Chapter Two

Elijah felt as if he'd woken in another dimension. His brain fought against the pull of sleep, as if he were still in a hazy dream. He'd done enough drugs in the past to recognize when he had some in his system. Sorting through the fog, he struggled to remember the last thing he'd been doing, but besides hanging with some guys from the fraternity he was rushing, his mind came up blank.

"God, no, please!" the woman next to him screamed, and the sound reverberated through his head as if shards of glass.

He groaned. "What the hell is going on?"

She froze again, and yeah, he noticed the air change both times he spoke up, but surely she couldn't be surprised she was in here with someone else. After all, their bodies pressed snuggly against one another, seemingly his front to her back, and he didn't have a whole lot of wiggle room on his side. From the way she kept trying to shift away, he figured she didn't have room on her side either.

He tried to roll to his back, but ended up hitting a wall and laying in an awkward position while he cradled his head in his palms. The headache of all headaches pounded through his skull like a dozen jackhammers.

The woman moved again and caused something to go skittering by his head.

"Someone will die before dawn," sounded right by his ear, causing him to wince.

He reached for whatever it was and found a plastic speaker no bigger than the palm of his hand laying there. "I really wish they'd stop saying that," he said.

"Hello?" she called, her voice sounding ten shades of scared shitless and on the verge of tears. "Someone please answer me!" She started pounding on a wall again, causing the sound to erupt around them.

"Seriously, would you please stop that for just a minute?" he asked. His question came out harsher than intended. His head pounded fiercely but his mind seemed to come out of its daze. Darkness surrounded them with a deep color that told him it wasn't natural. From what he'd gathered, it seemed they were both locked up inside a room of some sort. Maybe even a box. Memories started trickling in slowly but surely.

He was thankful he wasn't claustrophobic, but this still freaked him out a little more than expected. He needed to figure out where he was and how long it'd been since they'd been taken. Then he'd know just how fast they needed to work. He didn't know if the woman currently screaming her head off was in on this or had been placed with him to trick him.

First thing up, finding out who she was. "What's your name?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound soothing.

Not for nothing, he wanted to try to calm her down. She was obviously shaken over this ordeal and if they could put their heads together, perhaps they could figure a way out. Or he could sniff out an infiltrator.

Silence met his question, so after a few moments, he tried again. "Listen, I don't know what happened or why we're both in here, but we should work together to try to get out. Knowing your name might help."

"I recognized your voice almost immediately," came the soft, throaty response that rooted him to the spot. His mind scrambled to place the familiar sound.

"Look, sweetheart … there's not a whole lot that gets past me, but who you are is escaping me. I want to blame it on whatever happened before we got put in here, but I won't give that half-assed excuse. I simply don't know your voice. Sorry for that, too, because it sounds like a lovely voice," he finished in what he thought sounded nice but came off sounding lame.

Her low, disbelieving chuckle confirmed the latter.

He turned to her again. "That wasn't a line."

"That was totally a line."

"Fine," he gave in. "It was, but I meant every word."

He could have sworn he heard her snort.

"So you recognize my voice but still won't tell me your name?"

"I'm trying not to hyperventilate here. How can you be so calm?"

He shrugged, then realizing she couldn't see him said, "I'm freaked the fuck out, don't get me wrong. But panicking is going to get us nowhere, and I figure if we take in as much of our surroundings as we can, we might learn why we're here and who is behind it."

"Jesus. Definitely not the same Elijah I remember."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"No, it wasn't."

He thinned his lips, not liking how that made him sound. It wasn't like he was a saint his entire life, but who he was now and who he planned to be was the most important. "Help me out here, sweetheart. Let's work together."

"Don't call me that," snapped that sultry voice.

He sighed. Whoever lay next to him knew exactly who he was, and it drove him slightly frustrated that he couldn't say the same. She seemed to want to keep her identity a secret which led him to suspect they were most likely involved in putting him in this box or room. So they were part of the test … or game.

She shifted against him, her back pressing to his front, not to get closer but as if she were doing something else on her side.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Feeling around to see if there's a hinge or a key, a weapon. You said you wanted to take in our surroundings so that's what I'm doing."

"Good point." He felt above their heads, stretching into her body as she moved around. There was about a foot of free space before his hands hit what felt like a solid wall made of engineered wood. Same was at his back but he had no wiggle room there. He adjusted to his back and felt the air above them, was able to sit up slightly before his hands encountered the same.

"I think we're in a box of some sort," he said, fighting to push down a rising panic at the image that popped into his head.

Panting breaths sounded next to him. "Jesus," she said.

"Hey now." He lay down again. She had shifted slightly to her back and her shoulder dug into his chest, but despite the darkness surrounding them, he could feel and practically see her rising panic. "Breathe. We just need to think, and we'll find a way out."

"Someone will die before dawn."

Motherfucker.