The Taking: The Countdown Part 7

But I wasn't sure how much more I could take.

Ed was relentless. And ruthless. "Tell me, and it ends. When will they be here?"

"Please"-I choked on the blood-"I don't . . . know . . ."

Wrong answer.

He hit me with Lucy again. Only this time he didn't just zap me once, he waited until I'd finished convulsing the first time, and then added one more for good measure. Two jolts for the price of one.

I got the sick feeling he was just getting warmed up.

I was already panting, my skin damp with a layer of sweat when the second bolt of electricity released me. l lay back, my eyes rolling skyward as I prayed they'd just knock me out again. Please G.o.d, just stick another needle in my neck.

"Answer me!" he grunted, only this time he wasn't waiting for an answer. I saw the prod coming at me already, making its way toward me, and all I could think was Is he really going to shove that thing into my face?

But then I heard her voice, and he did too because his hand froze right where it was, just inches from my cheek.

It wasn't Blondie who'd interrupted him. There was another girl here with us, and I swear, even in my state of utter pain and confusion, I knew who it was. If anyone was watching the monitor it had to be going crazy, because my heart was beating a thousand times a minute.

But when she stepped closer, away from the shadows and into my line of sight, it tripled.

"Eddie Ray, stop," she said, right before her perfect hazel eyes fell on me.

Right before she gave the signal, and Blondie plunged something into a line I hadn't noticed before, one that must lead to somewhere beneath my skin, because suddenly my vision tunneled and everything faded away.

Natty.

Natty was here at the asylum. With me.

I wanted to add that to my mental file but it was almost too weird to believe. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes . . . if I hadn't heard her voice . . .

But I had. She was here, all right.

So did that mean Thom was here too?

Last I'd heard of him, we'd all been at Blackwater. Just after Thom had betrayed us by sending word to the Daylight Division so they could attack us.

He'd turned traitor.

Or maybe he'd always been a traitor. I had no way of knowing since he and Natty had vanished right afterward. We'd never had the chance to interrogate him. To find out if Natty had gone willingly, or if he'd kidnapped her.

I'd known about the two of them-their relationship, the one they'd worked so hard to keep under wraps, so it made sense that if Natty was here, Thom might be too.

But there was that other thing, this strange niggling thing somewhere in the back of my mind. The name Natty had mentioned just now: Eddie Ray. That's what she'd called Ed-Eddie Ray.

I'd heard that name somewhere before, I was sure of it.

That drugged sensation made everything fuzzy, impossible to process. But the information was there, waiting for me to dredge it up. I just had to be patient . . . to wait for it.

"I know you're awake." It was Natty's voice that intruded on my thoughts. I found it more than a little unsettling, the way they could do that, monitor my body's reactions without either my awareness or permission.

I didn't bother pretending the machine was mistaken, that there was some bug in their technology. I opened my eyes. "What are you doing here, Natty?" My voice sounded as if it was months out of practice, as rusty as the abandoned equipment surrounding us. "What do they want with me? Why are they holding me like this?" I glanced down at my cinched wrists to emphasize my point.

Natty's shoes crunched across the gritty floor until she was looming above me. Her hair was still the same jet-black it had been after we'd dyed it in a gas station restroom, back when we'd gone on the run from the Daylighters. It was just as striking today against her perfect porcelain complexion as it had been then. But her hazel eyes seemed somehow colder, more intense.

"We have our reasons," she stated flatly, like that was a real answer. A complete explanation.

We. Not they. And with that admission I added her to the list of accomplices to my kidnapping. To whatever they were up to here.

Blondie, the two as-yet-unnamed guys, Ed (aka Eddie Ray), and Natty. Five of them that I knew of, and possibly Thom.

At least one of them-Natty-was a Returned. But considering their youthful appearances, and the fact that none of them were taking any precautions to avoid my blood, they all must be.

More things to add to my mental notes.

"Why me? What did I ever do to you?" I didn't mean for it to sound so pathetic but that's the way it came out.

Natty had been my friend. Ever since Simon had dragged us to Thom's camp at Silent Creek, where I'd met her. She'd been the one person to look after me, to take care of me. She'd stuck to me like glue, making sure I ate and that I was never lonely.

But what if I'd been wrong about her? What if it had never been about making sure I wasn't lonely?

What if it had been about making sure I was never alone?

My stomach churned at the idea. She'd been my friend, my confidante. Natty's lips parted and suddenly I wondered how I'd ever mistaken her for sweet. Quiet. Una.s.suming. She looked predatory, sharklike.

"Because you exist," she answered.

I was glad no one was watching the monitor, because my heart rate had reached an all-time high. I had no idea who she was, this Natty. She was a stranger. A virtual-absolute-unmitigated stranger. I realized I'd never known her at all, and alone with her was the straight-up last place I wanted to be.

Nervously, I glanced her way.

She closed the remaining gap between us. "If you know anything, now's the time to say it."

"About what . . . ? Natty, I don't know what you mean."

She curled her lip. "The others. Like you."

"The Returned?"

She circled me, sizing me up . . . and I could tell by the way she narrowed her eyes I'd guessed wrong. "You have no idea how special you are, do you?"

Natty wasn't there when I'd discovered just how different I was from the others-a Replaced rather than one of the Returned. But since Thom had been there I a.s.sumed he'd told her. Surely he'd told her.

"No," I answered. I'm not sure I'd ever chosen my words more carefully. "I know." I winced, watching her reaction closely. "I'm a Replaced. My body is made from one hundred percent alien DNA. My memories . . . my thoughts are all that's left of the old me."

"Not that, you idiot," she shot back venomously. "Of course you're a Replaced. Everyone knows that. But do you even know what that means? Why they made you?"

I'd asked myself that same question so many times, but figured there was no answer. I was just some experiment-an alien lab rat who'd landed in the wrong petri dish at the wrong time.

Even as I shook my head, a noose tightened around my throat. I hated how badly I wanted the answer . . . how desperate I was to know. "Tell me," I gasped.

"Do you feel them?" she asked.

Fifteen, my brain suddenly screamed.

She opened her mouth, and I held my breath, waiting. Eager.

"Leave!" Ed's voice boomed, echoing obnoxiously against the hollowed-out bricks that crumbled overhead.

Natty closed her mouth, but it wasn't like with Blondie, who jumped to obey Ed the second he gave an order. Natty was less responsive, not as comfortable in the submissive role. Strange, since that was the only role I'd ever known her in. The Natty I'd known had always been a dutiful follower.

She eased away from me, her lips tightening. She might not be happy taking orders, but she also wouldn't blatantly disobey him either. She had no intention of telling me anything. At least not with Eddie-what's-his-name hovering over her shoulder.

He'd ruined my chance of discovering anything Natty knew about me.

TYLER.

FLINCHING HARD, I SAT UP STRAIGHT. IT ONLY TOOK A second to realize what was happening and where I was.

The dream by itself didn't make any sense, mostly because I shouldn't be dreaming at all. Maybe that's why I couldn't just blow it off. Ignore it.

Ben had taken us from location to location, campsite to campsite, choosing stopping points with no apparent rhyme or reason. But no matter where we'd gone-first driving west to Nevada, then backtracking to Arizona before heading north again-I always knew where we were. Not because he'd told us, he never did. But because in those rare instances when I slept, I somehow dreamed our locations.

And I was never wrong. That last campsite, where I'd overheard those creepy hikers by the hot spring, was somewhere in northern Colorado.

Now though . . . now I dreamed of Kyra.

Even with the fog lifting, I was left with an overwhelming awareness of her. Of the drive to find her, and the coordinates that were now ringing . . . echoing inside my head.

As much of a d.i.c.k as Simon was, he was right about one thing: I should never have left Kyra alone. I should've acted like a man and stayed to face what she'd told me, even though it felt like she'd caught me unaware with her admissions about our history. If I had, Kyra might be here right now.

It was my fault she'd been kidnapped.

But it was her fault I was a Replaced. She'd told me as much. It was her fault I'd lost everything-my friends, my family, and not just my parents but my brother too. My entire life, all of it, gone.

So what that she'd done it by accident. So what if she hadn't realized her blood was poisonous, like she said. Did that really make everything okay? Make it all right that she offered me up to aliens to mess with my DNA and s.n.a.t.c.h away my humanness?

And what about that other part, where we . . . she and I . . . had been . . . what? A couple? What did that even mean?

She loved me, she'd said. She'd actually said that.

Was that supposed to fix things between us? How could it?

But her getting kidnapped didn't make us even either, it just made me feel s.h.i.ttier about this whole effed-up situation. And now I was here, with Griffin and the others, and I had to face the fact that so many from my former camp were gone. Unaccounted for. Dead.

Being here among the survivors made me even more restless. Or maybe that was about Kyra again.

Even though I was mad at her, I needed to find her, and until I did, I doubted I'd be able to breathe.

All I could think about was her . . . somewhere out there . . .

And instead I was stuck here with Simon, who didn't even bother to hide his feelings for Kyra or his suspicions toward me.

If we hadn't wanted the same thing, I would've told him what an a.s.shole he was. But this wasn't the time or place. He made it more than clear he was willing to risk his life to save her, so I kept my mouth shut.

Griffin, on the other hand, had her own reasons for helping me. Not so much for Kyra's sake, but because of the message-the Returned must die.

What if there was something to it? What if the aliens really were trying to communicate with Kyra, and we needed her to figure it all out?

Otherwise, Griffin might never help Kyra at all. Sure she put on a good face, but I got the feeling if Griffin had her way things would go back to how they were before, to a time when she was the only girl in my life. Like we'd been a couple or something.

I always knew that was what she wanted. But even before Kyra had shown up there'd been . . . something stopping me. Something unfinished I couldn't quite put my finger on.

I guess I knew what that was now-Kyra. Maybe a part of me had known all along, about Kyra and me. Maybe that's why Griffin had never quite managed to wear me down.

Almost, though.

Griffin had almost gotten through to me, and I'd almost made a move on her. It sounded bad, like I was some prisoner she'd been subjecting to torture-withholding food, waterboarding, putting on the rack, that sort of thing. It wasn't like that. I liked Griffin well enough. She was tough and practical and loyal.

Like I said, I liked her. Just not the way she wanted me to.

Then Kyra had arrived and everything had changed. That thing, whatever it had been, had clicked into place. It was like Kyra's presence-just Kyra being Kyra-had been enough, even without knowing our history. Not in the whole "you complete me" way . . . except, yeah, kinda like that.

Being near Kyra had made me feel . . . like me again.

G.o.d, I sounded like a Hallmark card. Even now. Even while I was p.i.s.sed at her.

It hadn't made sense at the time; as far as I'd known she'd never been mine in the first place.

So, why then, when I'd seen her there, standing in camp, couldn't I remember a life where I hadn't wanted her? Where she hadn't occupied my every thought, even after she'd vanished? Even once Austin and Cat had grown up and moved away? I couldn't recall a time I didn't wonder: What happened to Kyra? Where did she go? Will I ever see her again?

So getting a second chance with her the way I had . . . there was no way I could . . . I wouldn't let it slip through my fingers. Besides, it's not like I hadn't felt guilty for pushing Griffin away, because didn't I owe Griffin?

But that wasn't how feelings worked. I couldn't be Griffin's just because she wanted me, or out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. I decided I needed to find out if Kyra could ever . . . if there might somehow be something between us.

And I guess I got my answer. We could and there had been.

Yet here I was again, with Griffin and without Kyra. How had that happened? How could Kyra be gone all over again?

I closed my eyes against the dull pulse ticking away inside my skull. This guilt was different from the one over cutting Griffin loose. This was a punishing, unbending, grotesque sort of thing that lashed at me. Burning me, scoring me, using me up.