The Countdown (The Taking #3)(12)

But the truth was, I had an idea, something we needed to consider: it was time to get ahold of Simon.

Something was happening out here that Simon and the others needed to know about. Something that involved weird languages and people talking in strange static-y voices. Something that maybe wanted Simon and the other Returned dead.

Still, I felt better having a plan in place. Knowing we wouldn’t be alone much longer.

Slipping off my sunglasses, I examined myself in the mirror. Beneath the light of the bulbs my eyes hardly glowed at all. They just looked plain old Kyra-colored. Brighter maybe than before I’d been taken, but ordinary enough. Passable.

I tried to imagine when that had become the gold standard. When getting by had become good enough.

I jumped when the door to the restroom swung open, and quickly dropped the shades back in place as I pretended to be engrossed in simply washing my hands. The blond girl who stepped inside glanced at me, her brow lifting slightly when she noticed my sunglasses.

From behind the safety of the tinted lenses, I watched her. She reminded me a little of Cat, just a few years older than me—the way Cat was now—and there was something bold in the way she’d gone to the sink right next to mine rather than one of the open ones down the counter. I tried to be sneaky about my glances, but when I felt her eyes slide my way I put all my effort into the soap dispenser instead.

Even though it was only from the corner of my eye it would have been impossible not to be aware of her laser-intense scrutiny. As if she were trying to peel back the outer layers of me, picking a scab she couldn’t leave alone.

Before I could stop myself, I glanced up, accidentally meeting her stare. This time, she didn’t blink, or even attempt to look away, which made me think even more of Cat—no shame.

After a second of blatant inspection, she narrowed her blue eyes and bit her lip. “Do I know you from somewhere? You look . . . so familiar.” She chewed more thoughtfully, scouring her mental archives to sort it out.

But I was already shaking my head and backing away. “Sorry. Not me.” I wiped my hands on my jeans, not bothering with the electric hand dryer mounted on the wall. “I’m not from around here.”

I was suddenly desperate to escape the confines of the restroom and those unwavering blue eyes of hers and questions about who I was and where I was from. I turned and bolted for the door, suffocated by my own panic. It was bad enough we’d been sitting in a diner full of people who’d seen our faces. Now I’d stumbled across someone who thought she recognized me.

But I hit the door too hard and grossly miscalculated how easily it would swing open, so when I shoved against it, I fell through, tumbling out the other side.

Thankfully, Tyler was there to stop me from falling face-first . . . and causing more of a scene than I already had (you know, with the sunglasses and all).

“Hey there! I got you,” he gasped as I slammed into him, sending the both of us crashing into the opposite wall. My cheek smashed against the hard muscles of his chest and his arms closed around me.

For several seconds I stayed there, inside that space. I remembered a time, not so long ago, when that was the absolute safest place in the world. When Tyler’s touch could fix everything.

But things were different now.

I drew away, grimacing as I gave him a sheepish look. My sunglasses had slipped down my nose. “Sorry,” I offered, my cheeks practically sizzling.

And then, when Tyler’s arms didn’t move, when his grip actually tightened, my cheeks got even warmer. “Don’t be.” His voice was lower when he said it, gravelly in a way that made my heart stutter. “Kyra, I’ve been meaning to . . . I’ve wanted to ask you . . .” Now he was the one who was stuttering. He frowned, an adorable kind of frown that almost couldn’t be called a frown. I wanted to tell him not to say anything, to just stand there and keep looking at me like that.

Except now I was curious too.

His grip loosened, and for a moment my stomach clenched because I didn’t want him to let me go. He drew me farther away from the clatter of dishes and voices that came from the diner, and into a dark hallway where there was an exit, where we couldn’t be overheard by anyone headed to the restrooms. “I . . . ,” he started again. “I have so many questions, and I think you might be the only one who can answer them.” His hands moved back to my hips as he pulled me close to him. It was so familiar I thought my heart would explode because maybe-finally-at last he might remember how he felt about me.

“Yes.” The word came out like a whisper. A breath.

His forehead puckered as he tried to piece his thoughts together. “I had a dream. And I think you were in it.”

I waited, my mouth going unexpectedly dry. “A dream?”

“Yeah,” he answered, and then his hands slipped up and down, like he was wiping them on my hips. Like he was nervous. “More than one I think. And in them I have this strong sense that you’re with me, even when I can’t see you.”

This is it, I thought. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I leaned closer, all my attention focused on him. On his lips, on the sound of each breath he took. On waiting for him to say the words out loud.

At last he tried to see through my sunglasses when he said, “But we always have to be somewhere, and I know how to get us there because I have these maps—”

I jolted, stopping him midsentence. For a moment, I’d let myself believe we were on the verge of something—a breakthrough. That Tyler might be remembering how we’d been . . . before. Now I realized I’d misread the situation. His dreams weren’t lost memories, they were just that . . . dreams.