The Countdown (The Taking #3)(35)

Ignoring Simon, I turned to Jett. “What about the reverse star chart thing, the one I drew? I might not sense Kyra now, but maybe we can figure out where that thing was pointing. When I dreamed it, I had the feeling I was supposed to be there, maybe that means something. Maybe there’s a clue to finding Kyra there.”

Jett stopped what he was doing, a mission he’d been on to liberate some of the hard drives and cables from the kidnappers’ equipment. “Maybe,” he said, intrigued by the challenge. “It might take me some time to sort it out. But yeah, I could probably do it.” He handed an armload of crap to Ben who’d been helping him. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

Just as Jett logged into his laptop, we heard it: a crashing sound.

It came from beneath us. From the basement.

I glanced to Griffin, who looked at Simon, who took a quick inventory. We all were present and accounted for.

Someone else was down there . . .

What if that someone was Kyra?





CHAPTER SEVEN


Days Remaining: Twelve

“YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT SOME?” FROM THE driver’s seat, Chuck wiggled the bright yellow bag of generic potato chips my way, making the cellophane-y wrapper crinkle.

It was the third time he’d offered, and for the third time I declined with a simple, “I’m good. Thanks anyway.”

The cab of his eighteen-wheeler was big, but that didn’t stop it from feeling cramped. Claustrophobic. I shrank into the leather bucket seat, trying to disappear.

“She always this quiet?” he asked on a chuckle, like it was just a girl thing, or maybe a teen thing. Like he had a confidant in Thom, who’d been even quieter than I had since the early hours, when Chuck had stopped to pick us up. If Thom hadn’t been balancing on the edge of the mattress of the sleeper cab, just behind the seat, Chuck probably would’ve elbowed him in the guy-talk way that men sometimes do.

Thom didn’t really answer, just bobbed his head, a pseudo-agreement.

Chuck nodded back. “Help yourself to another water if you want.”

Thom reached into the mini fridge under his feet and untwisted the cap on his fifth water bottle. He downed the whole thing in less than ten seconds.

Chuck watched, but didn’t comment. He turned his attention back to me. “West is a long ways away. Skinny gal like you might waste away before we get there.”

West. That was as much as I’d told Chuck when he’d asked where Thom and I were headed. He’d done his best to pin us down. To get one of us to be more specific—a city, a state, even a precise region—but he didn’t need to know our plan, so I remained adamant, and Thom . . . well, Thom was thirsty, so we’d simply left it at “west.”

“Suit yourself,” Chuck said, thrusting his hand into the chip bag once more. When he pulled it out again, his fist was overflowing. His grip reminded me of one of those crane machines, the kind they had at pizza parlors or in front of supermarkets. You almost never won at those things, but if you did, and the claw actually dislodged a toy from the rest, its grasp always seemed tenuous, like the slightest hiccup or breeze would knock your prize loose on its way to the chute.

Chips and crumbs spilled from between Chuck’s fingers on their way to his mouth. Just like The Claw.

“You’re lucky I came along when I did,” he announced through his half-chewed food. “That road doesn’t get a lot of traffic.”

He was right. I’d felt lucky when he’d stopped.

My parents had always made a big deal about not hitchhiking—just like I’m sure all parents did. They’d try to scare me with warnings about Stranger Danger and murder vans by showing me news stories about girls who’d hitched rides only to never be heard from again.

If you’re ever stranded, stay where you are, my dad had counseled me. We will find you.

Great advice for a sixteen-year-old who believed that the worst that could happen was missing curfew and losing her cell phone privileges.

That was before I’d been swept away in a flash of light and lost five long years of my life. Before I’d come back and found out I was no longer the same person.

And before I’d been kidnapped and tortured and forced to kill a girl I’d believed was my friend.

Maybe I was braver because I wasn’t alone, but to be honest, after everything I’d been through, in the grand scheme of things hitchhiking kinda seemed like no big deal.

Plus, other than his poor nutritional choices, Chuck seemed like a decent enough guy. Nothing about him screamed ax murderer, so he had that going for him.

Thom and I had stayed hidden as long as we could, waiting to make sure my head count at the asylum hadn’t been off. That there wasn’t anyone left to come after us. Even as weak as he was, Thom had put up with my questions, managing to answer mostly in single syllables and groans.

During that time, I’d pieced together why Natty and the others had been torturing him, even while they planned to sell him to the Daylight Division.

Without Thom, Silent Creek had no leader. And after the massacre at Blackwater, the Silent Creekers were probably still trying to sort through their contingency plans.

Which meant they were weak.

And locked inside Thom’s head was a code word that would win the camp’s confidence.

If Natty could wiggle her way back inside now, she and Eddie Ray could hit them while their defenses were down. Hadn’t Eddie Ray said that’s what this was all about, business?