Days.
I concentrated on that rather than the stomach acid eating my throat. Days could mean anything. Days could add up to weeks or months, or even years.
I thought of all the mornings I’d been gripped by pain . . . was that what I’d been sensing? Their approach? Their nearness?
How many days had there been already?
I thought of the way I’d been tracking time, the strange numbers I’d heard in my head and wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.
I concentrated, trying to remember what today’s number was. Which number was repeating itself in my head right now, at this very moment?
Thirteen. That was the number.
Was that the countdown to their arrival?
They were coming. But why?
“So?” he asked. “Are they right? Can you feel those little mothers?” Eddie Ray angled his face so our mouths were almost touching and I wished I couldn’t taste the rancidness of his breath.
I refused to answer him. No way would I ever, not in a million years, tell him anything.
He didn’t seem to need my answer. “Are you afraid?” he asked, grinning down at me.
I curled my lip at him. “Aren’t you?”
But Eddie Ray scoffed at the idea. “I won’t be anywhere near you by then. But don’t worry, don’t take it personal. In the end, this is really just about business.”
“Business? You mean all of this just comes down to making a couple of bucks? That girl . . . she was . . . you just shot her, for what? Money? If you really believe they’re coming, then you’re talking about an alien race heading to Earth, and you don’t even know what they want.” My voice rose. “How is this just business?”
I thought of the message—what Tyler had said, what my dad had overheard: The Returned must die. Maybe I shouldn’t even care about any of that when this was the end for me—they’d already beaten me . . . beaten us.
But I did.
“It just is,” he spat, his patience with me reaching its end. His cheeks and neck and forehead went red and splotchy. “And it’s more than just a couple of bucks. It’s enough to buy our freedom if I play my cards right. Freedom from all this. From the No-Suchers. From pretty much everything. We’ll never have to worry again. All we have to do is deliver you in one piece.” He jumped up, knocking the stool out from behind him. “The thing is, though, it’d be even better if we could’ve gotten our hands on the other one too—that Tyler kid. We could make a helluva lot more for two of you. That was the plan, you know? She was supposed to grab both of you. Her mistake.” He moved to where the blond girl was lying and stared down at her. I couldn’t see her body, but I watched as Eddie Ray nudged the dead girl with his foot. His eyes were glittering when he looked up again. “Like I said, it’s just business.”
Tyler. They wanted Tyler too.
There was no way. That could not—would not—happen.
He came back over to me. “Just tell me where the kid is . . .” His voice dropped all conspiratorial-like. As if we were somehow partners. Pals. “In fact, if you tell me, I’ll put in a good word for you. Let your buyers know how cooperative you’ve been. Never know, maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll take it easy on you.” He winked, and bile blistered the back of my tongue.
I shook my head, emotions pounding through me.
The buddy-buddy expression vanished from Eddie Ray’s face. He gave me a strange look then, one I couldn’t quite decipher but probably it was better that way. I didn’t want to know what was going on inside that head of his.
“I don’t need your help,” he finally said. “I’ll find him myself. I’ll sell you and then I’ll track him down on my own.”
“Please . . . no . . .” But I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or me when I said it.
Because it was too late. He’d doomed himself the moment Tyler’s name had rolled off his lips.
This wasn’t like before, where the sensations began mildly—the slow build of prickling, itching, tingling.
This was wild. Uncontrollable. A storm unleashed.
Like I had been unleashed.
And I had been, in more ways than one. Energy tore through my body, blistering from the base of my neck and shooting all the way to my fingertips and toes.
This need to save Tyler made me strong. Stronger than I’d ever been. And before I could think the word “control”—before Eddie Ray realized anything was happening at all—my right hand had yanked free.
But that wasn’t Eddie Ray’s undoing; it was the part where I managed to move the gun. His gun.
It was like that night up at Devil’s Hole when I’d mentally stripped Agent Truman of his weapon . . . only this time I wasn’t trying to disarm anyone.
This time the gun flew directly into my other hand. And just like the time with Agent Truman, it occurred so fast, whipping through the air, it was barely a blur.