“Charlie?”

She slowly lowers her hand away from her mouth. “My name is Charlie?” she asks.

I nod. The terrified expression on her face slowly transforms into relief. She steps forward and throws her arms around my neck, pressing her face against my chest. Sobs begin to rack her body now.

“We need to leave,” she says through her tears. “We have to get out of here before they find me.”

Find her?

I wrap my arms around her long enough to hug her, and then I take her hand and we run toward the gate. When Landon sees Charlie, he rushes to the gate and begins to shake the locks. He tries to find a way to get us out so she doesn’t have to climb over, but he can’t.

“Use my car,” I tell him. “Bend the gate. We have to hurry.”

He looks back at my car and then again at me. “You want me to break open the gate? Silas, that car is your baby.”

“I don’t give a shit about the car!” I yell. “We need out!”

He acts fast, running straight to the car. As he climbs inside, he yells, “Get out of the way!” He puts the car in reverse and backs up, then slams on the gas.

The sound of iron on metal isn’t nearly as loud as the sound my heart makes seeing the car being torn to shreds. At least I wasn’t that attached to it. I’ve only known it less than two days.

He has to back up and drive forward two more times to bend the iron enough for Charlie and me to slip through. Once we’re on the other side of the gate, I open the back door to Landon’s car and help her inside.

“Just leave my car here,” I tell him. “We can worry about it later.”

When we’re all in the car and finally heading away from the house, Landon picks up his cell phone. “I’ll call Dad and tell him you found her so he can notify the police.”

I grab the cell phone from his hands. “No. No police.”

He slams his hand against the steering wheel in frustration. “Silas, you have to tell them she’s okay! This is ridiculous. You’re both being completely ridiculous with this.”

I turn in my seat and stare at him pointedly. “Landon, you have to believe me. Charlie and I are going to forget everything we know in a little over twelve hours from now. I have to get her to a hotel so I can explain everything to her, and then I need time to make notes. If we notify the police, they might split us up for questioning. I need to be with her when this happens again. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but you’re my brother and I need you to do this for me.”

He doesn’t respond to my request. We’re at the end of the road now, and I can see the roll of his throat as he swallows, trying to decide whether to turn left or right.

“Please,” I ask him. “I just need until tomorrow.”

He releases a pent-up breath and then turns right—the opposite direction from our homes. I breathe a sigh of relief. “I owe you one.”

“More like a million,” he mutters.

I look in the back seat at Charlie, and she’s staring at me, obviously terrified by what she’s hearing.

“What do you mean this will happen again tomorrow?” she asks, her voice trembling.

I crawl into the back seat with her and pull her to me. She melts against my chest, and I can feel her heart racing against mine. “I’ll explain everything at the hotel.”

She nods, and then, “Did he call you Silas? Is that your name?”

Her voice is raspy, like she’s screamed herself hoarse. I don’t even want to think about what she’s been through since yesterday.

“Yeah,” I tell her, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. “Silas Nash.”

“Silas,” she says softly. “I’ve been wondering what your name was since yesterday.”

I immediately stiffen and look down at her. “What do you mean you’ve been wondering? How do you remember me?”

“I dreamt about you.”

She dreamt about me.

I pull my short list of notes from my pocket and ask Landon for a pen. He pulls one out of his console and hands it to me. I make a note about the dreams and how Charlie knew me without having memory of me. I also note that my own dream about her felt more like a memory. Could our dreams be clues to our past?

Charlie watches me as I write down everything that has transpired in the last hour. She never questions me, though. I fold the paper up and slide it back into my pocket.

“So what’s the deal with us?” she asks. “Are we like…in love and shit?”

I laugh out loud for the first time since yesterday morning. “Yeah,” I say, still laughing. “Apparently I’ve been in love and shit with you for eighteen years now.”

I told Landon to come to our hotel room at eleven thirty tomorrow morning. If this happens again, we’ll need time to adjust and read the notes to get acclimated to our situation. He was hesitant, but he finally agreed. He said he would tell Dad he’s been out looking for us all day with no luck.

I feel bad for making people worry until tomorrow, but I’m not about to put myself in a situation where I let her out of my sight again. Hell, I wouldn’t even let her shut the door when she said she wanted to take a shower. A warm shower, she clarified.

When we got to the hotel, I told her everything I knew. Which, once I laid it all out, didn’t seem like much.

She told me what had happened to her since yesterday morning. I’m relieved it was nothing too serious, but disturbed that they were holding her in the basement. Why would The Shrimp and her mother be keeping Charlie against her will? The woman was obviously trying to mislead me yesterday when she told said, “The answers to your questions lie with someone who is very close to you.”