The Taking (The Taking 1)

“But if his body’s already damaged, won’t he come back that way too? Like me, with my bruise and my tan lines?”

Jett was already shaking his head. “That’s not usually how it works. We’ve seen cases where people with cancer were returned completely healthy, and people who’d had gruesome scars came back unblemished.”

It was so incredibly, unbearably, outrageously tempting—the idea of saving Tyler’s life.

But it wasn’t really his life I’d be giving him back. It was a new life.

I knew because I wasn’t the same anymore. As much as I wanted to believe I was still the same Kyra Agnew from five years ago, I couldn’t keep living that life anymore. How could I possibly subject Tyler to that? How could I take away his life like that?

He still had a family who loved him.

I shook my head, more confused than ever. “I don’t know. How can I force him to become one of us?”

Willow scoffed at my reluctance. “What choice do you have? If you don’t, he’ll die.”

I spun around to face her. “If I do, his old life is over. Isn’t that the same thing?”

No one stopped me when I left the underground bunker and made my way to the surface once more. I had to see Tyler.

Either way I was a murderer; there was nothing I could do to change that fact. But this way at least he could die with dignity. He could leave this world the way he was meant to go—as himself.

Still, knowing it was the right choice didn’t make it any easier when I knelt beside him and saw the blisters that had broken out over his lips and cheeks, spreading down his neck. I wanted to touch him, to feel his heart beating beneath my palms; but I was afraid my touch might somehow hurt him, so instead I whispered his name into the chasm between us.

“Tyler,” I breathed, holding back the flood of emotions that hearing his name stirred within me. A name I’d forever equate with humanity. A name that would forever brand me—the way the fireflies had been seared into the skin of those suspected of being returned—a killer. “Tyler, I’m here. I promise I’ll stay with you.”

His head lolled my way, and spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. I shouldn’t have disturbed him. I should’ve left him in peace. “K—K—Kyra,” he finally managed.

“Yes. It’s me.” I reached for his hand but stopped myself before I grabbed it. The outer layer of his skin was peeling away. At this rate, even if what was inside him wasn’t killing him, he was sure to get an infection from the pollutants in the air around us. “Don’t say anything. You don’t have to say anything.”

But he struggled anyway, trying to talk. “K—Kyra.” He panted my name. Panted. And I physically ached at the effort he put himself through. “I w—want you to . . . know . . .”

“Tyler, don’t. Just . . . shh . . .”

He reached for me, blindly, clumsily. His raw fingers searched for me. And I wanted to touch him so badly that when they found me, I fumbled for them, clinging to them, unable to stop myself. Unable to care that I might be hurting him. Maybe he was past hurt. Maybe I didn’t even care anymore. I wanted to stroke him. Kiss him. To breathe him in so I could remember that smell forever. “I . . . love . . . you . . . ,” he gasped at last.

That was it. He undid me with those words.

It would have been better if he’d said nothing at all, because I could live with nothing. Love . . . well, love was another matter altogether.

Love required sacrifice and making hard choices and doing things that were bigger than just you.

It wasn’t something you asked for, or could control or change. It was something you accepted.

Love was a force of nature.

Lifting his hand to my trembling lips, I remembered when he’d told me that he might be falling in love with me. I remembered exactly what he’d said to me.

“You can’t stand there and tell me you’re not that same girl, because I’m telling you, you are. You’re more perfect than anyone I know.”

Tyler thought I was perfect. And even now, knowing that I was the one responsible for doing this to him, he was able to say those words to me: I love you.

He understood, maybe better than I did, what it meant to love.

I searched his face, wondering how I could possibly let him go when he had so much left to do. Even if his family turned their backs on him, or if he had to walk away from them, didn’t he deserve a chance? Was it really up to me to decide who was, and wasn’t, normal enough?

I got to my feet, easing his hand down and squeezing it as gently as I could. “I love you, too, Tyler. So goddamned much it hurts.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I RAN OUT OF THE DUSTY CABIN, YELLING ALL their names. Screaming for Simon and Willow and Jett. There were other Returned living in the camp, and they stopped what they were doing to watch me, none of them looking alarmed by the stranger in their midst. But I didn’t know any of them, and I didn’t care that I was drawing attention by my hysterics. I only cared about one thing now.

Without pausing, I plunged, feetfirst, through the opening in the ground. I was still shouting for the others as I sprinted down the concrete corridor, their names echoing off the walls and bouncing back at me.

But they were already halfway to me when I nearly barreled into them.

“We need to go.” I was breathless and panting. “I changed my mind. I want to take him. To Devil’s Hole. I want to try to save him.”