He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, watching me anxiously. Simon surprised me then, when he said to me, “This must be hard on you,” because it had to be hard on him too.

and the way he’d gotten sicker and sicker until I’d been left with no choice but to drag him up to Devil’s Hole to be taken.Īs far as he was concerned, I’d vanished five years ago and had never come back.Īnd now Griffin acted like her claim on Tyler trumped our history together, as if none of those things ever existed at all. He also didn’t remember any of the things that had gone wrong after I’d cut myself on that box knife right in front of him, contaminating him.

Or taking me to his favorite bookstore and leaving me gifts outside my window and sending me messages at all hours of the night. Or the beautiful chalk drawings he’d done for me. He didn’t remember the day I’d stumbled into his kitchen and fallen into his arms, mistaking him for Austin. She seemed to enjoy making it clear that his memories didn’t include me, at least not the important parts. He didn’t remember how he’d been taken, and he certainly didn’t say anything about having a girlfriend back home.” I hated the way she was determined to remind me of that. The best thing I could do was keep my mouth shut. She was in charge of whether I would see Tyler again, or not. “How many Kyras do you know?” I asked, but there was no point arguing. “But how was I supposed to know you were the same Kyra Tyler had been talking about?” Someone who was important to you,” she said in a pacifying voice as she tried to smooth things over. “Okay, yes, Simon told me you were looking for a boy. I had no idea what she was up to.” Simon looked at Griffin instead of me, and I couldn’t help thinking of our conversation about Tyler that day in the library, when Simon told me I couldn’t wait for Tyler forever. He’s fitting in here-”īut I cut her off as I spun on Simon now, unsure who I was more upset with: Griffin for laying one of those Finders-Keepers claims on Tyler-my Tyler-or Simon for not helping me get to him first. Griffin gave me a tight-lipped look and said, “I have people who give me information.” Then she turned to Simon and explained, “Tyler’s a good kid.

The Taking by Kimberly Derting