Read The Taking for Free Online Page A

was looking for it, but other than that the same as he always had.
    He eased onto the stool next to the bed; his eyes, so similar to Austin’s, found me. “I know you already said most of this, but we gotta make it official.” He tapped his pen on a notebook he was holding. “I’ll make it quick,” he adding, smiling in a way that made me think of Austin, and my stomach lurched. But I swear, everything made me think of Austin right about then, and I couldn’t wait for all this to be over with so I could be alone to call him. I just wanted to hear his voice again.
    “You said you don’t remember where you’ve been all this time, the entire five years. Is that right, Kyra?” His voice was so serious, so not -Austin’s-dad’s voice, that I almost—even though it wasn’t even kinda funny—giggled. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard him use his cop voice before.
    I took a breath and bit the inside of my lip, nodding solemnly instead. “Yeah. Uh, yes, that’s right.”
    He scribbled my response. “So why don’t we start at the beginning. Tell me where you were and what the last thing you remember was?”
    The game, I thought. I remembered the championship game. I opened my mouth to tell him that. About how Austin had been there, and how he was going to meet us at the Pizza Palace. But my dad answered first. “The light. Tell him about the light.”
    “Oh, Jesus H. Christ,” my mom snapped, pinching her eyes between her finger and thumb. And then she dropped her hand with a sigh and glared at my father. “Are you kidding me with this? You’re not really starting this now, are you?”
    “The light?” Gary looked at each of them and then at me.
    Just then I heard the whooshing sound of the door and I jerked; my attention landed on a woman in the doorway wearing blue scrubs under her white lab coat—the doctor.
    But behind her, in the hallway beyond the door, I saw Tyler, and realized that Gary hadn’t come alone. Tyler had come with him, and he was watching me through the glass, looking at me the way Austin should have been if he had been here the way he was supposed to be.
    Like he was worried about me.
    Things quieted down once I kicked my parents out of my room, something I could do now that I was a legitimate grown-up.
    Before, I would’ve gotten crazy satisfaction from the ability to do things like that.
    My parents went grudgingly, giving the doctor a chance to do her examination, which was pretty limited. She was nice, but there wasn’t much for her to do since I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me.
    “Does this hurt?” Her small hands probed my belly as her eyes, which were sympathetic, met mine.
    “Uh-uh.”
    “What about this?” She poked harder, around my hips and into my lower abdomen.
    “No.” I shook my head to emphasize my point. So far there was nothing unusual.
    She looked back to where Gary was making some notes and pretending he couldn’t see or hear us, even though there was no way he couldn’t. I’d asked him to stay, not really wanting to be alone but not wanting my parents arguing over the top of me either.
    “What about sexual assault?” She asked the questions as casually as if she were asking whether I preferred vanilla or strawberry ice cream. “Would you like me to examine you for signs you were assaulted?”
    I wanted to crawl beneath the exam table and never come out. I didn’t bother to see if Gary was looking. I just shook my head again. “I’m fine.”
    She nodded and made a quick note on my chart, and then gave me her hand to help me sit up. “Well, I don’t see anything that jumps out at me. I’ll order up some blood work and send that off to the lab, but I don’t see any reason you can’t go home. Do you have any questions?”
    A million. But again I shook my head. She offered to send in my parents, but I told her to wait. I wanted just a few more minutes of peace.
    I hated this new version of my parents. I hated that