“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.