eyes widen. Then something black and thick covers my head. Hands drag me toward the van, and I fight, blind and in shock, lashing out at nothing before my arms are caught behind my back. Then I’m shoved roughly into something in motion. Something hard hits my face. The floor. I’m slammed to the side. A sharp pain behind my head. And then darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
My eyes open to pitch-black.
I wait for my bedroom to come into focus. Nothing happens. This is the complete kind of darkness, the kind without even shadows. My lungs burn, as if I’ve been holding my breath. I gulp down damp and moldy air. I curl my fingers against stone. Faintly slick. Biting cold.
Where am I?
Memories drop into my mind like rain in a puddle. I remember the long flight and fear for my sister. I remember the man with the movie-star smile.
I remember my fear for my sister. London, are you okay? But I can’t worry about her right now. I’m the one who needs help.
A shudder works its way through my body, lingering in aches and bruises, waking up pain as it goes. I move myself to a sitting position with a soft groan. The floor feels slightly uneven, almost like a natural rock formation. A cave or something.
I crawl forward. Something hard meets my face. My fists close around iron bars.
Not completely natural, then.
Adam Bisset. Why did he take me? Because I’m a tourist? Maybe he thought I’d have money. That’s no reason to take me, only my bags.
Or maybe he recognized me as the famous children’s book author. Except that the only person who could pay ransom without giving my parents a heart attack is my sister, and she’s missing.
There’s no other reason he would take me.
Isn’t there? The soft voice inside my head knows exactly why a man would take a woman. He asked me out, didn’t he? He asked to show me around the city. I said no.
He doesn’t take rejection well.
The darkness closes in on me, it becomes a tactile force, squeezing my lungs. I don’t want to stay here, in this pitch-black prison. I can’t stay here. There’s no oxygen. I gasp through the fist around my throat. I’m going to die here, before Adam can even touch me, and that seems almost like a gift, except that the body fights anyway. It wants to live.
The darkness closes in on me.
“Easy,” comes a voice from the inky void. I choke on air. “Easy there,” he says again.
“Adam,” I gasp out. It’s twisted that I’d actually be relieved to have him here. Anything is better than being alone right now. Even the presence of my captor.
There’s quiet.
I’m not alone in the dark, though. My fists curl around iron. “Answer me.”
“I’m not Adam.” And he’s not. He’s missing the fluid accent. He says the name the American way, with harsh syllables. His voice is completely different—lower, more blunt, gravelly like the broken concrete underneath me.
“Who are you?” Was he the driver of the van? Or someone else?
“I’m no one.” Shadows curl around his rough voice. His presence settles into my skin, deeper than the dust, farther than the cold. He’s someone, this stranger.
The high-pitched song of a bird works its way through cracks in the rock. Why does it sing at night? Another cheerful ditty, and the realization slams into me: it’s daytime. It’s that dark inside.
“Let me out,” I whisper. Then louder. “Please let me out.”
“That’s not up to me.”
“I have money. I have some… money. How much do you want? I can get it.”
“Don’t.” The word slices through the dark.
“I’m an—author. I have money. And my family, they’ll pay a ransom.”
“Money won’t help you here, sweetheart. Not unless you want to be shipped back in pieces.”
I swallow past a lump in my throat. “Then why did they take me?”
“Why do men usually take beautiful women?”
My heart shrinks. My lungs contract. Every part of my body feels smaller. “How do you know I’m beautiful?”
“Fishing for compliments, sweetheart?”
“No,” I say, my voice hard. “I want you to turn on the light.”
“We don’t always get what we want.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Yes,” he says in an agreeable tone.
“Please let me out,” I whisper.
“What makes you think I have the key?”
That gives me pause. “Why wouldn’t you? Are you guarding me?”
A short laugh. “No, sweetheart. I’m not guarding you.”
My hands tighten around the iron bars. I squint into the darkness. No shadows emerge. It’s like he’s not even really here. Maybe he isn’t. I