Chapter One

ELEIRA

I wake up with a jolt. Alarm rips through my body. Where am I? This isn’t my Stanford dorm…

I try to push myself up. My muscles are slow to respond. Everything feels like it’s part of a dream. My mind is awake, but my entire body is fuzzy.

I definitely know I’m not at home.

I crane my head up. There’s a sharp pain in the side of my neck. I bring my hand to it and wince when I feel a nasty bump.

My fingers run along my skin. The bump is about half the size of a golf ball.

A shiver of fear takes me. What on earth is going on?

The cloudiness in my mind starts to part. I’m on a cold, metal floor in the middle of a circular room.

I groan as I push myself upright. I manage to sit up, but my body still doesn’t feel like my own.

What’s been done to me?

I take a slow look around. It takes me a second to understand that all the surrounding walls are glass. They arc up into a dome, with its center right above my head.

An atrium? A greenhouse? I have no idea…

I put both hands on my neck and roll my head from side to side. The bump is only on one side. It’s sensitive. The muscles running up to my jaw are stiff. I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to work out the tension.

That helps a little. There’s a pervading chill in the air that’s made worse by the metal floor that steals my warmth. I’d try to stand, but I’m not sure my legs would support me.

“Hello?” I call. My voice sounds pathetically weak to my ears. I clear my throat and try again.

“Hello!”

The sound echoes around the room before fading away. The silence that follows mocks me.

I grumble as I look at my body. I’m wearing the same clothes I wore to class yesterday. But there’s a stickiness to my skin, a feeling of filth, and it makes me think that more than a single day has passed.

I screw my eyes shut and try to remember. I’d just managed to get through an exhausting week of class. Midterms were coming up, and like the rest of my friends, I retreated to a private room in the library to study. And then —

A flash of red pulses through my mind. I gasp. My eyes pop open.

Just like that, the memory is gone.

I have no idea what happened after I opened my books.

Come on, Eleira, I scold myself. Think! It’s not like you to be helpless!

But try as I will, nothing comes to mind.

“Hello?” I try again. “Is anybody there? Where am I?”

Once more, the only answer is silence.

With a grunted effort I haul myself to my feet. The moment I do, a wave of light-headedness hits. I sway and my vision goes white.

The fit passes. But I’m not left unaffected. That’s never happened to me before.

Again my hand goes for my neck. I trace the strange bump and wonder what it is.

I catch my reflection in the far glass wall. I hesitate, then inch toward it slowly, trying to ensure the next step won’t send me lurching to the floor.

When I’m less than a foot away, I feel an odd tug on my ankle. I look down and suck in a sharp breath.

There’s a silver string stretching to me from the center of the room. It’s attached to an anklet fit snugly around my leg.

I bend down and try to rip it off. It’s no good. The string is extremely thin, almost invisible, but it’s as strong as fishing line. There’s no clasp that I can see, and no way I can get it off.

Bizarre.

The window forgotten for now, I walk back to where I woke up. There’s a tiny compartment in the floor that I’d overlooked. As I come closer, it reels the string in. When I walk away, it lets it back out — but no farther than the wall.

A surge of panic threatens to take over as the implications sink in: I’m a prisoner!

My breathing starts to quicken. I feel the panic rising. My heart beats faster and faster…

I close my eyes and force myself to adopt a sense of calm. There’s no point jumping to conclusions. Especially this soon. For all I know this could be some elaborate prank orchestrated by one of the sororities I wanted to pledge…

But that doesn’t feel quite right. Still, it’s the only assurance I can give myself at this point.

I open my eyes, and once my body is no longer shaking, I return to the glass wall.

It’s pitch black outside. That’s the only reason I can see my reflection. The light in the room comes from lamps embedded in the floor.

Keeping my tied foot back, I step forward and lean into the window. I cup my hands in front of my eyes. I think I can make out the barest hint of stars up in the sky. But it might just be my imagination, or my mind grappling for a hint of normalcy about this place. Otherwise, the night is unnaturally dark.

The sound of metal sliding against metal makes me jerk around.

There, on the other side of the room, two of the window panes have come open. A tall man with jet black hair and sharp, predatory eyes stands in the entrance.

“Hello, my darling,” he says in a slow drawl. “Did you miss me?”

And then, without warning, he launches himself at me.