The Taking

When Simon answered, his tone was clipped, and he got straight to the point. “We’ve already heard you’re in trouble. Where are you now?”

I kept my voice low. “We’re in the woods behind my dad’s place. I don’t know where exactly, but they’re following us. I don’t know how long we can hide.”

“We?” Simon started, but then he let it go. “Keep your phone on. We’ll find you.”

When I hung up, I flipped the phone closed and dropped it in the fanny pack too.

Above us, the helicopter was circling around. Coming back to where we were hiding.

I glanced up, looking at the jumble of vines and thorns. What I’d initially believed might be a tunnel was, in reality, a dead end. We would be trapped if they found us now. “We can’t stay here. There has to be a way out of these woods.”

“You’ll have to be my eyes,” Tyler said, holding out his hand to me.

“Great,” I muttered, taking it and wishing I’d shown a little more interest in Girl Scouts. Instead, I’d given up when it was time to graduate from Bluebirds because I thought the Girl Scout uniforms were too . . . green. “It really will be the blind leading the blind.”

When we reached the river we stopped. We were at a dead end. The waters were fast and dark, and rushed wildly past us in frenzied surges with fat whitecaps that knocked the breath out of me just to witness.

But right now this river was our only way out.

“We can do this.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with Tyler’s little pep talk, but those NSA thugs were approaching too fast to argue. The helicopter was whipping the treetops and making them lash wildly, as its searchlight flickered here and there, trying to locate us.

But it was the dogs that were likely to find us first. And I could hear them, their incessant barks and growls growing closer and closer to where Tyler and I stood on the ledge, our hands clasped together so tightly I was sure I’d left fingernail marks in his skin.

“This is the craziest idea ever,” I shouted, easing closer to the rocky threshold.

Tyler smiled, and I thought it was the most amazing smile I’d seen in my life. I hoped it wasn’t the last time I’d see it. “Or the best.” He squeezed my hand in return.

The dogs and the agents and the flashlights all broke through the tree line behind us at the same time. Their lights bobbed frantically, converging on us in unison.

I wavered, scrambling to decide which fate was worse. But then Tyler squeezed my hand again, and I counted to three. And as if he’d been doing the same, we both leaped at once.

When the icy waters enveloped me, I forgot how—or why—to breathe.

There were only two things I knew for sure.

One, that I was trapped.

And two, I was going to die at the bottom of this effing river.

Most people talk about how their lives flash before their eyes right before they die. That didn’t happen for me. All I could think of, all that kept going through my head, was that it was a fanny pack that had gotten me killed.

And instead of spending my last minutes reflecting on the bucket list of things I should have done, or the things I wished I’d done better, or all the people I wanted to make amends to, I was pissed that I’d gone after the stupid fanny pack in the first place.

What had I been thinking, going after it to begin with? The current had been too strong, dragging the pack along until it had gotten caught in a tangle of fallen trees at the bottom of the river.

And here I was, my foot snared by that same twisted gnarl of branches. At least if Tyler finally decided to give up on trying to save me, he’d have the pack, because it would be clenched in my cold, dead fingers.

My chest ached as I desperately kicked and kicked and kicked again, trying to free my ankle. I was no longer cold, even beneath the freezing waters, which I was sure was because of the panic that sent white-hot jolts of adrenaline surging through me every few seconds. The river’s currents continued to pull and drag and suck at me, although less so down here, so far beneath the surface.

I reached down and tried to wrench my foot free, but my hands were useless. I could see the way my ankle was wedged beneath the massive trunk, caught between the twisted branches, and I wondered how I’d managed to get it so lodged in the first place.

If I hadn’t been at death’s door I would’ve been impressed that I could see it all so clearly in the dark and murky riverbed.

I saw Tyler too. Swimming toward me from the water’s surface. I don’t know why he kept coming back down; I was a lost cause, but he refused to quit.

Again I tried to wave him away, gesturing for him to give up on me, but he ignored my flailing protests and went straight to work on my ankle instead. This time, the fourth time he’d come down for me, he had a hefty section of branch in his hand.

He used it like a tool while bubbles rose from his mouth, and from mine. He had to be tired from fighting the currents and from exerting himself time and again, but he refused to quit, stabbing at the branches and trying to free my ankle.

I reached for his shoulder, grasping a handful of his shirt and signaling for him to leave me. It wasn’t going to work, and I didn’t have much time left. He’d already had to go back up for air three times; how much longer could I possibly last?

He jerked away from my grip and positioned the sturdy piece of wood beneath the tree trunk that was pinning my ankle. He was crazy; there was no way that thing was going to budge. But he was more stubborn than I’d given him credit for.