The Taking: The Countdown Part 18

If it truly was an alien, like Dr. Clarke hadn't denied, it didn't feel that way to me.

Something inside me tripped at the sight of it, like a switch or a trigger, and I was drawn closer.

It was human-ish but so obviously not human. It had a head and four limbs-two arms and two legs-hands, feet, a torso, fingers and toes, although nothing was in exactly the same shape as mine or Thom's or Agent Truman's or Dr. Clarke's. Its skin was thicker, its head larger, its jaw wider, and as I circled around the canister, I noticed its spinal column was raised and th.o.r.n.y.

"What . . . ," I tried. "What do you call it?"

"He's part of a larger group we call the M'alue. Their actual name is unp.r.o.nounceable, so M'alue is the closest our language can get to it. The meaning itself is totally lost."

Thom moved to stand next to me. "But it's a him?"

"Yes," Dr. Clarke acknowledged. "We call him Adam."

"What's wrong with him? Is he . . . alive?"

Dr. Clarke's voice was somewhere behind me. "We keep him in stasis. For his health."

I stepped closer to the tube, as close as I could possibly get. There was something about him, about Adam . . . "How did you get him?" I asked. "How did he end up here?"

I leaned in, my breath clouding the gla.s.s as I pressed my forehead against it. I raised my hand and let my fingers roam along the cool surface of the cylindrical canister. I felt sorry for him, thinking how easily the roles could have been reversed-me and him. I let myself wonder if that's how they'd kept me, during the time they'd taken and held me for all those years. Had I been up there in a similar tube, breathing jelly-like blue liquid?

When his eyes opened, I jumped. Behind me, there was a gasp, although who it came from, I wasn't sure.

Adam was looking directly at me. Into me.

The eyes that looked out at me were wide and golden and, like my newly transformed ones, they glowed.

Glowed.

But more than that, there was something happening between us. Something I was sure no one else in the room was aware of. I wasn't sure if I heard or felt it. Or maybe it was just a singular awareness coming from inside my veins. But it was him . . . it was definitely him. He was communicating with me. Adam, he was trying to tell me something.

"Do you see that?" It was Thom, right at my back. "Kyra, are you seeing this?"

I nodded, thinking, How could I miss it?

"Step back," Dr. Clarke said, but she said it uncertainly. "We need to go." And when I didn't move, I felt her hand on my shoulder, more confident than her voice. She pulled me away as she insisted, "Now."

"Okay, so that was something, right?" I whispered to Thom, when the tour abruptly ended and Dr. Clarke ushered us as far away from Adam as she could manage. Her welcoming att.i.tude had vanished and now she was silently leading us down endless corridor after endless corridor.

Agent Truman stayed by her side, but every now and then he'd throw me a frosty look to let me know I'd messed up, even though I couldn't quite figure what I'd done wrong.

We went into another of those gla.s.s elevators and Dr. Clarke punched a b.u.t.ton. I barely noticed as the elevator sank and darkness closed in from all sides as chiseled cavern walls surrounded us. I was stuck on what had just happened back there. About that thing-Adam-trapped inside that tube. The way he'd looked at me.

Dr. Clarke had refused to answer any of my questions about him . . . about why they had him in there, and what was wrong with him. He was hurt I tried to tell her, mostly because it seemed so obvious. He was . . . damaged.

I knew because I'd felt it from him. I'd sensed an intense, unbearable, excruciating pain coming from him.

Her only response was that her team was doing its best for him. That he had the best minds in the world working on him and he was in good hands.

But I wasn't like her. I couldn't so easily brush Adam from my thoughts. . . .

When we emerged from the elevator, Dr. Clarke said, "I thought it was a coincidence, you showing up the way you did." She eyed me, and then looked to Agent Truman. "But after what I just witnessed . . . up there just now, I believe I've been mistaken . . ." Her voice trailed off as we stopped in front of a large metal door. I heard m.u.f.fled voices coming from the other side of it. "I think your arrival might be connected in some way," she explained, and then stepped aside as she opened the door.

SIMON.

WE'D BEEN KEPT WAITING FOR HOURS, TOLD SOMEONE would come for us when, so far, no one had. My restlessness was sharp.

When the door began to open, and I saw who was standing on the other side, that restlessness mutated, becoming sticky and hot as it burned the back of my tongue.

Of all the people it had to be, they'd brought us Thom. A snake might've been better. Or a rabid junkyard pit bull. Anyone but Thom.

After everything he'd done-sending the NSA the coordinates to Blackwater Ranch, putting a tracking device in the watch he'd given Kyra . . . he was seriously the last person I'd expected to find standing there. Facing us.

"What the fu-" I started. But then I narrowed my eyes and bit down hard, clenching my jaw. "You piece of c.r.a.p!" I bit out, right before I landed the first punch, hard in the face. And then the second. Somewhere along the line there was a third and probably a fourth.

From behind . . . or above us, since I was pretty sure we were on the floor now, I heard that son of a b.i.t.c.h Agent Truman, and realized he was here too. He was laughing. There were shouts and screams, but Agent Truman . . . yeah, he was seriously getting his rocks off.

No matter. I was seeing red-figuratively and literally-as I took everything out on Thom, wondering if he had any intention of fighting back.

TYLER.

KYRA WAS HERE.

That's all I could think. All I could focus on, even while Simon was wailing on Thom, and that NSA agent was cracking up. Even as a team of security agents rushed the room.

Kyra was here. As beautiful as ever.

Alive.

I could breathe again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AS SECURITY SWARMED PAST, I WONDERED WHY an agency whose sole purpose was research needed their own small army, and why they'd been so readily available. But the thought came and went quickly, swallowed up by my grat.i.tude that they'd been there to break up the fight. My voice was hoa.r.s.e from screaming at the two of them to stop, even though I doubted either Simon or Thom had heard me.

"Enough!" Dr. Clarke's voice cut through the chaos as the enormous armed men peeled the boys apart.

But it was my dad, who seemed to suddenly be aware I was standing there, whose voice I heard as it echoed off the metal walls and stone floors. "Kyra!" He shoved everyone aside to reach me and I breathed in his scent as he crushed me to his barrel-sized chest. "Kyra, my G.o.d . . . Kyra," he repeated, as if he was trying to convince himself it was real. That I was actually there.

I wanted to ask him how he'd gotten here, where he'd been, and how he was. I wanted to know when they'd met up with Simon and to know every detail of every second from the moment we'd been separated, but it would have to wait.

When he let me go, all eyes were on me-curious and questioning. In my periphery I spotted Tyler, and he was watching me back. I tried to decipher his expression, that look on his face. Had he forgiven me? Or did he need more time?

Without thinking, I turned and caught Simon's copper eyes. "Kyra . . ." He sounded like all the wind had just been knocked out of him, and I couldn't remember a time the sound of my own name had been so intimate.

But it was too much, the way he said it, and I forced myself to look away. To look around.

And they were all there, all my friends in one place-Willow, Jett, Simon, even Griffin-and all I could think was how grateful I was they were alive. That my dad and Tyler had found them.

One of the guards was restraining Willow, and I tried to remember if she'd been part of the brawl. Beneath her breath she muttered, "sc.u.mbag" and I knew it was directed at Thom.

"It's not like that," I said, moving to stand by Thom's side. "It wasn't him."

Griffin's hands settled on her hips. "Don't you dare defend that traitor. If it wasn't for him . . ."

Simon crossed his arms and shot a scathing look at Thom. I had my work cut out for me.

"Seriously, you guys. It was Natty."

My eyes slid to Thom, who wasn't exactly making himself seem innocent by glaring at the lot of them. I guess I couldn't blame him though; I'd be p.i.s.sed too, if I'd been greeted by a full-scale a.s.sault.

Griffin narrowed her brown eyes. "So you're saying Thom was, what? A p.a.w.n? That he was innocent. Natty was some kind of mastermind this whole time?"

"Go ahead," I implored Thom. "Tell them. Tell them it was Natty who sent out the message."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "I had no idea who she really was. She used my pa.s.swords to send out a message, and when I caught her, she and Eddie Ray took me prisoner. They tortured me to try and get my private code word for Silent Creek, so they could ambush my camp." He shook his head and sighed. "Until Kyra found me, I had no idea Natty and Eddie Ray had kidnapped her too."

"G.o.d, I'd love to shake the hand of the person who put that bullet between Natty's eyes," Willow ground out.

"Here's your chance," Agent Truman b.u.t.ted in. "She's right here. She shot all of 'em apparently." He held out a hand all Vanna White-style, offering me up as the grand prize on some game show.

"Christ," Simon breathed.

But it was Tyler, whose eyes landed on mine that I cared about. "You? It was you who . . . killed them?"

I wasn't sure what I saw in his expression. Accusation . . . disappointment . . . anger? Or was he disgusted that I'd pulled the trigger on my own friend, even though she'd been planning to sell me off the entire time?

Whatever it was, Griffin didn't have the same qualms. She let out a gusty sigh. "I had no idea you had it in you." But it was clear she approved.

"It was our only way out," I explained, looking at Tyler now, and wishing everyone else would just go away.

I turned to Dr. Clarke, hoping to take the attention off me. "You said you didn't think it was a coincidence when we showed up at the same time," I said. "What did you mean?"

Dr. Clarke ran her hand over the side of her ponytail, making sure every hair was still in place. She signaled for the guards to wait outside.

"Because when I was showing them around," she said, looking to Tyler, who hadn't stopped watching me. "He woke the M'alue too."

Dr. Clarke and Agent Truman had only been gone a few minutes, but already their absence was this thing you could feel, like someone had been sitting on your chest and once they were gone you could catch your breath.

It was like that, like finally breathing again.

Everyone started talking all at once. I asked my dad for a minute alone, and even though I knew he didn't want to leave me again, he reluctantly let me peel away from him.

Willow was just as bad when it came to Simon, staying glued by his side, which wasn't a big surprise or anything, except that Griffin stayed there too, the three of them forming an uneasy truce as they hovered near Thom. But at least they were giving him the chance to tell his side of the story.

I needed to talk to Tyler, and when I turned to find him, he was right there, waiting for me.

"This is it, you know?" he said, before I could say anything. "The place I was telling you about back at the diner, before you were . . ." He dropped his gaze and gave a quick shake of his head before meeting my eyes again. "Before you vanished. The place I thought we needed to be."

"Wait? The one you dreamed about?" I frowned. "How do you know? Are you sure?"

"Jett figured it out-using that map I drew. He used his mad computer skills to trace the coordinates to this exact location."

I tried to make sense of that. The map, the one Tyler had drawn that night in the desert-on the cliff.

"And that's how you ended up here?"

"Pretty much. The weirdest part is, that when we showed up, these guys came out and invited us in, showed us around like they'd been expecting us. Like we were guests or something." He shrugged. "But once I saw that . . . when I saw Adam . . . I don't know . . . I just felt . . ." His eyes searched mine, looking for an explanation. "Did you feel it?"

I thought about the way I'd wanted to stay there with him. With Adam. I nodded. "I think so."

"It's the strangest thing though. It's not just Adam." His eyes were so green as they scoured my face, and it was almost as if I could feel his fingers on me. "It's you too. Before you even walked through that door, I knew you were here."

I frowned, mesmerized by his voice, his admission. His inspection. "You did?"

He nodded as he contemplated my face. His eyes roving over my nose and each and every one of my freckles.

"Did you tell the others?" I asked quietly.

He shook his head. "I was wrong last time, about the asylum. At least about when you'd be there. I didn't want to be wrong again. So when I felt you, when I sensed you were here, I thought, What if I'm wrong again? What if it's not her?" His gaze shifted to my lips. "And then when Thom was standing there instead of you, I was . . ." His face creased. "I was so confused. Until I saw you behind him."

His hand started to move toward mine, but then he stopped himself, and I realized what I'd seen in his eyes: disillusionment. "So you really did that? Shot Natty and the others?"

I wanted to explain my reasons. How I'd been forced to look someone in the eyes and pull the trigger, again and again and again. But somehow I just couldn't. Not now. Not when the fate of the planet was at stake.