Within These Walls

Chapter 1

When my stepfather threw away my nightlight on my ninth birthday, his tough-love idea of a birthday gift, I found a way around my fear of the dark. In the dead of night, I searched for any light I could find. The glimmer of a streetlamp visible through gaps in the blinds. The headlights of a car cruising down our quiet suburban streets. The yellow glow under my bedroom door because Mom couldn't be bothered to turn things off when Sam wasn't home to clean up after her.

I stopped being afraid of monsters under my bed around the time puberty hit, but I've grown so used to these minor reassurances that their absence tonight is the first sign that something is wrong.

The second is my bed.

I've owned it since ninth grade, a wood platform bed that Sam bought when he was in one of his more giving moods. But the noise it makes now when I turn onto my back isn't the creak of worn wood. It's sharp and foreign, more . . . metallic. Threatening.

Panic creeps into my chest. You're dreaming, I try to reassure myself. Soon I'll wake up to the sound of the TV blasting a morning talk show and my mom's blender grinding out whatever vegetable concoction she chooses to call breakfast, and this will become a fuzzy memory.

I manage to hold on to that futile hope until I hear a sob in the dark. Another metal bed squeaks from the other side of the room. It's quiet for two seconds, then:

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

I've kept my heartbeat steady up until that moment, but the girl's terror threatens to undo me. Time to get moving. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and put my hands out in front of me, feeling for something solid in the dark. My right hand finds a concrete wall, and I scrape skin off the backs of my fingers. Ignoring the sting, I keep patting along the wall, seeking out a light switch.

The wall ends three feet later. A doorway. That means there's a way out of here, but this is no time to try to explore the shadows beyond this room. It's pointless to pretend to be asleep—my roommate, whoever she is, has made sure of that—but if I'm going to face our captors, I need the advantage of light. I keep moving along until I touch the solid wall again.

My toes bump into something that makes a hollow noise. I flinch and suck in a breath at the stab of pain. The girl's whimpers break off.

"Who's there?" she calls, her voice shaky. "Why are you doing this?"

I stop moving but continue to search with one hand. There. I flip the switch, momentarily squeezing my eyes shut against the blinding light before I squint around. I'm inside a medium-sized bedroom, bare and so sterile it feels like a prison cell. Grainy white walls. Twin fluorescent strip lights glare over a stone floor. The large metal dresser I bumped into is next to me.

There are two beds on either side of the room. On one of them is a girl about my age, huddled against the wall with her legs drawn in to her chest. Locks of blond hair curl protectively around her pretty face. I see a bracelet on her wrist and look down at the identical one on mine. Slim but solid, and silver. Not decorative.

Both of us are dressed in gray sweatpants and white t-shirts. Someone changed us out of our clothes while we slept. It's incredible that out of everything our captors have done, this could make me feel the most violated.

"Who are you?" my fellow captive whispers.

I hold up my wrist, hoping she'll get the message.

She lifts her chin slightly. "What are we doing in here?"

"I—"

I spot movement out of the corner of my eye. A newcomer stands in the doorway of the room opposite ours, his tall frame filling the space. I can't see his face. My roommate doesn't see him at all and she's still talking, asking questions I can't answer.