The Countdown (The Taking #3)(32)

Something came at me then, faster than a shadow.

Flinching, I nearly dropped the gun as I used my hand to shield my face. When I crouched, a nail along the baseboard raked across my knee.

It’s okay. I’m okay, I told myself, biting back a hysterical bubble of laughter when I realized it had been a bird. Trapped the way I was inside the asylum. It flew down the hall one way, and then came back the other, its wings frantically stirring the dust-filled air as it searched for a way out.

“Jesus . . . ,” I muttered, getting to my feet again.

“Jesus can’t help you.” Natty’s voice was like liquid ice.

Had she been standing there, watching the entire time? Waiting for me to mess up?

When I turned, it was slow and deliberate . . . and not complete. I came to a stop when I saw her. When I saw the gun in her hand, not a handgun like mine, but one so large she had to grip it with both hands.

One that was aimed directly at me.

“I know they’re dead,” she told me coldly. “I know you killed them.”

“I’ll kill you too,” I stated matter-of-factly.

She shrugged, not at all concerned. Not at all believing I would do it. “You know, it was dumb luck that we tracked you down. Your dad made it tough. He was better than I gave him credit for. We had eyes on several state DOT traffic cams for days before we finally picked up that damn truck of his outside Fort Collins. Good thing for us his piece of junk is hard to miss, because he was smart enough to switch the plates.” She took a step closer, and my heart picked up a notch.

“Don’t,” I warned her, but she just kept talking, ignoring the gun I was holding.

“We almost lost you again after you tore outta that campground. If you hadn’t stopped at that diner, things might’ve ended differently. Worked out in the end though . . . at least for us.” She took another step. “Tyler won’t be as hard. He’s a sweet kid. Trusting.” Her voice changed then, and I heard her, the old Natty. The meek girl who’d been my friend. “He’ll believe me when I say I just want to help him find you.” She squeezed her brows together, a tortured sort of look. “We’re in this together, Tyler. Kyra’s my friend too.” Her voice broke, and if I didn’t know the real Natty, I would have believed she was going to break down and cry.

My shoulders fell because she was right. She was so totally-completely-utterly convincing. Tyler would buy this act of hers hook, line, and sinker. If Natty got to him, there was no way he would ever suspect her of what she really had planned for him.

I couldn’t let her get away with it. I used both hands to raise my gun to point at her head.

When she laughed, it was an insulting sound. “Let’s just get this over with.” She wasn’t afraid of me. She didn’t believe I could do it.

And maybe she was right. Already my hands were shaking again, and the beating in my chest had resumed.

Beat-BEAT . . .

. . . Beat-BEAT . . .

Don’t let her get to you. It was a silent prayer.

Natty . . . Natty who I’d once believed was my friend. My eyes traveled down to her gun at the same time I concentrated on the one in my own hands. I saw her nod toward me . . . at me.

I recognized the nod. I’d seen that nod on the field a million times. Athletes gave it whenever they were feeling overly cocky. Too confident for their own good. It was a Fuck you nod. She didn’t have to say it out loud.

I focused, telling myself Natty was wrong. She was full of crap. She was the reason I was here in the first place. She was the reason Blondie was dead and I’d been forced to kill Eddie Ray and the others. She was the reason Blackwater had fallen. But she wouldn’t take Tyler.

I slowed my breathing . . . and my heartbeat. I counted to three.

One, two, three.

Beat-BEAT!

Then, like lining up a pitch, I fired.





SIMON


I HALF EXPECTED FREDDY KRUEGER TO JUMP OUT AT us with his knife-fingers at any second. Vines snaked in and over every surface of the crumbling building, choking it out. The lawn needed a serious dose of weed killer, and the driveway, which had one of those massive iron gates at its mouth, was now a disintegrating mess of broken asphalt, and was lined with creepy, spindly limbed trees.

I wondered what it must have been like, back in the day. Jett had mentioned that people used to drop off their relatives at places like these . . . dump them when no one could, or wanted to, care for them.

What was that like, to live behind these massive brick walls, cut off from the rest of the world?

Nothing like now, I guessed. Now this was a place time forgot. Just like us, I couldn’t help thinking. Now it was an empty shithole crumbling to the ground. I wondered who we were about to come up against in there. And for the millionth time, I hoped to God Tyler was right, that Kyra was inside. That he hadn’t just led us on a wild-goose chase.

“Cut the lights,” Griffin whispered, but I was one step ahead of her, already switching them off. Then, she added, “We should go the rest the way on foot.”

No one said much, not even Jett, who usually rattled off numbers whenever things got tense. This time, he kept his mouth shut. No data about our odds or the probability we could be walking into a trap.

We’d figured that one out all on our own.

Kyra’s dad took his cue from us, and the lights from that piece of shit pickup behind us shut off too. The world—the run-down grounds around us—went black. When we parked, he cut his overloud engine too. If anything had given us away so far, it was that goddamn truck of his.