The Taking (The Taking 1)

Outside my room it was quiet, but I knew she was still there. I could hear “my brother’s” unmistakable footsteps—his short, staccato stride and the way he ran, rather than walked, everywhere he went. He whimpered briefly, and I could picture him straining with his chubby arms raised high above his head, begging to be picked up. Then there was a brief shuffling, and my mother murmured something soft and reassuring, followed by her quieter, and more measured, footsteps leading toward the kitchen.

I shouldn’t feel bad for not wanting to spend time with them, I told myself. This wasn’t my fault. None of it. I hadn’t asked for a new family.

When my fingers closed around Agent Truman’s business card—the second one he’d left me—I inhaled. I’d chucked it in my drawer when I thought I’d never need it again.

I picked up my phone and cross-checked the number on the card with the one that had just called me.

The two were a match.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. How had Agent Truman gotten my cell phone number?

Just as I pressed the button on my phone to check the time, a message popped up on the screen.

A text.

From Agent Truman’s number.

I want to show you something.

For a long time that was it. I waited for more. For another message, something along the lines of Call me back or Let’s schedule an appointment or Meet me at . . .

I wasn’t sure how that last one was supposed to end since I didn’t think there was a local NSA office in a town the size of Burlington, but it didn’t matter. If Agent Truman was trying to freak me out with his ominous message, he was doing a bang-up job. I was freaked, all right.

And if he thought I would message him back, he was out of his ever-loving mind. I had nothing to say to him. I’d already told him everything I knew: that my dad had nothing to do with my disappearance that night. I wasn’t sure what more I could say to convince him.

And then a second text popped up. A picture, followed by a single question:

Do you recognize this man?

I covered my mouth because I did recognize him, but I had no idea why Agent Truman was asking me, or why it even mattered.

Giving in to the urge to defend myself, even if my response was a total lie, I typed in two letters: No, and threw my phone on the bed.

I got up and paced my room, suddenly edgy and itchy and more than a little agitated. My eyes fell on the ball Cat had left me. The one from our championship game. The ball I’d hurled from the pitcher’s mound, striking out batter after batter.

The ball responsible for making the other team cry.

I picked it up and ran my thumb over the stitching as I looked at all the names scrawled on it in various shades of blue, black, purple, and red pen. My teammates who’d signed their names in hopes I’d be home soon and they could give me the ball as a gift. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I wondered where they all were now. I wondered if they knew I was back.

I tossed the ball up in the air and caught it. I did it again, and again, and again.

And then I grabbed my hoodie and my phone, closing out of the picture of the lab tech who’d been found dead the night before in his apartment, and texted my mom, who was just down the hall, in the kitchen with her replacement family.

I’m going out. Back soon.

CHAPTER TEN

I’D WALKED BETWEEN MY HOUSE AND THE HIGH school only a handful of times, and only when it had been a last-resort situation. Like the time I’d overslept when Austin had been at an out-of-town swim meet and I’d missed the bus. Or when Cat and I had gotten into a yelling match in the middle of practice over whether the pitch I’d thrown had hit her on purpose. The argument had gotten heated—to the point that the coach had had to intervene—and I’d insisted on walking home, refusing to speak to Cat for two days afterward.

That had been one of the downsides of having an August birthday. I was always younger than everyone else in my class, which meant that, during our sophomore year, while everyone around me had been turning sixteen and getting their driver’s licenses, I’d been relegated to hitching rides and counting down the days till my Sweet Sixteen.

It wasn’t that big a deal since Austin’s birthday was in October and Cat’s was in February, and I could go everywhere they went. What was a big deal was that when August finally rolled around, I chickened out.

Maybe too much time had passed and I’d built up the whole driver’s-license thing too much in my head.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’d failed the driving test twice already—a secret I swore I’d take to my grave.

I’d been too embarrassed to try a third time, so instead I made up some lame excuse about not wanting my license anyway, which was total bull because every kid in the universe wanted one. Your license meant freedom and independence. It meant joining an elite club where people could drive cars and wave at one another on their way to car washes and drive-through espresso stands and parking lots, where they would hang out and compare shitty DMV photos.

And here I was, all these years later, still walking.

And still sixteen . . . or so I’d been told.

By the time I reached the field, I was sweating and I’d stripped off my jacket and tied the sleeves around my waist. I was still clutching the ball, and it felt good. Right.

Being at the field again was a whole other story. It skeeved me out that they’d named it after me. I didn’t see a sign or anything, which would have felt like a gravestone of sorts, but it was still strange knowing what I knew.