THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

back?”
    I glanced over my shoulder, keeping an eye on both of them while I kept touching the metal, hoping to find some release mechanism. Tony pulled himself quickly to his feet then braced his hands on his knees. “Think I’m gonna puke.”
    Gabby shuddered. “Eew. Just kill me now if you do.”
    Tony put his hand on the wall and groaned.
    I might have chuckled at seeing the loudmouth brought low if I weren’t so concerned about where we were and how in the world we’d ended up here. The last thing I remembered was Gabby sticking my hand on that laptop monitor...no, in the monitor.
    Gabby unfolded her arms and shifted from the floor to her knees to a standing position, her face pale in the pulsing red haze. But she shook herself, as if preparing for whatever she had to face, and straightened her spine. She stepped up next to me. “Got any idea where we are?”
    “No.”  There had to be a lever or button somewhere to open a door or hatch.
    “Either of you ever see anything like this before?” Gabby asked louder but calmly, even though I caught the way she clenched her fingers.
    Tony grumbled, “No.”
    I admitted, “I don’t know.”
    “What kinda answer is that?”  Tony’s bravado returned in full force. “Either you’ve seen somethin’ like this before or not. It’s a yes or no question.”
    “I said I didn’t know.” I turned back to patting the wall, urgency driving me. Not sure why. The smell? The buzz?
    “Look, Sacagawea, now’s not the time to be cryptic.” Tony stood and stepped toward me, his chin up, his whole attitude set for a fight.
    “ Now’s a good time to give it a rest,” Gabby interceded in an even tone, but sounding much more serious than she had before. She angled her head, staring at me as if she tried to reach inside me to get an answer her own way.
    If she could dig something out of my mind that’d help, I was all for it. But she just shrugged.
    Tony argued, “No, I won’t give it a rest. We’re here because of her.”
    “Not really,” Gabby corrected. “ I put her hand on the monitor and I saw you grab her arm, so that would seem to implicate all of us equally, don’t you think?” 
    Tony wouldn’t relent, studying me as if he couldn’t decide what to think. “Whatcha mean when you say you can’t remember, Sacagawea?”
    Why play with words or avoid the obvious at this point? Besides, Nicholas had probably already told the Browns about my head injury so how could it matter if these two knew?
    “I’m saying my mind’s a black hole.”  My voice burned dark with frustration crowding my throat. I slammed one hand against the metal. For all the good that did. But we couldn’t just keep on standing here. Waiting for whatever had caused that smell to return.
    My skin chilled at the idea of being trapped in here. I knew on some primal level that we had to escape. Now.
    “Like amnesia ?” Gabby asked, her tone too bright in the face of Tony’s incredulity. “How fabulous. That means you get to start over, clean slate. Make your life whatever you want.”
    Just when I thought I had an ally I could depend upon...
    I faced her. “Yeah. Just like amnesia, but I’d rather have my original life back than a new one.”
    “Oh, in that case I’ll help you hunt for it,” she offered as if we were looking for a lost shoe. The red flashing light looked different in her green eye than it did in her brown eye.
    “You can’t have amnesia,” Tony scoffed, getting his teeth behind his words. “We just got here. No way could you–”
    “I’m saying I had amnesia back at the other place. The school. Nothing’s changed here.” Except for my sense that staying trapped in this space could be dangerous. “Look, we’ll talk about that more when we have time. For now we’ve got to get moving.”
    “Why?” Tony asked, oblivious to the red pulsing light that kept increasing in intensity. He held up his hand and huffed out a hard breath as if trying to be reasonable. “Let’s use logic. If this thing we’re in brought us here, wherever here is, then it should take us back, right?”  
    He had a point, but the metallic hum chose that moment to grow into a low whine that picked up in volume. What was happening?
    Tony covered his ears. “That’s frickin’ awful.”
    “Still want to stay in here, Jersey?” Gabby called to him.
    I had to yell even louder over the screech. “Help me find a way out. Gabby, you search this side of the room and I’ll