THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

search the other.”
    “What’re we looking for?” she called back, surprising me when she jumped into action.   
    “A handle. A button. I don’t know–something. There’s got to be a lever to open a hatch on this thing.” 
    Tony dropped his hands and shouted, “Oh, come on, you two. Maybe whatever sent us here is sending us back. Ever think of that?”
    Gabby yelled back, “If you’re not going to help us, I’d say it’s been nice knowing you, but I’d hate to die with a lie like that on my conscience.”  She swiped her hands back and forth frantically over the metal faster and faster. “That smell’s getting worse and it feels...hostile.”
    The hairs were already standing up on my arms from the same thought.
    “What smell?”  Tony demanded, but his voice sounded shaky. “Hostile? You tryin’ to pull more woo-woo crap? Tryin’ to scare me? Won’t work.” 
    I don’t know who he was trying to convince, but I heard the truth beneath his words. Jersey Jerk was scared.
    Deep down scared.
    Gabby coughed, but she’d started pounding the metal wall on her side of the container, working her way back closer to me.
    I whirled around to Tony. “That.” I pointed to the pulsing blood-red light, now beating like a heart on overdrive. “Is going to kill us if we don’t get out of here. Now.”
    “A light’s gonna kill us? You on crack? Tell ya what. You two do the woo-woo thing and I’ll use the computer in my phone.”
    Giving up, I turned back to the wall. Missing something. But what? Think .
    I came up blank. Too many holes in my memory. All I could do was pound palm then fist against the wall. A flat, smooth wall that was heating up. Not good. Not good at all.
    “I got it,” Gabby said, excited, stopping to push flyaway hairs from her face. “Maybe we have to do what we did with the computer.”
    “Meaning?”
    “The two of us,” she nodded at Tony, who was busy punching his smart phone and cursing when nothing happened. “We need to touch you. Maybe that will make the door open?”
    Tony paused. “Forget about that. I hold hands with girls I date, not two loonies tryin’ to get me killed.” He jammed the phone back in his pocket.
    This wasn’t getting us anywhere.
    The whine of machinery reached crescendo pitch. Nothing to lose.
    “Let’s try it,” I shouted over the screeching metal.
    Gabby moved past Tony where he stood close to the arched panel and stopped next to me. I latched my hand onto Gabby’s wrist, feeling static vibration beneath her skin even through her sleeve. 
    I picked up terror, but determination, too.
    She actually growled a sound of frustration and lurched for Tony’s arm. The look on his face said he couldn’t decide whether to pull away or not, but he didn’t.
    Nothing happened.
    “Great,” Tony snapped in my direction. “What now?”
    I was fresh out of ideas. And time.
    A whirring scream split the room, tearing my brain apart, making all of us double over.
    “ Don’t let go! ” I shouted, even as I wanted to jam both hands over my ears. “Think!”
    Tony shouted, “ Think? That’s all you’ve got? Think.”
    If we did get out of this room, I was going to shut him up even if it meant using my foot to plug that yapping hole.
    But right now I had nothing more than what Gabby suggested. I yelled, “Think getting out. Open. Something!”
    The room started rocking, gyrating with the three of us.
    Gabby tightened her grip. “Open up. Open sesame,” she shouted. “Time to go. Beam me up, Scotty.”
    Tony grumbled something unintelligible.
    I lowered my head, blocking out as much as I could of Gabby’s terror and Tony’s lack of faith, the stench, the vibrations. Out. Gotta get out.
    I leaned my entire body against the closed doorway, tugging Gabby and Tony toward it at the same time. Lights flashed wildly and the noise hit ear-bleeding level.
    We were going to die.
    All at once, energy burst inside my chest.
    The walls shimmered around us.
    Then an opening appeared as all three of us tumbled face forward into the purple light.
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    I lay sprawled on my back on shin-deep grass in a wide-open space...if this was really grass. At least it was softer than desert dirt. My fingers found a blade and tugged. It stretched. The rubbery stuff was an odd mix of brown and aqua with bumpy yellow specks. I inhaled a big lungful of warm, moist air, waiting for my racing heart to quiet.
    That might not happen any time soon with me