Читать книгу Countdown - Michelle Rowen - Страница 15

Chapter 7

IT WAS DARK that night. So dark.

“Mom?...Dad?” I said, too softly for anyone to actually hear me. I’d gone to bed early, mad that I couldn’t get something—new jeans, a new purse...didn’t matter anymore. Didn’t matter then.

My bedroom door was closed. Locked. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Not even my friends who were sending me text messages. I ignored the soft vibrating sound my new phone made every few minutes.

It was after midnight on a school night. I remember I had a big test the next day that I hadn’t studied for. Math, I think. Or Neo-Geography. I didn’t care what happened—if I passed or failed. I actually couldn’t think of one thing in this stupid, boring city I really cared about.

The creaking sound in the hallway of somebody moving around startled me. I heard heavy boots and the scrape of something metallic, which immediately told me—through both my gut instinct and my actual senses—it wasn’t either of my parents. It also wasn’t my older sister returning from a late date and sneaking back in the house so she wouldn’t get in trouble for breaking the new citywide curfew of eleven o’clock. She’d gotten back from the movie theater hours earlier.

It was somebody else.

Somebody bad.

For a moment I thought it might just be my imagination. My overwrought, overworked brain always came up with the worst-case scenario. My mom said I should be a writer since I always made up such crazy, overly dramatic stories.

All I knew for sure, as I lay in my bed that night with the sheets pulled up to my nose, listening to the footsteps outside my door, was that I had this sense. A sense of impending doom.

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

I could hear my father’s footsteps as he moved into the hallway to investigate the noises. I heard shouting.

There were gunshots—two gunshots—and then a heavy thump as my father’s body hit the floor.

Then I heard the screams as my mother...and then my sister—oh, God, both of them—as they were confronted by the intruder. More shots rang out. My whole body shook as I tumbled off the side of my bed and crawled underneath it, tears streaming down my cheeks. My whole world narrowed in on that moment. Those three minutes felt like three years.

When all was silent, when my family was dead, I heard my door rattle as the murderer tried to get into my room. My door was locked, but he would have had no problem busting it open.

I’m going to die, was all I could think. And I was afraid. So afraid.

But suddenly there came the sound of police sirens, and the intruder fled, without another sound, without a word, into the night. He was never caught.

I hadn’t even said good-night to my family. And then they were gone forever.

Ever since that night, the inky black of darkness just reminded me of how close to death I’d come. How powerless I was. Darkness, any darkness, felt like hands clutching at my throat, holding me down.

“No... No...please. Not again.”

“Kira, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Open your eyes. It’s okay. I’m with you.”

A warm touch brushed away my tears and stroked the hair back from my face.

My eyes shot open. The first thing that came fully into focus was Rogan. He sat on the edge of the bed I was lying in. He looked like hell, still dirty and bloody and a total mess, but the sight of him managed to chase away the last traces of my nightmare.

He frowned. “What’s that?”

“What do you mean?” My voice sounded croaky.

“That thing on your face.”

I reached up. “What is it?”

“I think it’s...yes, it’s definitely a smile.”

I let out a long breath and rolled my eyes. “Obviously a total mistake. There’s no reason for me to be smiling right now. Is my leg still attached?”

He glanced down the length of my body and then looked back up at me with half a grin on his face.

“For now.” The grin faded. “You were having a bad dream.”

“I can’t imagine why I would be. We’ve been having so much fun.” I tried to look around but didn’t see anything other than a bland room with a small window that only looked out to another building. “Where are we now?”