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drugged? No, I’d know.
    Maybe he was gay. Or maybe he’d try something later … or was he keeping his hands off me because he was a religious Muslim?
    Don’t think, don’t think , I told myself. And in fact everything was starting to feel unreal again. It was as if I was in some sort of waking dream or play, and none of it was really happening.
    Yes, think , I instructed myself. I had to plan for whatever might happen. I couldn’t fade away again.
    I heard the sound of a lid turning and I smelled coffee. The man asked in the same placid voice, “Would you like coffee? Or a sandwich?” It was almost as if his voice was a mask—it didn’t reveal what he was feeling or thinking.
    I shook my head. Mom didn’t drink coffee, and I’d never developed a taste for it. I wasn’t hungry either. I still felt queasy from the drug—or maybe it was just stress.
    “Well, here’s a sandwich, in case you change your mind.” The man placed what felt like a bread roll in my hand, and almost instinctively I bit into it. I was surprised to find that it was a brie sandwich. Not the sort of thing I would have expected, in the circumstances. The bread was also unusually fresh, and it tasted homemade.
    Even though I was blindfolded, being held captive, and possibly in the hands of murderers, the delicious sandwich made me feel better. It’s hard to believe how quickly you become accustomed to losing your freedom, being blindfolded, not knowing where you are or what’s happening to you.
    I wondered what time it was. Mom would know by now that I was missing. She’d be wild with worry—fearing the worst but trying to stay hopeful. Mommy, mommy . The word seemed to tear through my body. Later , I thought. When I’m alone.
    “Does my mother know I’m alive?” I asked.
    “Not yet,” the man answered, and his inexpressive voice suddenly seemed cold and cruel.
    The van came to a stop, and a second later I heard the door slide open.
    I unbuckled myself and shifted in my seat. Every muscle in my body seemed to ache. It reminded me of my gymnastics days, but this was a different type of pain. I could barely stand up.
    Once again the man and the woman took hold of my arms and led me out of the van. I heard the woman murmur, Poor dear , but her voice sounded like Mom’s, and I decided I’d had an auditory hallucination. I hoped I wasn’t losing my mind. “It’s tension and fatigue—and chemicals,” I said out loud. I hoped tension and fatigue and chemicals were also the reason I was talking to myself.
    We entered a building that I imagined for some reason was an abandoned church. I heard someone emptying the contents of my knapsack on a table and rummaging through my things. Then a door slammed shut and it was quiet. They were gone. I hadn’t even tried to escape.



CHAPTER 4
    I took off my blindfold.
    My surroundings were nothing like a church, of course. I was in what appeared to be a large, empty warehouse, about the size of a tennis court, with a cement floor, cement walls, and a very high ceiling. Small glass panes ran along the top of one of the walls.
    There was a mattress on the floor, a bridge table, two folding chairs, a small fridge, a standing lamp, two shelves, a pail and mop, and a partition with saloon doors in the far corner. My things were scattered on the table, along with an empty notebook, a pen, three paperbacks, cutlery, a mug, a plate, and a sealed bottle of water.
    My jeans were there too, draped over one of the chairs, and my running shoes had been set neatly on the floor, my socks tucked inside.
    I opened the bottle of water and had a long drink. Then I pulled off the poncho and skirt and put on my jeans. I hated the long black skirt because it had made me think of satanic cults, and I rolled it up and stuffed it inside the pail.
    I walked over to the saloon doors and pushed them open. Several cockroaches scurried into corners. I was facing a tiny cubicle with an oversized sink, very old and rusty, the