The Countdown (The Taking #3)(22)

“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. Unassuming. 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 assumed 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.