The Taking (The Taking 1)

When I saw my house, on the same block I’d lived on my whole life—right across the street from Austin’s house—that sense of déjà vu returned full force, nearly buckling my knees. For a moment I just stood in front of it, running my tongue over the sharp edge of my chipped tooth. I studied the gray-blue paint that my mom and dad had agonized over when they’d had to repaint the house last summer; and the azalea bushes out front, which suddenly seemed bigger and bushier than I’d remembered them; and the place in the sidewalk where I’d pressed my hands in the wet concrete when I was four and my mom had written my initials with the end of a stick: KA. Kyra Agnew.

I turned to glance at the house across the street. If Austin’s car had been parked out front, I would’ve gone there first. I was suddenly nervous about going inside my own home.

But his car was gone, so I was on my own.

Walking up to the front steps, I tried the door, but it was locked. I reached up to the top of the doorjamb, stretching because I wasn’t really tall enough unless I stood on my toes, and felt for the spare key we kept there. My fingers fumbled along, slipping over the grit, and all the while my pulse felt like it was choking me, it was beating so fast, so hard. But no matter how many times I checked, and double-checked, there was no key.

I searched around my feet, thinking it must have fallen, but it wasn’t there either. Maybe my parents had decided to teach me a lesson for my tantrum. Maybe they’d locked me out to force me to face them at the door before letting me back inside, which of course they would. To show me that they’re still in charge.

Finally, when I couldn’t think of anything else to do and when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I knocked. My throat felt suddenly too tight, which seemed silly. Of course they’d be mad, but they’d forgive me too.

It was an accident, my staying out all night. Somehow I’d have to find a way to explain that to them. To make them believe that I didn’t know exactly what had happened the night before.

I shifted nervously back and forth as I waited, thinking of a million ways to say I’m sorry. The seconds seemed to stretch and bend and last an eternity, and just when I was about to give up, when I was sure that neither one of them was home, I saw the curtain on the other side of the door—the one above the couch in the living room—part.

A face appeared.

A child’s face.

I was confused, startled by the appearance of the toddler.

I was an only child—the product of parents who’d spent my entire life doting on me, and only me. I was the center of their universe. Their sun and their moon and their stars, as my dad liked to say when I was little.

The little boy lifted his hand in a motionless wave, pressing his chubby fingers to the window and leaving a steamy impression around them. I thought of my mom, and the way she’d always told me not to touch the windows because it left fingerprints.

But when the man appeared behind him, I physically jolted. I looked at the door again; a sense of dread filled every crevice of my being, like I’d made some terrible mistake and gone to the wrong house. Like there was some other blue-gray house with my handprints forever imprinted in the walkway.

My panic subsided somewhat when I saw the worn gold numbers running alongside the front door: 9-6-1-2.

My address.

My house.

My home.

I was definitely in the right place. So who were these people? These strangers staring at me from the other side of my window?

I glanced back, but they were gone, the curtains fallen back in place. The only reminder that they’d been there at all was the outline of the boy’s hand. I felt sick, still dizzy, when I heard the door.

I looked up just as it opened, and I found myself staring into the man’s intense brown eyes. He didn’t say anything, just gave me that look that people give you when they answer their doors. The look that says, Can I help you?

Suddenly indignant, I took a step forward, reaching for a door handle I’d turned a million times before. “Are my parents here?” I’d meant to sound forceful, but my voice had a wavering quality that made me sound nervous instead.

I’m not sure it would have mattered, though. He’d stopped me anyway. “Who are your parents?” he asked, and that uneasy feeling settled deeper.

I looked once more at the numbers, double-checking, triple-checking them. “This is my house.”

The little boy appeared between the man’s knees. He had messy blond hair and round cheeks covered in what I could only imagine was jelly. He reminded me of a smaller version of the boy from the gas station, except that this boy didn’t have freckles. Or pants. His chubby legs were white, and his bare feet were wide, looking vaguely like flippers.

The man moved, pushing the boy back inside and positioning himself between me and the toddler. Like I was a danger, a threat. “Who are your parents?” he asked again, his voice slower now.

His patronizing tone rubbed me wrong. I pursed my lips. “What are you doing here?” I asked, unwilling to give him too much information, and suddenly worried that there was a strange man in my home. Where were my parents anyway?

The man’s eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t decide if he was studying me, or suspicious, or both. I saw him reaching for his pocket, and my stomach tightened. Behind him, the boy was clamoring to get around his legs. “Me see . . . me see . . . me see . . . ,” he kept repeating.

When the man’s hand emerged, he was holding a cell phone. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”