The Taking (The Taking 1)

It was daylight that blinded me, which seemed wrong for a reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But it wasn’t just that—this whole situation seemed wrong. And now it wasn’t just my head that was pounding; it was my heart too. My brain felt scrambled as I grappled to make sense of where I was and why I was waking up here, outside, instead of at home in my bed.

The silhouette of a little boy stood above me, shadowed by the glare of the sun behind him. I blinked harder, still trying to sort it all out, and I could see his expression then, a look of delight. He held one hand behind his back.

Spread out like marbles in front of my face, I saw an array of brightly colored candies that looked suspiciously like gum balls or mini jawbreakers.

“What are you doing here?” the boy asked, the hint of a slight frown shifting the planes of his freckled face.

I searched for an answer, and when I couldn’t find a suitable one, I asked one of my own, “What are you doing here?”

The boy looked back over his shoulder. “Waiting for my mom.” Past him, I saw the gas pumps and a small convenience store behind them. I squinted against the sunlight and read the sign: GAS ’N’ SIP. A woman was at one of the stands, filling the tank of her red minivan.

What the—the Gas ’n’ Sip, really? How the heck had that happened? When had that happened? I shoved the base of my palms into my throbbing eyes, trying to crush the pain away. Eyeing me curiously, the boy absently popped a piece of the candy or gum into his mouth from the hand behind his back as I struggled to sit upright.

It wasn’t easy. Apparently, I’d slept outside all night. And behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip no less. That panicky feeling shook me, and I glanced around uneasily, wincing as I realized that the rotting smell had been garbage.

“Robby!” The woman yelled, and the boy’s head whipped around.

“Gotta go,” he whisper-told me as if we’d developed some sort of bond and I required an explanation for his departure. “You want these?” He held out his hand, palm open to reveal his remaining candies: three red ones, a green, and four yellows.

I thought about turning him down. They looked sticky. But my mouth tasted like I’d just licked home plate, so I nodded instead.

He held them toward me, and I accepted his gummy offering as they peeled, rather than dropped, from his skin. “Thanks,” I said before he skipped away.

I popped the candies into my mouth, letting the sour jolt of them awaken my saliva glands and wash away the tang of dirt that seemed to cling to my tongue.

As always, I got impatient and bit down on one of the candies. Despite their gooey outer shell, inside they were rock hard, something I discovered the moment I felt a chunk of my right-side molar chip away.

Cursing, I spit the rest of the candies in a messy wad onto the ground and ran my tongue over the new, rough edge of my tooth. I’d just been to the dentist last week, something I hated doing, and now this would mean I’d be forced to see him again.

Fishing my cell phone from the front pocket of my uniform pants, I decided it was time to call for backup. I still couldn’t believe I’d ended up behind the Dumpster of a gas station last night. My parents were probably freaking the hell out. I was freaking the hell out.

Not to mention Austin . . .

I dialed him first, not caring that my decision was sure to set off another round of arguments when I got home.

I held the phone to my ear and waited. After a moment I pulled the phone away and inspected it.

NO SERVICE, the screen read.

No service—how was that even possible? I knew exactly where I was. I’d been at this gas station hundreds of times; it was maybe a mile from my house—well within our coverage map.

Whatever, I thought, getting tentatively to my feet and waiting till my legs felt steady. I did my best to ignore the headache that continued to pulse behind my eyes. The walk would probably do me good.

I wasn’t sure how much good the walk had done me, but at least my head had stopped throbbing. I still felt off and couldn’t quite pin down what, exactly, was bothering me.

I had this strange sense of déjà vu that clung to me. It was like a wet second skin, all itchy and maddening, making me glance, and glance again, at everything I passed. It all seemed familiar yet not at once. Like I’d been here before but was seeing it all for the very first time.

Considering I’d been born and raised in Burlington, Washington, a town that barely rated a dot on most maps and definitely not worthy of a mention by name, I was chalking it up to the fact that I’d spent the night outside and still had no memory of anything after the fight with my dad.

Why I’d decided to camp out behind a Dumpster was beyond me—I was claiming temporary insanity, because there was no other feasible explanation.

Going home was sure to play out one of two ways, the way I figured it. My dad was either gonna be super sorry about our argument and the fact that I’d gotten out of the car in the middle of the road and just . . . disappeared.

Or he was going to be massively pissed at me for being so dramatic that I’d decided to stay out all night, even though I had zero recollection of making that decision at all.

Either way, I was still trying to decide how to explain the part about having no memory of getting from there to here. That’s why I’d been hoping to talk to Austin first. He was good at those kinds of things. Good at talking me off the ledge and trying to see my parents’ side of things. He was reasonable and even-tempered in a way that I didn’t seem to be capable of when it came to them.