The Countdown (The Taking #3)(86)

I felt whole and alive. This was where I wanted to die.

Overhead, the speaker announced two more countdowns, leaving us less than a minute by the time I released her.

“Why’d you come up here?” I asked gently. Softly.

“I knew I couldn’t make it out in time, but I thought, maybe . . . maybe I could find a place to see the sky . . . the stars one last time.” Her lips were swollen and her eyes were glossy. “You should’ve gone.” But this time when she said it, she gave me a crooked smile and I knew, even without reading her, she didn’t mean a single word.

“Liar.”

She shrugged, and I pulled her into my arms.

“All personnel must now be evacuated. Autodestruct set to commence in thirty seconds.”

Against my chest, she jerked.

“You scared?” I whispered.

“So scared,” she answered truthfully. “How do you think it’ll happen?”

I half shook my head and half shrugged because I had no idea. But I all-the-way held on as tight as I could. I listened to her breathing . . . in and out, in and out, until the voice gave us our fifteen-second warning.

“I’ll remember you always,” I told her, this time out loud because I wanted the last things we said to each other to be spoken . . . human.

She looked up at me, her eyes fat with tears as she answered back, “I’ll remember you always.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


“THREE . . .” THE VOICE OVERHEAD DRONED ITS final notes.

It was okay. I was okay . . .

“Two . . .”

Tyler was here. We were together.

“One . . .”

The first blast came from several floors below—the Basement most likely, where the ships were. Followed immediately by a second and a third. I didn’t even flinch as Tyler’s arms closed around me, trying to shield me from whatever was coming.

When the flashes came, they weren’t in sync with the explosions, but I felt them all the same . . .

Tiny pinpricks, like holes being cut right through me . . . all over my body. A million, billion, trillion infinitesimal stingers plunging into my skin.

Tyler must have felt them too because I heard him gasp.

From somewhere I smelled burning chemicals and smoke, and the ground and walls around us were rumbling. There were more eruptions now, closer to us.

And right before everything was over . . .

Right before the whole place went up in flames, I heard him say . . .

“. . . always.”





EPILOGUE


THE STARS OVERHEAD GLOWED IN AN UNNATURAL way. Beautiful, but unnatural.

It took me several tries to figure out why.

Plastic. They were the plastic glow-in-the-dark kind that parents stick on kids’ ceilings.

I stayed where I was, studying them for an eternity, trying to decide if they were familiar or not. They gave me the strangest sense of déjà vu, and I felt like I should remember them even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the memory.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 4:13, but I was awake-awake so there was no point trying to go back to sleep now. I chucked the covers aside and made my way to the kitchen in search of coffee.

The hallway was dark but I’d been in this house my whole life, I didn’t need a light. Still, everything about this was wrong somehow.

I had the strangest sensation I was sneaking around someplace I shouldn’t. Trespassing.

I froze when I reached the kitchen and saw Grant standing over the sink, loading dishes in the dishwasher.

Grant.

I knew him—his name, his face . . . and he obviously recognized me, because he grimaced when he saw me. “Sorry. Did I wake ya, slugger?”

Slugger? Was that really his nickname for me?

I tested it out, and the whole déjà vu thing tilted . . . right, but not quite.

“No,” I answered, when he just stood there, waiting for my response. “I . . . uh . . . bad dream, I guess.” I shrugged.

Was that the truth? It could’ve been a dream as easily as anything else.

He nodded, his eyebrows tugging downward. “Your dad again? I’m sorry, slugger. It’ll get easier.” He reached for a dish towel.

My dad . . .

Just the mention of him brought an overwhelming something almost into range. A memory I couldn’t quite reach, but there was a sharp stab of pain.

Again, I couldn’t help thinking none of this was right.

I took a step away from Grant before he could finish drying his hands. I didn’t want him to try to hug it out or anything, and for some reason I got the feeling that’s where this whole touchy-feely conversation was headed.

“All right,” he called after me as I staggered down the hallway to my bedroom. “I’ll be here if you wanna talk.”

I slammed the door behind me, and did a quick inventory of the room. It was mine, but not mine.

Mine from before, came the thought, hitting me like a freight train the same way the pain had. All these things were things from my past. From another me.

It all came rushing back at me then. The Returned, the camps, the No-Suchers and Agent Truman, the ISA. Adam and my dad.

The explosion.

So how was I here now? Why hadn’t I been blasted into smithereens when we’d destroyed the ISA facility and their fleet of spaceships?