The Countdown (The Taking #3)(36)

Through it all, Thom had held out, never giving them that code word despite their liberal use of Lucy on him. He was loyal to his Returned, and I was more sorry than ever that I’d doubted him.

I’d asked him about the watch too.

He’d looked at me, his eyes moving from mine to my wrist as if he’d only just noticed I wasn’t still wearing the cheap plastic wristwatch he’d given me as a gift—the one I thought he’d used against me.

I winced. “You weren’t the one who put the tracking device in it, were you?”

He reached over and squeezed my hand, giving a faint shake of his head. No, he told me silently. Somehow, Natty had done that too.

Probably to make sure she could find me.

The sun had only been up a couple of hours when Chuck had found us, wandering lost and alone on the side of the small road. He hadn’t questioned why I was propping Thom up, or why Thom had been so dehydrated when we’d finally gotten him into the cab of the truck. He also hadn’t commented on the way Thom had gone from looking like roadkill to your regular, healthy, normal-looking teen (at least if you didn’t know any better) so quickly.

Just add water!

At first glance, I didn’t have much to say about old Chuck either. There didn’t seem to be anything special about him. He was just your average-ordinary-nothing-special kind of truck driver.

But then he’d turned toward me, and I’d seen it . . . the way the left side of his face dimpled. The way it creased and sagged so much more than the right. He didn’t say why, but it wasn’t hard to guess it was sun damage, caused from years, maybe even decades of being on the road. From one side of his face being more exposed than the other.

It was like Chuck had been time-lapsed—a Before and After of him that had been cut in two and reattached down the middle.

But considering I’d just seen someone’s entire face blown off, my attitude was somewhere along the lines of it-could-have-been-worse. I barely blinked at ol’ Chuck.

My attention drifted toward the fields that ran along the freeway, punctuated with low mountains covered in soft grass. They were nothing like the harsh red deserts of Utah or the brown barren ones of eastern Washington.

“Where are we?” I asked Chuck absently.

Appraising the stretch of highway, Chuck nodded. “My guess is somewhere outside’a Channing.”

“Channing,” I echoed, trying to decide if the name rang any bells.

I glanced back to Thom who looked so much more like his old self again. He shrugged.

Turning back to Chuck, I tried again. “So that’s the name of the city . . . ,” I drawled, and then, because I knew this was going to sound weird, I bit my lip. “Which state?”

Chuck eyeballed me. “You kids pullin’ my leg or something?” And when he realized it was no joke, he did a full-on double take. I wouldn’t mind playing cards with Chuck sometime—he had the world’s worst poker face.

There was no point pretending. “We’re just a little lost is all.” I sighed. “And if you could help us out, that’d be great.” I smiled, hoping I looked sincere, and not like some crackpot who’d literally just shot her way out of an asylum.

My life got stranger and stranger.

It must’ve been pretty good because Chuck nodded a sort of, Sure, I guess so kind of nod, and answered. “Wyoming. ’Bout an hour south’a Gillette.”

Gillette—I had no idea where that was either, but Wyoming gave me a better sense. Geography might not have been my strongest subject, but I knew I was nowhere near Blackwater Ranch, back in Utah, and even farther from home . . . if I even had a home anymore.

“Can I ask you something else, Chuck?” I mean, why not, right? Might as well go for broke.

“Shoot.”

I winced at his choice of phrasing. The gun was still pressed against the small of my back, stuffed inside the waistband of a pair of jeans I’d found in a duffel bag. They could have belonged to anyone—the Levi’s 501s—but the fit was close enough so I’d taken them, along with a spare shirt. It was better than trying to catch a ride in a blood-splattered hospital gown.

I spit out my next question. “What . . . What day is it?”

Chuck just shook his head. Not in a sad way, or even a shocked way, but more in an I’d-stumped-him way. “When you kids say you’re lost . . .” He slid a sympathetic gaze my way and then up at his mirror to look back at Thom. “Man-oh-man, girl. Thursday,” he said. “It’s Thursday.” When I frowned, mentally, trying to get my bearings he took pity on me and added, “The first.”

My breath came out in a whoosh. “The what?”

“July first.” He sat a little straighter than before, his eyes darting to where my hands were gripping the sides of my seats. My knuckles had gone bone white. “You okay?” He sounded nervous, and maybe he was right to be. The chill in my bones had spread to my skin and I was swallowing back my own stomach acids. I hadn’t puked after shooting four people, or even when pieces of Blondie sprayed all over me when Eddie Ray killed her. But the possibility was real now. “You don’t look so good. Should I pull over?”

I leaned forward, taking slow and shallow breaths. After a second I released my death grip and held up my hand.

“Kyra?” Thom asked from behind me.