The Countdown (The Taking #3)(70)

“Look, I know I said five minutes, but couldn’t they have just waited a little longer?”

The two exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher, and Dr. Clarke’s brows raised. “We’ll need to debrief you,” she stated, all Bad Cop. “We need to go over your timeline, every second of your mission.”

My mission, is that what they were calling this? Was that typical, to do a debriefing, just routine stuff?

Good Cop put her arm around my shoulder and led me toward the door. “Come on. We can do that later. For now, let’s get you upstairs so you can see for yourself that everything’s A-OK. Then when you’re feeling better we can do that debrief. Sound good?”

Dr. Clarke wasn’t thrilled by Molly’s suggestion, but I, for one, was happy to see the door shut behind us. I was in no hurry to be interrogated by Dr. Clarke.

I was already assembling a list. A people-not-to-trust list. After my brief encounter back there, Dr. Clarke was at the very top.

I wondered how much she knew about all this. How deep her involvement ran. How dirty her hands had gotten.

The sooner we got the hell outta here, the better.

But things were never that simple.

I’d learned too much, and we were past the point of just making a run for it and hoping for the best.

The Interstellar Space Agency was nothing they claimed to be—the peace-seeking scientists who worked selflessly to establish interplanetary contact.

We’d been duped.

From here on out, I had to proceed carefully . . . calculate every word that came out of my mouth, watch every step I made. If I didn’t, not only would my dad and my friends pay the price . . . but possibly all of mankind.

Blondie had been wrong. It wasn’t just a probability they were on their way. They were already here.

And our entire planet, along with everyone and everything on it, was at stake.

The Earth.

But there was a way I could stop it. It was a huge burden, and I had no intention of taking that burden lightly.

“Sorry about all that . . . back there,” Molly said when we reached the door to where we’d been staying . . . where my dad and the others were assembled now. “Dr. Clarke’s not a bad person, just a little intense.” She shrugged.

She was intense all right.

I waited while Molly entered the code on the keypad, and I wondered when that had been instituted. “What’s with the security? I thought we were free to come and go. Are we being kept prisoner now?”

She paused, right before hitting Enter. “This is for your own good.” Then she pressed the last button.

I averted my gaze because none of this—the secrets, the security, the debriefings—were for our good. Whether she admitted it or not, I knew the truth. I bit my tongue—it was the smart thing to do, to just shut up. But seriously?

The door clicked open and for a moment I stopped thinking about Molly and Dr. Clarke, and about whether we were really safe or not. The people I loved, the people I knew I could trust, were all around me.

Simon only said, “Where the hell . . .” before Jett added, “. . . they made us leave . . . locked us in . . .” and hugged me hard.

It was reassuring to be surrounded by them, even Willow, who wrapped her arms around me. It was kind of like being mauled by a bear and my instinct was to go limp so she’d stop pawing me.

Simon shoved Willow aside, then clung to me in a way that made me feel like he’d just won some huge trophy—something to be treasured, but also something to gloat over.

Tyler came next, and while he was more restrained than Simon, there was something gentle in his touch, something sweet that made me feel cherished. “I have so many things to say to you.” He said it so silently it was more like listening to a memory . . . a whisper from the past. The low timbre of his voice, and the feel of him against me, made me wish it were just the two of us . . . alone together, for a very long time.

Griffin sat hunched over a table in the corner, scribbling furiously on a scrap of paper as she poured every ounce of concentration she could muster into whatever she was writing or drawing. Her pen stilled only once, and that was when Tyler reached for me. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell if she was concentrating to keep her distance from her dad, or to stay away from me.

“I was worried sick,” my dad breathed into my hair when he finally got his turn, and suddenly I was seven and hadn’t heard him when he’d called me in for dinner. “When they brought the boys back, no one would tell us when you would return. Jesus, Kyr, I don’t know how much more my old heart can take.”

I wanted to tell them everything, right then and there, but Molly hovered too, watching our every move, hanging on our every word. “Your heart’s fine and you know it.” I shoved him away playfully, and then glared at Tyler and Simon. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

Simon cocked his head to the side. “It’s not like you took a quick detour into outer space.” He laughed, shrugging it off.

But I frowned at him again. At them. “You heard me when I said five minutes. I mean, yeah, I didn’t realize I was in for the full decontamination treatment when I came back. But it didn’t take that much longer than I’d said.”

Simon looked at Tyler, and then glanced warily at Molly, and I couldn’t help noticing the way her brow puckered.

“What?” I insisted, feeling out of the loop all over again.