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Chapter 7

  ‘What – what’s going on?’ That’s what I asked the doctor and nurse – both wearing full surgery gowns, including masks – who showed up in what seemed to be the middle of the night to shake me awake, then transfer me from my bed to a hospital wheeled stretcher. ‘Shh,’ said the nurse, pointing at my mom, dozing in the chair next to my bed. ‘Don’t wake her up. She’s exhausted. ’ ‘But where are we going?’ I asked, stiffly rolling from my bed to the stretcher. ‘Just to do some tests,’ the doctor whispered. ‘In the middle of the night?’ I asked groggily ‘Can’t they wait until morning?’ ‘These are very important tests,’ the nurse said. ‘They can’t wait. ’ ‘OK,’ I said, sinking down against the thin mattress. As usual, I was so tired. I was dimly aware that they were wheeling me down a long, empty hospital corridor. But they could have been rolling me down the middle of Times Square and I wouldn’t have known the difference, that’s how sleepy I was. ‘How we doing?’ the doctor asked when he stopped the stretcher to push the button to an elevator, way down at the end of the hall, about a thousand miles, it seemed, from my room. ‘Fine,’ I murmured, at the same time that the nurse pulled her mask down to say, ‘Looks good so far. There was no one even sitting at the nurses’ station. The whole floor is empty. I think we’re going to make it. ’ That’s when I got my first good look at her. And I realized she wasn’t a nurse at all. ‘Hey,’ I said, feeling suddenly wide awake. I leaned up on my elbows. And, my head didn’t feel at all throbby any more. ‘You’re –’ The elevator doors chose that moment to slide open. ‘Go!’ Lulu Collins yelled at the guy in the surgical mask. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I demanded as the two of them rammed my hospital stretcher into the elevator. ‘We’re kidnapping you,’ Lulu explained, stabbing the button marked B for basement. ‘But it’s all right. It’s us, Nik. Me and Brandon. Show her, Brandon. ’ And the doctor – although I guess that’s not who he was after all – peeled off his surgical mask and looked down at me. ‘It’s me, Nik,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Brandon. See? Everything’s going to be all right. We came to rescue you. ’ ‘Rescue –’ I blinked right back at him. He was young, blond and impossibly handsome. And clearly completely insane. ‘I think there’s been a really big mistake,’ I said. Was I hallucinating again? Except that I couldn’t be. Because hallucinations were never this detailed, were they? I could hear each ping of the elevator as it went down. And I could smell Lulu’s fruity perfume (or maybe that was her gum). And I could see that Brandon was sprouting a pretty serious case of five o’clock – in this case, five o’clock in the morning – blond shadow along his jaw. It wasn’t until we emerged from the elevator into the hospital’s underground garage, and my captors wheeled me towards a limo – yes. A limo. Black stretch – that I realized just how dire the situation really was. Because there wasn’t even anyone around to hear me if I screamed for help. The place was echoingly empty. That’s when Lulu turned to Brandon and said, ‘She’s not going to get in willingly. She still has no idea who we are. ’And he gave a sigh, turned around and swiftly yanked me off the stretcher and over his shoulder. Now, I may have just spent a month in a coma or whatever. But I wasn’t about to let myself get kidnapped by a celebutante and her FFBF henchman. I sucked in my breath and let out a shriek that I swear had to have been heard halfway to New Jersey – – if there’d been anybody around to hear it, that is. There wasn’t. Brandon stuffed me, kicking and biting any part of him with which I came into contact, into the rear seat of the limo, then settled into the seat opposite mine and sat there looking hurt. And not just physically. ‘Jesus, Nikki,’ he said, as Lulu jumped in beside him and yelled at the chauffeur to go . . . ‘It’s me. Brandon! You know me. We’re going out!’ And the thing of it was . . . I kind of did recognize him. Seriously. From some of Frida’s magazines. It was Brandon Stark – as in Stark Megastores. Brandon Stark as in the Brandon Stark, Nikki Howard’s on-again, off-again album-producing boyfriend. Brandon Stark as in heir to the Stark family fortune . . . which one magazine of Frida’s put at a net worth of like a billion dollars or something. Which pretty much makes him the richest person I’ve ever met. But that still didn’t mean it was OK for him to grab me and then stuff me in a limo like that. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I demanded of both him and Lulu. ‘Can’t you see I’m sick?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Lulu said, pulling off her surgical gown and mask. I could see that, underneath it, her make-up and skintight black catsuit were still perfectly in place. ‘It’s just that we couldn’t think of any other way to get you out of there. I mean, seeing as how they’re brainwashing you. ’ ‘No one is brainwashing me,’ I cried. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t even know you!’ This was the wrong thing to say. Lulu and Brandon exchanged glances. ‘See what I mean?’ she asked him under her breath. Brandon, meanwhile – all six-foot four or five of him – gaped down at me. He was so good-looking, in a frat-boy way – sort of like Jason Klein, Whitney’s boyfriend. He had a big square jaw and blond hair that hung a little bit into his green eyes . . . but maybe that was just because he was still partially wearing the surgical mask on top of his head. ‘Nikki . . . what did they do to you?’ ‘Yeah,’ I complained. ‘That’s the other thing. Why do you people keep calling me Nikki?’ ‘Oh God. ’ Lulu dropped her head into her hands, while Brandon just stared at me as if I’d asked him why carbon-based life forms need to breathe oxygen. The limo driver turned his head and asked calmly, ‘Back to Ms Howard’s loft, Mr Stark?’ Lulu lifted her head to say, ‘Oh God, yes. ’ She looked over at Brandon, slumped beside her. ‘Maybe if she sees something familiar . . . ’ ‘Yeah, to the loft, Tom,’ Brandon said in a dejected voice. ‘You guys can’t do this,’ I said, trying to stay calm. Which wasn’t easy, considering everything that was going on. I mean, that I had just been kidnapped. In a hospital gown, no less. I didn’t even have any shoes on. So it wasn’t like I could throw myself at the car door and bail. ‘Nikki,’ Lulu said in a patient voice. ‘We’re doing this for you. Because we love you. Whatever they’ve told you . . . it’s a lie. All right? We’re your friends. ’ ‘I’m more than your friend,’ Brandon said, coming to sit beside me. A little too close to me, actually. Why was he . . . looking at me like that? The neon lights from the signs on the buildings we were driving past along Second Avenue flickered across his face, turning it from pink to blue to green and then back again. ‘I’m your boyfriend. How can you not remember me?’ I had to hand it to him . . . he sounded genuinely upset. He wasn’t faking it. His deep voice broke on the word boyfriend, and everything. It was almost moving. Or at least, it would have been, if I hadn’t been convinced the two of them were completely off their rockers. ‘If you guys make this limo turn round,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking (yeah. Good luck with that), ‘and take me back to the hospital, I promise I won’t press kidnapping charges. No one will have to know. Just drop me off and I’ll never mention it again. ’ ‘Kidnapping?’ Brandon looked stunned. ‘We aren’t kidnapping you!’ ‘Yes, we are, actually,’ Lulu said to him. She’d dug an energy drink from the limo’s mini-fridge and was gulping from it. ‘I mean, that’s what this is, really. Only I prefer the term intervention. ’ ‘How can she not know who we are?’ Brandon asked her. ‘Who she is?’ Lulu shook her head. ‘I told her to stay away from those Scientologists . . . ’ I took a deep breath, still fighting for calm. ‘I don’t know what the two of you are talking about, but I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. My name is Emerson Watts. My parents – who are going to be very upset when they find out I’m missing from my hospital room, by the way – are Daniel Watts and Karen Rosenthal-Watts. I don’t know why you guys seem to think I’m Nikki – Howard, I presume. Because I’m not. ’ The two of them blinked at me with a lack of comprehension that was, to say the least, absolute. Their gazes were as blank as Frida’s always got when I was trying to explain the finer points of role-play gaming to her.
But I’d never let that stop me before, and I wasn’t about to now either. ‘Up until very recently,’ I went on, ‘I was an eleventh-grader at Tribeca Alternative High School. Then about a month ago, I was . . . I don’t know. In an accident of some kind. I’m not real clear about the details, actually. But when I woke up, I was in the hospital you just kidnapped me from. Which I would like to go back to. Now. ’ My voice rose a little hysterically on the word now. But overall I managed to deliver that speech with a reasonable amount of composure. Certainly more than I actually felt, considering I was being held in a limo against my will by a couple of teenaged socialites. Also, I noticed no one had offered me an energy drink. And I was really thirsty. ‘My God,’ was all Brandon said about my speech. And he sort of let that slip out like he hadn’t wanted it to. ‘I know,’ Lulu said, not taking her completely blank gaze off me. ‘It’ll be all right when we get her home. When she sees her stuff she’ll be fine. I mean, look at that dress. You know she’d never be caught dead in a dress like that if she was in her right mind. ’ That’s when I realized she was referring to my hospital gown. As a dress. ‘That’s it,’ I said. I turned in my seat and spoke directly to Tom, the limo driver. ‘Pull over and let me out, or you’ll be joining these two in jail for unlawful imprisonment. ’ To my surprise, the limo stopped. But only, it turned out, because we’d reached our destination. ‘Sorry, Ms Howard,’ the limo driver said, sounding like he meant it. ‘Just following orders. ’ Why does everyone keep calling me that?’ I practically shrieked. ‘Calling you what, ma’am?’ Tom wanted to know. ‘Ms Howard,’ I hissed. And Nikki. ’ ‘Well,’ Tom said, looking uncomfortable, ‘maybe because that’s your name, ma’am?’ ‘I told you people,’ I said, still addressing the limo driver. ‘My name is Emerson Watts. I’m not Nikki Howard. ’ ‘Um, actually, ma’am,’ he said, turning the rear-view mirror in my direction, ‘you are. ’ And I raised my gaze. And screamed.