING . . .

  “Dammit,” I cursed, throwing the phone—Tyler’s phone—away from me. How had I been so careless, so stupid? Of course they’d traced the call. Agent Truman had probably been there the whole time, standing over my mother’s shoulder as he listened in on us, tapping the phone line to find out exactly where we were. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

  Tyler was reaching for his keys now, too, understanding clear on his face as he snatched the phone and chucked it out the driver’s side window. “Let’s get outta here.”

  Standing at the open door to my dad’s trailer, it was hard to say for sure if his place had been trashed or not.

  Using the disposable cell phone Simon had given me, I had dialed my dad’s number at least half a dozen times on our way to his place. When he didn’t answer any of my calls, I’d finally turned off the phone and thrown it on the seat between us.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Tyler had offered consolingly. “When we get there you can talk to him in person. If anyone’ll understand, it’s him.”

  “Yeah?” I’d challenged, in no mood to be comforted. “That’s what you said about my mom.”

  I’d shut down for the rest of the drive, sulking because I was good at it—always had been. It wasn’t Tyler’s fault, but it was easier to be pissed at him than to admit how terrified I was. I didn’t want my dad to turn on me the way my mom had.

  “Looks like they’ve already been here,” Tyler said when we saw the wreckage, which would have been stating the obvious if I hadn’t already seen my dad’s place on a “normal” day.

  “I don’t know . . . it’s hard to tell.” I had no way of knowing whether the unlocked door should alarm me or not, but I stepped inside cautiously, kicking scattered newspaper out of my way. There were dirty dishes piled in the sink and over the countertops, and stacked on the kitchen table.

  I assumed Tyler picked up on my meaning and wisely chose not to state the obvious, that my dad’s place was gross.

  But beyond the grossness of it, something felt off. The skin at the back of my neck stretched tight, and the tiny hairs at the nape stood on end. “Nancy!” I called out, wishing more than anything that the mutty dog would lope in and greet me sloppily with her molten-brown eyes and her big, fat, juicy tongue. I thought about the way she’d placed her head in my lap and stared up at me all dreamily. She wouldn’t spurn me just because some stupid agent told her I was no longer who she thought I should be.

  My hopeful plea was met with silence while that something-is-off feeling nagged at me.

  I walked warily toward the hallway, kicking more and more of the litter out of my path, until it no longer seemed like just the clutter of a drunken slob. I looked down, pa
ying more attention to the debris in my way, and recognized the papers I was wading through.

  These were my father’s files and clippings, his maps and charts and missing-person flyers, all leading the way to his room like a haphazard trail. The door at the end of the hallway stood ajar, but it was the handprint on the door that made me stop dead in my tracks.

  “Dad?” I called out, dread snaking its way around my windpipe. I was terrified about what I might find on the other side of that door.

  Behind me, Tyler reached for my hand, and every muscle in my body tensed. “You stay out here,” he whispered, but I shook my head vehemently.

  “I need to know.” And even though my voice shook, I’d already made up my mind. I needed to see for myself if that was my dad’s bloodied handprint. To know without a doubt if he was in there. Because if he was, it was all my fault.

  I reached out and pushed the door open. I went into the tiny bedroom that my dad had been using for five long years to track others like me . . . those who’d been taken.

  Once inside, I turned all the way around so I could see into every corner and every crevice of the tiny space.

  The small bedroom-turned-office had been destroyed. Pictures had been ripped from the walls and were strewn across the desk and floors, some intact and some ripped to shreds. Same thing with the maps and charts. It was in a state of shambles.

  But I didn’t give a crap about any of that. All I cared about was that my dad wasn’t there.

  He was gone.

  “Where do you think he is?” Tyler asked, and I jolted, nearly forgetting I wasn’t alone.

  I knew, too, that I could no longer put Tyler at risk simply because I wanted his help. I’d already put him in too much danger.

  I shrugged and shook my head at the same time, hoping more than anything that my dad had managed to get someplace safe.

  Tyler held his hand out to me, and I took it, our hands fitting together seamlessly. The idea of leaving him was nearly unbearable, like losing part of myself—something I understood all too well.