Andy struggled to consciousness, fighting the tendrils of darkness that lured her back to sleep.
“Hey, you okay?” a woman’s husky voice asked.
She was close by but didn’t touch Andy. Andy wet her lips and scraped her throat. She opened her eyes slowly. She was in a room with soft lighting, a light green ceiling. No windows.
Never a good sign.
She closed her eyes again, remembering what had happened. Kate’s betrayal. Again. Couldn’t even—ever—trust her own mother. Fuck it.
“Hey,” the voice insisted. Whoever it was, remained outside her line of vision. “Do you need anything? I can try calling, maybe someone would come if I ask really nicely.”
She could hear the woman moving closer. Her scent was that of a forest, pinecones and trees. Wet soil after the rain. And jasmine, unexpectedly.
Andy tested her voice. “Th…” She coughed, then wished she didn’t. The sound rolled around in her head like a bowling ball. “They won’t come.”
“You sound as if you know them. Whoever they are,” the woman said in a flat tone, distrust slipping into her voice.
“I do.” Andy tried to sit up, her eyes still closed. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know who the woman was.
“Let me help,” the woman offered, in spite of the fear Andy could sense in her.
“No! No, don’t touch me.”
“Okay,” the voice said again, distrust gearing up into anger. “As you wish.”
“It’s for your own sake,” said Andy, her tone softer. “Things happen when you touch people. That’s why you don’t like doing it.”
“How do you know that?” Footsteps, barefoot, stumbling back from her.
Knuckles—a fist?—rapped against glass, as if admonishing her.
She gave in and opened her eyes. Where…There. The reprimand must have come from behind the two-way mirror.
Andy sneered at the glass. “I’m going to tell her about you. I’m not going to win her trust and play your game.”
She turned her gaze to the left. Blinked twice. The woman was beautiful. Full, deep-red hair, ivory skin, tiny freckles on her nose. Stubborn chin. Gorgeous mouth. Emerald eyes. She was taller than Andy had expected, but still a few inches shorter than her own six-feet-plus.
The woman looked at Andy, hands on her hips, cocking her head as if demanding answers from her. She wore a soft, flowing white dress with a slit up to her knee.
Isabelle Templeton was twenty, Kate had said. She looked older. Those eyes were much, much older.
“Who are you?” the redhead insisted.
“You’re Isabelle Templeton?” Andy asked, managing a smile. Isabelle wasn’t to blame. It was all her mother’s doing.
“Yes.” Her voice was ice cold. “Who are you?”
“Andy Bouchard.”
“And who’s that?” Isabelle pointed to the mirror. “You say you know the people who took us? Why are we here?”
Andy looked past her to the couch in the corner, the double bed across from it, the concrete walls, the green steel door, and the yellow light from a single, old-fashioned bulb swaying from the ceiling. The pitcher of water standing on a dinner table, set for two.
Cozy. Prison in a velvet glove.
She licked over her dry lips. “I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve had something to drink.”
* * *
Andy emptied the glass and poured another. She held the water pitcher up in the air. “Do you want some?”
“No.” Isabelle remained rooted to the spot, hands on her hips.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked Isabelle.
“No. I was taken in New York. That’s all I know.”
Shit. “I was in London.”
“London? I can’t be in London. I have a finite math paper due in…I don’t actually know what day it is.”
Isabelle sat in one of the two chairs at the table and hid her face in her hands. Andy expected tears when she looked up, but there was nothing, only bright eyes and the thin line of a normally full mouth refusing to give in to helplessness. She sat across from Isabelle, reached out, and touched her arm where the long-sleeved cardigan protected her skin. She let go instantly as Isabelle’s gaze swept her away. Her eyes were burning like a forest on fire, angry and determined.
Andy turned toward the mirror. “I hate you,” she called.
Again, the rap of knuckles against the two-way mirror.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Isabelle.
“The people behind the mirror.”
“Who are they? Who are you? Not your name. Who are you?”
Andy didn’t answer. She stood and strode to the mirror. “I’m not doing this.”
Silence.
“No way,” she said again.
A speaker crackled from the roof above her. “Then you’ll stay there, both of you, until you do,” said her mother.