The Countdown (The Taking #3)(16)

Griffin tossed a shirt at me. Not clean exactly, but clean-ish. Cleaner at least than the one I’d been wearing before I’d hosed off, which was four days past rank according to pretty much everyone I’d come in contact with.

Combat wasn’t the only thing Griffin had prepared for. She’d planned for potential evacuation too, and as much as I might have despised her—and I had despised her—I’d come to credit her for this much: when push came to shove, she knew how to handle herself.

In other words, she’d saved our asses.

“An explosion,” she explained. “A big one.”

“Fuel line?” I asked as I shimmied into a pair of cargo pants she’d also thrown my way.

She shook her head. “Not according to reports. No gas lines involved, and not an engine fire either. In fact, not a single vehicle was dented. Only damage was to a Dumpster out back. Blew the hell up. Detonations like that don’t happen spontaneously.”

“So?” I waited for the punch line. “What does that have to do with us?”

“This.” Griffin held up a grainy image queued up on a prepaid cell that Jett had assured us was safe enough to activate. “Someone posted this on their FotoStream account.”

I leaned closer. The image wasn’t just grainy; it had been taken at night and the lighting was total crap. “Yeah. Okay . . . ?”

“Who does that look like?”

I reached over and used my thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the picture. I assumed the parking lot was from the diner she’d mentioned. After a second, though, I saw who she meant. I snagged the phone out of her hand and held it right up to my face.

She was there. A girl who looked a whole helluva lot like Kyra—my Kyra—being toted away by two people toward what looked like a black van. The side door of the van was wide open, like it was waiting for them. Kyra didn’t look like she was in any condition to fight her abductors.

I gripped the phone in my palm, trying not to lose my shit. “No, goddammit,” I cursed. I was losing the struggle to keep cool. “Where the hell were Tyler and her dad when all this was happening?”

Griffin peeled the phone out of my fist. “You can ask ’em yourself. Call came in about an hour ago—they’re on their way here now.”





CHAPTER THREE


Day Unknown

VOICES. FROM ABOVE OR BEHIND, OR FROM somewhere inside my own head . . . I had no idea. But there were definitely voices.

“. . . fought . . .”

“. . . Returned . . .”

“. . . escape . . .”

I heard other things too, or I thought I did. It was hard to tell. Everything was muddled, like words in a blender set on high speed.

I wanted to say something back. To tell them I was here, in case they didn’t know.

I opened my mouth . . . or thought I did. My lips were hot and thick. I tried to make them move.

“M-m . . .” My name is Kyra.

There was a sudden shuffle . . . a skirmish of sounds, blurry like all the rest.

Had I said it? Had they heard me?

And then: “How . . . ? She should be out for hours.”

Another voice: “Doesn’t matter. Hit her again.”

Me? Were they talking about me?

I didn’t get the chance to ask—or even attempt to—because something pinched me in the side of my neck . . . and then everything went hopelessly, endlessly black.





SIMON


I DAMN NEAR TORE THE TRUCK’S DOOR OFF ITS HINGES before the rusted-out piece of shit had come to a complete stop. Eight hours. That’s how much time had passed since we’d gotten the call, and I’d worn a path right through the grass with all my pacing while we waited for them to get their asses here.

Had they gotten lost?

Changed their minds?

Been captured the way Kyra had?

The whole time I’d cursed them for not doing a better job watching her. Protecting her. If I’d been there, no one would’ve touched her. She’d be safe . . . not lugged away like a lifeless sack of wheat to be tossed in the back of some murder van.

Where the hell was she, goddammit? Where the hell had they taken her?

The dog, the one Kyra had been so excited to see when I’d dropped her off to meet her dad, wiggled through the opening first, and hit the ground running. She tore around in circles, whipping between my legs like we were long-lost pals. I gave her a halfhearted pat on the mangy fur of her head . . . whatever it took to calm the beast down.

I’d never been much of a dog person.

Griffin stayed behind me, exuding a nervous energy that was atypical for her. She and I had different goals in this. She wasn’t worried about Kyra the way I was. But she was worried about appearances, so she put on her leader face and did her best to keep her shit together.

Maybe she was fooling the others, but I had her pegged. She had a thing for that Tyler kid.

I should be glad Griff wanted the boy.

Except, I wasn’t. For reasons I couldn’t even explain, not even to myself, it irked the shit out of me that he might like Griffin back. That Kyra would end up getting hurt because of her.

Stupid, I chided. Especially since I wanted Kyra for myself. Wouldn’t it be better if the two of them hooked up? Gave me the opening I’d been waiting for?