Within These Walls

Chapter 1

(Author's note: This is a 12-chapter sample of Within These Walls, now published on Amazon. You can order the full book on Amazon - or if you're interested in leaving a rating and review on Goodreads, I'll send you a free copy as I'm looking for reviews. Drop me an email at hopeadon(at)gmail.com. Enjoy!)

My stepfather threw away my nightlight the first day he came to live with us, partly because he wanted to make me tougher but mostly to reinforce the inescapable power he had over me. I still 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 the 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 comforting creak of wood. It's sharp and foreign, more...metallic.

Panic sets into my chest. You're dreaming, I tell 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 mush 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. Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I put my hands out in front of me and feel around 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 pat along the wall in search of a light switch.

The wall ends three feet later. A doorway. That means there's a way out of here, but this is not the 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. The girl's whimper breaks off as I flinch and suck in a breath.

"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. 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 to her chest. Locks of blonde 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 creeped out.

"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 here?"