Vigilant

Shanna looked between Ari and the guy. She slid off the stool. “Nothing. Just hanging out,” she said. “You don’t look so good.”

“I don’t feel good either, but we need to get you out of here.”

“You need to back off,” the guy next to Shanna said. “This is none of your business.”

Ari laughed. “You have no idea, man. This is so my business.”

“What? What’s going on here? I thought that guy was your pimp.” He jerked his thumb backward. Ari looked in the direction and through the fuzzy glare, she saw a mop of scraggly blond hair. He flashed his gold teeth.

“Oh shit,” Ari said, stumbling backwards.

“Ms. Grant? What’s wrong?” Shanna asked, holding her up by the arms. Ari paid her no attention. Instead, trying to reason through her muddled mind to figure out how this happened, she grappled for Shanna’s hand and started to pull her away.

Across the bar, Jace Watkinspushed himself off the dark, dingy club wall. The wicked grin on his face produced a shiver down Ari’s spine.

“Run, Shanna,” she said, but her feet no longer worked and her voice sounded strange.

“What? Why?”

It didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. The seconds it took Jace to reach her weren’t enough to get away, even if she had all her faculties. Before she could respond, his face was in hers. He wrapped his hands around her upper arm and squeezed.

“Finally,” he said, his breath reeking of beer. “We can finish this.”

TWENTY ONE

“Go away, Oliver,” Ari mumbled into her pillow. He relentlessly pounded on her door. What the heck? He knew she liked to sleep in on weekends. Rolling over, she seized her head.

“Ow.”

It was then that she realized the pounding came from her ears and above her temple. The room itself was silent.

And dark.

Ari felt her soft pillow and lightweight quilt but pushed them back because her skin felt feverish. “Ugh,” she groaned. Her whole body ached. What was that smell? She sniffed the quilt. The detergent was perfumed and only added to the throbbing headache. Carefully, she sat up and noted the darkness of her room. Usually there was a least a slit of light near the window. Right then, everything was swallowed in black.

Instinctively, she ran a hand under her pillow for her phone but it wasn’t there. Not a surprise since she didn’t remember coming home the night before. She didn’t remember anything past the text message from Davis and slipping out the window. Did she meet him? Did she bring him home? She felt around and wondered who put her in her pajamas. Shorts and a tank top. Ari fumbled in the dark for her bedside lamp, knocking something over in the process. She found the tiny knob on the lamp and turned it, lighting up the room.

“Oh, God.”

Ari was not in her room.

Or her house.

Ari’s heart leaped in her throat and she stood up, letting the sheets and quilt fall to the side.

This was not her room but everything looked the same. Exactly. The furniture and rug under her feet. The painting of four crows hanging on the wall behind the dresser—the one she bought at the tiny art fair downtown. The books on the bookshelf—shelved identically. The antique crystal door knob. Slowly, she acknowledged that not everything was the same. Not exactly. Ari ran her hand down the wall and felt the bumpy surface of cinderblock, not the plaster of her room. And the floor wasn’t hardwood. Under the rug, cold, gray cement peeked out around the edges.

She ran to the wall lined with curtains. Throwing them aside, she cried out when she saw nothing but a blank, solid wall behind them. That was why she didn’t see light. Her heart hammered, competing with the drumming of her headache. She needed to get out of there. Where ever there might be.

Barefoot and barely dressed, she ran to the door, jiggling the knob. Unsurprisingly, it was locked but she persevered, shaking and yanking on the door until it flew open. What she didn’t expect was who was waiting for her on the other side.

Hope.

* * *

She stood before her in tight black shorts and a tighter black halter top. Her hair was braided to perfection and tiny diamonds glittered in her ears. Ari’s missing client held out a tray of food. “Take it,” Hope said. Her eyes listed slightly to the side and her shoulders slouched. A far cry from the firery girl she’d seen a couple weeks ago.

“Hope, are you okay? Where are we?”