Bound by Prophecy

Chapter One

The murky water of the bay lay only thirty yards before us, but I was abruptly jerked sideways and led down the deck through a narrow pass between two storage containers. At the end of the pass, the girl stopped dead to peer around the containers. I leaned forward, heaving in breath. Before I got two searing lungfuls, she was off again, my forearm firmly in her grasp.

I was about to complain, or free myself to lie down, when she slid into a shed.

She pushed me down beneath a boarded window,and I leaned back against the shed wall, half hidden from view of the door as she held it open a fraction of an inch to watch for our would-be pursuers.

It was dim in the shed, and the thin line of light put most of her in shadow. I looked away, quickly surveying our surroundings. An unused maintenance shed, shelves now empty of anything of worth. Dust silhouettes decorated the walls, outlining empty nails that once held pliers and wrenches and spools. A few lengths of wire scattered the floor, along with years-old paper and trash.

I was sure there was something I could use to fashion a sling for my arm, a way to take the strain off my shoulder, but my eyes were back on the girl.

Light filtered through the soft curls of her hair, making the color, somewhere between dark blonde and light brown, appear golden. Her features were petite, aside from her lips, which seemed maybe too full from this vantage point. She was remarkably familiar, and yet, inexplicably, unfamiliar. It was impossible to see her eyes, narrowed on her task as they were.

Her shoulders rose and fell in a way that said she was trying to be quiet, but needed breath as much as I.

A metallic sound echoed in the distance and she pushed the door shut. When she turned, her hands waved frantically in a gesture meant to shoo me farther back and out of view. I felt my mouth quirk at her actions, but any humor instantly fell away when I shifted and pain seared my neck and shoulder anew.

Farther back, I leaned once more against the shed wall.

A missing slat in the half wall protecting me gave me a view of the opposite wall, where the girl had flattened herself against it between a cabinet and a hanging rack in an attempt to hide. She was unaware I watched her.

Two voices floated over us, their direction hard to discern as they reverberated off metal sheds and containers outside. The girl held impossibly still-I couldn't even be certain she was breathing. My gaze narrowed on her as I attempted to better see in the darkness.

Her lips were moving, and I found myself leaning forward to read them. Was she praying?

The shed door swung open and I froze,holding my breath.

I could approach the man, probably should. I could sway him into letting me go and detaining the girl.

But I wasn't confident I'd succeed. Not simply because the officer would be difficult to touch, nor the fact that he would likely hold me at a distance at gunpoint until the other arrived, but because something had gone wrong above the warehouse floor.

I had tried to reach the girl by sight alone, and it hadn't worked. She'd released me, yes, but she'd run across the warehouse to drop me like a sack of oats when she could have unlatched my arms as I'd asked and safely rescued me. And when I'd landed, she'd not responded to my mental requests, instead unlashing me to yank behind her like a leashed dog and then throwing me into this cubby hole in a shed.

I was afraid something was off, that something had happened when I'd hit my head.

But that wasn't all. There was another reason to stay. Something about this girl.

The door closed. The officer's footfalls moved past the shed.

He was satisfied he'd cleared the area.

The girl waited several minutes, and then moved across the shed to peek out a slit in the boarded window above me. Her white tennis shoes came to a rest just beside my feet. The window covering shifted, and I could see her face more clearly. Not a girl exactly, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old.A shapeless jacket hung open over her faded tee shirt. Her jeans were worn, shoes scuffed.

"I think they're gone," she whispered to the window opening.

It struck me I was rather far behind with what was happening and exactly who this was. She didn't appear to be a criminal, but she had slapped me pretty good.

"Why are the police looking for you?" I asked.

She fell into a squat beside me. "Shhhh! What is wrong with you?"

"I thought they were gone?"

She shook her head, brushed a caramel lock from her face.

"So, why are the cops after you?" I repeated in a softer voice.

She glanced behind her, as if we weren't alone in the empty shed, and then back before answering. "They aren't." She grimaced, not wanting to admit the rest. "I couldn't figure out how you got in, so I pried the lock." Her face flushed the tiniest bit. "It set off the alarm."

That explained the buzzing. And then the"pried" registered. "The screwdriver?"

She shrugged. "You work with what you've got."

"And you were following me."

Her eyes narrowed further. "I know you have my sister. I saw you take her."

I shifted, hoping my sway would work when she decided to skewer me with a two-dollar screwdriver. And then a thought seized me, the notion that this might not be one of Morgan's plans, that she might be telling the truth, and I had to play it as such, even on the slightest chance.

"You don't understand," I said, working to keep my tone level through the pain radiating from my shoulder. "She isn't safe without me."

Her hand twitched. "You're some kind of psychopath, then." Her frown tightened. "Do you even know what you've done with her?"

I sighed. "She hasn't been harmed. I swear it."

"Prove it. Take me to her."

"I can't. It's the only way she's safe."

"Do it, or I stab you right now and call those policemen back here."

A rusty pair of shears was suddenly inches from my throat, pulled from beside the hundred-and-ten-pound girl threatening my life.

I wasn't afraid of her, exactly. But what if she was telling the truth? What if this was Brianna's sister?

"Fine," I said. "But you have to prove something to me first."

The shears moved forward, poking into the tender skin above my jugular.

"How do I know you are really her sister?"

In a flash of anger, she brought the rusty tool up and knocked a chunk of the covering loose from the window.

Light rushed in and I blinked hard against it. When I focused finally on her face, I got the first good look at her since she'd slammed open the warehouse door.

It was Brianna, but suddenly filled with fury and life. This version wasn't as thin or frail; those few pounds changed her face slightly, gave her fuller lips and healthy,rosy cheeks, but they were the same.

And those eyes. Brianna's impossibly wide,sea-glass green eyes that seemed continuously jumping between wonder and terror were narrowed on me here, at once ice and fire.

I leaned closer, my whisper of disbelief cut short by shooting pain.

I gasped, grabbing my shoulder, and then got my voice back. "Why did you drop me?"

Her mouth twisted with what might have been humor. One shoulder lifted. "I thought you'd be easier to handle this way."

I stared at her open-mouthed. This was not my Brianna.