The Countdown (The Taking #3)(14)

“A lot more,” I finally managed, my hollow voice ringing in my ears. “Tyler,” I started, thinking this was the dumbest idea ever, and wondering why I’d thought it had to be done. Why I hadn’t just let him go on living in blissful ignorance, the absolute best kind according to the cliché. But I was past the point of no return . . . “I love you,” I blurted. My voice sounded hesitant but not half as unsteady as I felt. “What I mean is, I’m . . . in love with you. I know you don’t remember this, and maybe you won’t believe it, but before you were taken . . . before your memory was so messed up, you felt the same way about me.” I ended in a rush, relieved, so damned relieved, to have it over with at last.

The silence that followed was something you could feel and taste and probably touch if you’d tried. It was smothering me. And on his face, he had that look again, that taking-it-all-in look. Like he was absorbing the bomb I’d just dropped on him.

I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

When I couldn’t stand another second, I whispered, “Say something.”

He blinked, remembering he wasn’t totally alone in the hallway. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why not say something when you first saw me at Blackwater . . . with Griffin?”

I struggled for a good answer . . . for any answer. I wished there were one. If I were in his shoes I’d be pissed to discover that he’d known things about me, and that he’d kept them from me all this time. I shook my head, and settled for the truth. “I guess I was worried you’d hate me.”

“Hate you? Why would I hate you?”

Closing my eyes, I went for it. The rest of it—the truth. “Because it was my fault you were taken in the first place. I was the one who infected you. It was a mistake . . . I didn’t know . . . about my blood being dangerous . . . and I bled in front of you.” I inhaled, squeezing my eyes even tighter, too afraid, too chicken to even peek at him. “You got sick. So, so, so sick. And the only way to save you was to let them take you.” God, saying it out loud sounded a million times worse than in my head. “And then you were gone, for so much longer than you should’ve been. We couldn’t find you, and I was so worried I’d never see you again.” Opening my eyes, I looked at him. “When you were there . . . at Blackwater, I thought, This is it. Our second chance. I can finally tell you how sorry I am. But then . . .” Then. “Then you didn’t remember any of it. Not about us, or the time we’d been together. And there was Griffin . . .” I glanced at my feet and swallowed again, and felt the knives in my heart stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. “And I thought”—I shrugged—“you and her . . .” My eyes lifted. “I’m sorry.” I waited. There was so much quiet, so much time . . .

“Kyra,” he exhaled. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.” It wasn’t an answer or a vindication or anything really. His brow crumpled as he shook his head. “I don’t know what to think, how to process all of . . . this. I . . . think . . . I just need some time alone.”

It wasn’t what I thought he’d say. Yelling would have been better. Getting it out of his system.

Time alone . . . I had no idea what to make of that.

He left me there, in the hallway. I turned and the exit sign blurred while I blinked hard. I wished I could take it all back. Not just my confession but everything—infecting him, letting him be taken, loving him in the first place.

I was about to go after him, to tell him, one more time, how sorry I was. How honestly-utterly-truly sorry I was, when the ground shook and the power flickered.

It wasn’t like when we’d broken into the Daylight Division headquarters in Tacoma, but I recognized it as an explosion all the same. It had the same forceful eruption, the boom that lasted just a split second, like the sound of a huge cannon being fired.

Tiny fragments of dust and maybe some plaster filtered over me, and from the diner I heard what could have been screams or sharp gasps. I turned toward the restaurant, toward where Tyler had just disappeared and to where my dad was, but before I’d even rotated all the way around, she was there.

The girl from the bathroom.

She reached for me and slung her arm hard around my throat before I could stop her. She dropped me to the floor, pinning me.

I saw a flash of blond . . . right before I felt the sting of a needle slide into my neck.





SIMON


“HEY! HEY!” I SHOUTED AGAIN. “IS ANYONE EVEN listening?” Some poor kid walking by stopped, looking far too twitchy for his own good. “Yeah, you. What the hell? How much longer ’til we have some decent hot water around here? What are we, animals?”

He glanced around, and I could see him wondering how he’d ended up in this position in the first place when this clearly had nothing to do with him. “I . . . uh . . .”

Griffin saved his sorry ass when she appeared outside the makeshift shower stall, doing that thing again where she showed up at the least opportune moments—like when I was naked. “Stop your bitching,” she half ordered and half sighed, pulling no punches. “At least you have running water.” The kid seized his chance and scurried away like his shoes were on fire.

I took my frustration out on the spigot, twisting it harder than necessary, and the hose dangling above my head stopped spitting its glacial runoff all over me. “Easy for you to say, they’re not your nuts being turned to ice cubes.” I pulled aside the sheet being used as a shower curtain and shook off.