“Breathe.”
I did, and then everything came into focus.
He lifted me up, and I fell into him, not able to resist anymore. As long as we were walking away from the helicopter...
Just thinking of the word made my muscles tense. I started to breathe shallowly again, and this sent a fresh wave of sparkling stars across my vision. I didn’t want to faint, so I did my best to fight the panic that was gripping me.
Shadows, patches of sun, more shadows. The sound of tropical birds.
I was being set down. It was cooler where I was.
His hands were on my forehead, his fingers at my wrist, taking my pulse?
My eyes flew open.
The sight of his face, of his blue eyes, the stern expression that showed concern at that moment, probably should not have made me feel any better. After all, it was this guy who had caused every single one of my problems lately.
And yet I did feel better.
“Breathe slowly,” he was saying, calmly and tenderly.
So I did, and my sanity returned.
I sat up. “Where the hell are we?” I demanded.
We were a long way from Kansas, that much was for sure. I was on a couch, in a very expensive living room—I could tell by the wood, the walls, and the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a huge relief to see real sunlight, and the real outdoors, after being cooped up in the very plush but blacked-out last place, where all the windows had been fogged.
In parts of the room, though, the huge windows had been slid open, and a distinctly salty breeze was billowing light white curtains into the room over the patterned wood floor. And beyond them, the enormous blue sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds, blending into a sea of white-capped waves. That was all I could see because a jungle of tropical trees and wildly colored flowers cut off the rest of the view.
“I forgot,” he said absently, following my gaze out the window.
“You forgot where we are?” I retorted.
He looked back at me, and I noticed that his hand was on my knee, and suddenly it was all I could pay attention to. “We’re on an island in the Pacific.”
I stared at him.
“What did you forget? What island? What is the—”
“Natalia,” he said, shaking his head, cutting me off. “You talk too much. You ask too many questions. You’ve had a shock. I apologize for that. Rest here and I’ll bring you something to drink.”
He rose, and without looking back, disappeared into the house.
“What the...?” I spat.
My instinct to do something about my situation took over, even if I didn’t know exactly what that was. Island in the Pacific? Like, Hawaii, or what?
I stood up, glanced around, and ran for the open door. No problem there. There was a smooth white stone path leading into the jungle of plants and trees. I followed it, walking fast, not sure if there was any point to making a run for it, not even sure that I wanted to.
The dense shrubbery opened up suddenly, and a large, wide porch with an elegant railing spread out in front of me, offering a view of a rocky cliff tumbling into a cerulean ocean.
In every direction.
I ran to the balcony. Far below, at the very edge of the rocks in a small cove, a horseshoe of white sand sank very slowly into the water. It was like a postcard. A single wooden building marred the beach, and a small boat bobbed in the water near the mouth of the cove.
The ocean spread out everywhere beyond.
I looked to the right and left—a stairway descended into the rocks to the right. It, too, was made of smooth white stone. To the left, another stairway spiraled up and behind me, curving around and rejoining a gleaming white and glass house, more of the huge windows looking out in layer after layer, built into the rock, tropical plants clinging to it in patches.
