The Taking (The Taking 1)

I even crawled to the edge of Devil’s Hole and screamed their names into the void.

The only evidence that they’d ever been there at all was Agent Truman’s sedan, still parked behind our car, and his badge, which had been lying on the ground right where he’d once stood.

Even the fireflies had vanished.

“It’s not healthy, you know? Drawing bugs all day long.” I jerked my head up to find Natty grinning at me. She sat down, sliding a small plate of fruit in front of me. “Here, eat. It won’t do you any good to starve.”

Natty was sweet like that, the only kind-of friend I’d made since we’d arrived here at the Silent Creek camp, where Simon and his band of Returned had taken up refuge after the NSA had discovered their location.

Simon had tried to talk to me over and over again after that morning when we’d driven all the way from Devil’s Hole. I knew he thought I was avoiding him, and maybe I was, but it wasn’t about Simon, not really.

I just couldn’t bear to face him, to be reminded of what I’d done to Tyler, and to my dad as well. If I hadn’t been so selfish, if I had just been able to let Tyler go peacefully—the way he should have—my dad would still be here.

Not . . . vanished. Maybe forever.

And Simon was just another reminder of what an idiot I’d been.

It hadn’t been all that hard to avoid him, though. Simon’s group—Jett and Willow included—kept to themselves for the most part. It was like the two camps were rival high schools, coming together only for important meetings but staying segregated whenever possible. When they did sleep, they slept in different quarters; and when they ate, they made sure it was in different shifts.

But I wasn’t tethered by whatever pecking orders had already been established. I was like the new girl at school, able to choose for myself. And once we’d arrived at Silent Creek and I’d met a few of the Returned here, I’d immediately gravitated toward their way of life. They lived peacefully in this place, no guns or satellite trackers. They tended to their vegetable gardens and raised chickens and washed their clothes in the stream near the edge of camp.

Like the Returned from Simon’s camp, these Returned were young, so it was strange to see the way they worked so efficiently, delegating chores and responsibilities, and voting whenever an issue arose. There was a leader of the Silent Creek camp, but not the way Simon was. Thom was more of a chairman than he was a strategist or final decision maker.

But being in a new place, with new people, didn’t make it any easier to forget those I’d left behind.

If, or rather when, from what I’d gathered, Simon and his Returned moved on, I wasn’t sure what I’d do—stay here in the mountains of central Oregon with Natty and Thom and the other Silent Creekers or move on with Simon and Jett and Willow, and the rest of their Returned.

Natty would be hardest to leave if I did go. Mostly she stayed quiet and didn’t ask a lot of questions, just made sure I ate every day or so and kept me company. Even when I didn’t feel like talking.

I glanced down at the doodles on the edge of the page—the fireflies—and flipped my journal closed. I smiled weakly at her while she slid in silently beside me, not asking more than I could give.

The fireflies. They still took up too much space in my thoughts, still made me shudder, even seventeen days later.

I’d never get rid of the sensation of a million legs climbing over every square inch of me.

It shouldn’t have happened that way. Simon told me so. None of it. The way the fireflies had engulfed us. Or the fact that they—whoever they were—had taken my father and Agent Truman along with Tyler.

Simon didn’t have to tell me the rest—I had Jett’s statistics to rely on for that. The Returned were usually young, in their teens.

It didn’t bode well for my dad.

But honestly, at the seventeen-day mark, it didn’t bode well for any of them.

Still, I refused to give up hope. Not yet. I was desperate to know if any of them—if Tyler or my dad, at least—had survived.

Both camps had their own information networks in place, yet so far neither one of them had heard so much as a peep about anyone, anywhere, being newly returned. And that lack of news was . . . well, it was killing me.

“I wasn’t drawing. I was . . .” It didn’t matter. Natty didn’t need to hear that I was trying to write it all down so I could find a way to make some sense of it, because it would never make sense, even if it was on paper.

“You’re crying again,” Natty said quietly, and I blinked, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

I was past being embarrassed over my outbursts, which were happening more and more frequently as I tried to cling to hope. “Sorry,” I offered halfheartedly.

She shrugged and picked up a slice of apple from my plate.

“Kyra!” It was Jett who’d come bursting into the dining room of the old mountain church house the Silent Creekers had taken over. “Kyra, come quick!” His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were overly bright. “There’s something you should see.”

I jumped up and reached for the hand Jett held out to me. We ran across the small courtyard to the temporary communications room Jett had set up using some of the equipment he’d brought with him.

Like everything else, the communications equipment for both camps was kept separate, and Jett had a no-share policy about his stuff. I was clearly an exception to that rule.

“Someone reported a Returned?” I asked, knowing I sounded desperate and not caring in the least. I wanted it to be true so bad.