Page 91 of Stolen Love

I trail after her.

I’m puffing by the time we enter the pitched room. Lightheaded. The dust is thicker in here. It settles like a blanket in my lungs and makes me cough. There are boxes stacked on top of each other. Odd bits of furniture and a child’s bed.

Dizzy disappears behind a pile of boxes. “It’s over here.”

She kneels in front of a safe that is about the same size as one of Nathaniel’s filing cabinets. It has a keypad and a slot for a key.

“Do you think this is what that’s for?” Dizzy’s gaze is glued to the key as I unclasp the chain.

“One way to find out.” Heart thumping, mouth dry, I drop to my knees beside her and insert the key into the slot. When I twist it nothing happens. “I need the code.”

“You don’t have it?”

“I can get it.” The number that dad told me in his phone call. It’s still on the mirror in the penthouse. “Let me call—”

“No,” she snaps as she scrambles to her feet. “It isn’t time.”

“But I have the code. I just need to get it.” What were the numbers? One. One.

Pain lances through my skull and my vision flickers. Did she just hit me? I reach up and touch the back of my head as I sway on my knees. I knew not to trust her. I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted. “Dizzy?”

“Alec has to come here. I need you to make him come.”

Everything goes dark.

Chapter Forty

Ivy

What happened? I peel my eyelids open and stare at the little glowing stars on the ceiling. My head throbs and I’m nauseous. I try to sit up, but I can’t get my bearings. And I don’t seem to be able to move.

Adrenaline surges through me and I become more aware of my surroundings. Posters of teenage boys and boy bands hang on the walls. Behind my head, the wrist not in a cast is chained to a white wrought iron headboard.

A vibrant pink ruffled bedspread cocoons my body. And on the bookshelf is a picture of a girl a few years younger than I am now. She has hair the color of snow and her arm is around someone, but the photo has been torn in two and only her half has been put back in the frame.

The last thing I remember is Dizzy getting upset because I wanted to get the code for the safe. She said she needed me so that Alec would come here. She might be my sister, but she’s also Alec’s half-sister, right? And she was there the night he tried to kill me. But I think I can talk her around. I have to.

“Dizzy?” I croak. “Dizzy, please…”

The door opens and she strolls into the room, a tray in her hands. “Hey, sleepyhead. Are you thirsty? It’s time for your pills.”

“What are the pills for?”

“To help detox the poison of course.” She smiles.

“You’re helping me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then why do you want Alec to find me? You know he’ll kill me. He tried before.”

She puts the tray down on the nightstand. Shaking out a capsule into her palm, she picks up the glass of water. “Are you going to fight me this time? These really are for your own good.”

“Why were you with Alec in Narnia? Why do you want him to show up here?”

“Take the pill and I’ll tell you.”

“Fine.” I’ll hold it in my cheek and spit it out when she leaves the room.

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