The Taking (The Taking 1)

Because they were too far away.

We could never reach them, not in time.

Tyler was going to die.

Tyler passed out the moment we tried to lift him, as if he’d just given up.

As if even he knew we were too late.

Everything inside of me knew the same, but I couldn’t afford to stop trying. Not when we’d come so close.

But when I heard the last voice I ever expected to hear all the way out here, in the middle of the night near this strange place called Devil’s Hole, I froze, my eyes prickling with tears and my throat squeezing tight.

“You have to put the boy down, Kyra.”

I turned to watch the man approach, and I had to blink several times because I was blinded by the approaching flashlight.

But as the light bobbed away from my eyes, I saw him clearly. I would have recognized that flannel shirt and scruffy beard anywhere. “Dad?”

It was true. My dad was there, but he was with Agent Truman—the starched man in the starched suit—who stood just behind my dad.

“Kyra,” my dad said to me, his voice all rough around the edges, like it was hard for him to talk.

That was when I realized I had no family left to go back to. Agent Truman had convinced my mom I was dangerous and turned my dad against me too.

Blood pulsed behind my ears while my eyes slid to the thick Ace bandages wrapped around the agent’s right hand.

Seeing Agent Truman’s lopsided wrap job made me feel a million times better. I hoped he ended up needing surgery that involved metal pins and rods and lots and lots of recovery time, the same way Carrie Dreyer had when that broken bone had come through her skin.

“Do as he says, and your dad here doesn’t have to get hurt,” Agent Truman snarled at me over my dad’s shoulder.

I looked down then and saw the gun in Agent Truman’s good hand—his unbandaged one. He held it awkwardly, his grip unnatural, pointing it directly at my dad’s back.

My dad lifted his hands in the air, showing me he was the same as me—a pawn. “I’m sorry, Kyr,” he said hoarsely.

My gaze slid out of focus as tears welled fatter behind my eyelids. My dad hadn’t turned on me. He was still my number one fan.

Simon gave me a meaningful look, and we did as we were told, easing Tyler onto the dusty ground. I took extra care to make sure we weren’t laying him on any rocks, and then I turned to my dad.

I struggled to find the right words, but everything seemed wrong and not big enough, and definitely not sorry enough for the way I’d turned my back on him. “No . . . Dad . . .” I shook my head, wishing more than anything I could run to him so I could feel his bear-like arms around me. “I’m the one who’s sorry. For everything. For not believing you in the first place.” Then my gaze shifted to Agent Truman. “You can’t do this,” I told him. “It’s illegal. He hasn’t done anything.”

His mouth twisted into a snarl. “This isn’t about legal or not legal.” He lifted his bandaged hand. “You have no idea how special you are, and I’m not about to let you get away again.”

I’d been so focused on my dad that I’d nearly forgotten all about Simon.

“I don’t think you have much choice,” Simon stated. His voice was subdued when he spoke. “That,” he said, nodding at the poorly wrapped Ace bandage. “That’s nothing.” He clutched his knife in his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fist.

Agent Truman’s eyes narrowed as they fell on the knife, but he didn’t even flinch. “You wouldn’t. Not with Kyra’s old man here.” He lifted his gun then, holding it to the back of my father’s head, and my heart nearly exploded.

Simon’s eyes slipped to my dad and then to me. I could see the conviction fade from his eyes even before his chin dropped and he, too, lifted his hands in the air. And then, as if all the will had been drained from him like a deflated balloon, he opened his fingers and let the knife slip to the ground.

But Agent Truman didn’t back down as easily. He shoved the nose of the gun hard against the back of my dad’s neck. There was something in the agent’s expression, the wild look in his eyes and the firm set of his jaw, that made him look determined. He settled his gaze on me. “The easier you make this, the less likely dear old daddy won’t end up at the bottom of that pit over there.”

“Let him go.” I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the gun. I couldn’t go with him, but there was no way in hell I was letting him hurt my dad. “Drop the gun,” I warned, trying to sound reasonable. “I mean it.” I concentrated, my hands curling into fists so tight my fingertips ached. A throbbing started in the back of my head.

I thought about the way I’d felt when I was at that gas station, when I wanted—when I needed—those pain relievers for Tyler so he wouldn’t die from fever.

And now what I needed was for Agent Truman not to kill my dad.

I blinked slow and hard. I forced all my attention on the gun, on the barrel.

I clenched and unclenched my fingers, balled and unballed my fists. “No!” I screamed. “Let! Him! Goooo!”

When the gun jerked from his grasp, it flew end over end so fast that I could barely track it. It was that fast. A blur.

But I did see it, and so did everyone else, watching as it hurtled like a rocket toward the crater.

We never heard it hit the bottom.

For a moment I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I’d done it. I’d actually moved something with my mind . . . on purpose. And this time there were witnesses.