Is… Is there an earthquake?

The ground is shaking.

My eyes snap open, only to stare straight at the stair steps below me.

I’m falling.

I flinch, waiting for impact that never comes.

I’m not falling.

I try to process my surroundings.

I’m at home, going down the stairs—no, being carried down the stairs.

“Hey!” I say as loud as I can, with a voice still hoarse with sleep.

“Hey, little sister,” Ray says, “it’s time for your trip.”

“Ray! Let me down!” I scream. My ass is up in the air, and my body is bent into two at the waist, where Ray carries my weight on his shoulder.

Where is he taking me?

“No way. I’m not taking any chances today. I’m getting you into Dr. Kent’s car, and then my job is done.” He holds my legs a little tighter as I start to struggle.

I flail my arms and kick my legs, but Ray doesn’t even stop to take a breath. For once in his life, he’s actually showing some determination—something I’ve always wished he’d have more of.

“I’ll miss you, honey,” Mom says, taking my hand in hers as we move awkwardly across the yard as a cluster.

“Mom, I don’t want to go. Tell Ray to stop this, Mom, please,” I beg, already at my last resort although it’s still dark outside—not a good sign for the rest of the day.

“Ray…” Mom lets her sentence hang in the air, unsure of what to do.

“Mom, I told you it’s for Jackie’s own good, okay?” Ray speaks like he’s addressing a toddler. “Remember summer camp? She didn’t want to go either, and at the end of it she didn’t want to leave. This is just like that.”

“It’s not, you psycho!” I yell at Ray. “I’m an adult now. You can’t force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“You should leave now. You’re going to wake the neighbors,” Ray says as he deposits me into the back seat of a black sedan.

“We’ll send your things in the mail when you get settled in your new place, honey.” Mom throws my shoulder bag into the car, and it lands next to me on the leather car seat.

It’s the bag I left in the living room last night. It would’ve come in handy last night, when I was locked up in my bedroom with no means to contact the outside world or even to entertain myself.

Ray slams the car door shut with a smug sneer. Mom waves at me with tears streaming down her cheeks as the car starts to drive away.

“Hey!” I call out to the driver. “Stop the car.”

He says nothing, but his flat cap bobs up and down, then all the doors lock simultaneously. He’s taking me, whether I let him or not.

“This is kidnapping!” I scream. “You’re taking me against my will! I can report you to the cops!” I take out my phone from the bag and hold it up. “I have a phone. I can call 911.”

“You don’t want to do that,” the driver says in a deep, muffled voice.

“Yeah?” I ask. “Well, maybe I’m sick of people telling me what to do.”

To be honest, I have no idea what I’d do even if he lets me go.

Dr. Kent has probably sent out a memo to other hospitals in the city and asked them to blacklist me. If I care about my career at all, my only choice is to go where he wants me to go.

I’ve lost the love of my life and everything seems grey. But I know I can crawl out of this hole and function eventually. I just need to fill my life with something else that matters to me… like my work.

Given these considerations, it’s probably not a good idea to reject the deal. I’d be losing both Gabe and my career.

It’s also not a good idea to pull on the door handle and fiddle with the lock, like I’m doing now.

“Careful now,” the driver says. “I don’t want you to fall out of the car and get a scar on your pretty face.”

“What the fuck makes you think you can talk to me like that?” I ask with the force of all the fury and outrage I’ve collected since yesterday.

“You don’t curse,” he says.

“Fuck. You.”

I cross my arms over my chest and lean back in my seat. I may not get anything out of this small act of rebellion, but I can’t just let them get away with this, even if the smartest thing to do would be to let go and move on.

The driver lets out a soft snort, which turns into a chuckle, which turns into a laugh. A familiar laugh.

My heart stops.

I lean forward over the center console between the two front seats, and take a good look at the driver.

My breath catches in my throat, and I raise my hands up to cover my mouth. “Gabe?”

“You don’t curse,” he repeats as his laughter dies down. “That was as unnatural as the time you pretended to be a smoker.”

“Why are you here?”

I can’t take my eyes off him. That shock of dark chestnut hair. Those eyes the color of deep forests, sharp and confident.

I didn’t think I’d see him again.

“To take you to the airport,” he says calmly.

His words punch me in the gut, forcing the breath out of me.

When I saw him, to be honest, a part of me was hoping he had regrets about what had happened yesterday and he wanted to fix things.

But of course that’s not what’s happening.

He’s angry at me for my deception, and I don’t blame him. I toyed with his heart, pretending to be a stranger, then my family blackmailed his dad again.

He probably thinks that I was in cahoots with my brother, that I was luring him into a trap the whole time.

He must hate me. And he probably doesn’t trust me anymore.

He doesn’t have to personally take me to the airport. But apparently he really wants to make sure I’m leaving and he can’t pass up the opportunity to mock me.

Even though I was the one who started this whole thing with Gabe, I can’t help but feel bitter about everyone else who’s benefiting from this arrangement.

I’m the only loser here.

Dr. Kent gets to keep his son in his hospital, which is what he’s always wanted—I’m pretty sure he would’ve been happy to shell out $100,000 to make that happen anyway.

Ray and Mom obviously get the money.

And Gabe gets to dump the lying girlfriend and send her all the way to the other side of the country.

Me? I get uprooted from my home and sent off to a city I’ve never even been to.

“You’re quiet today, angel,” he says. He doesn’t have to mock me by calling me that.

He said he’d stay by my side no matter what, and it was a lie.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

I just want this torture to be over. Maybe if I apologize, he’ll at least treat me nicely. Maybe we can still part as friends.

“For being quiet?” he asks.

Does he really need to make me spell it out?

I regret not apologizing right away at Dr. Kent’s office and running away just like that.

Yeah, I know this is a little late. But he knows damn well what I’m talking about.

I figure this is not the time to start a fight. Maybe I deserve this hell.

“For lying to you,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you from the start.”

“Yes, you should’ve,” Gabe says.

“I don’t have an excuse,” I admit. “But you should know I didn’t plan it or anything. I wanted to say hi to you as Jackie, but then you started looking at me like that, and talking to me like that… and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“You know what else you should’ve done?” Gabe asks, still in his eerily serene voice.

How can he be so calm when my world is about to end?

Doesn’t he care that we’ll probably never see each other again?

“No. Please tell me,” I say, giving into despair.

I guess I’ll just sit here and let him tell me what I’ve done wrong and how much he hates me.

“You should’ve picked up my calls last night. At least one of them,” Gabe says.

My jaw drops. “What?”

That’s not the answer I was expecting at all.

“You called me last night?” I light up my phone.

23 missed calls—I tap on the screen—and all of them were from Gabe.

“We could’ve avoided this if you’d answered my call last night,” Gabe says cryptically.

“Avoided ‘this’? What’s ‘this’?”

“This whole kidnapping thing,” he says.

“Because you think I wouldn’t have struggled so much after you’d talked to me?” I ask, taking offense at the suggestion that he can dictate what I do.

I mean, yes, I like to follow his orders in the bedroom. But outside of it? Things are a little different.

“No, because I could’ve picked you up last night instead,” Gabe says.

What?

“How is a mere change in pick-up time going to make things dramatically different?” I ask.

“Well, yes,” he says with a cocky raise of his eyebrow. “You would’ve had time to pack, and you wouldn’t have needed the lift from your brother. That didn’t look very comfortable.”

“What makes you think I’d leave voluntarily?” I challenge him.

“Because I know you. Because you’re mine.”

His words send a cruel chill down my spine. Does he really need to remind me of what we used to have and can never regain?

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why do you have to pretend like everything’s okay? Why do you have to call me ‘angel’ and say things like that to me?”

“Do you want a different pet name?” Gabe asks. “We can pick a different one. How about ‘akoma mu tɔfe’? That’s Twi—which is one of the languages they speak in Ghana—for sweetheart. Taken literally, it means ‘candy of the heart.’ I’ve always liked it.”

“What?” Again, Gabe’s answer knocks me off my balance. I was ready to be outraged, but his meandering musings about pet names confuse me.

The car stops. Without me even realizing it, we’ve reached the airport and Gabe has even parked the car.

He turns off the engine and twists to look at me from the gap between the two front seats. He hands me a piece of paper.

“That’s your ticket,” he says. “I still think it’s strange that airplane tickets are just printed pieces of paper now, but you’ve got to get with the times.”

He sounds almost cheerful. Is he so happy to see me go?

Slowly, I take the paper he’s offering.

Jacqueline Summers.

Destination: Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana.

I frown and meet Gabe’s gaze. He’s studying me, watching me for a reaction.

“I thought I was going to Chicago.” My voice comes out small and uncertain.

Is Dr. Kent screwing me over? Did he lie about the internship position in Chicago?

What the hell is going on?