Preface
His touch burned my soul, and it remembered.
I searched my mind. It remembered nothing.
He knew he loved her the first moment he laid eyes on her,
but his soul…ah, his soul remembered the love of an eternity.
Darcey’s head throbbed, and her mouth was full of cotton balls.
I know this feeling, she thought, trying to work through the fog swirling her mind. I’ve felt it before. I’ve been drugged. Lilly drugged me, but why? How? Then it came to her—the pastries!
She rubbed her temples, and her arm hit something. It was a shuttle seat. She was lying on the floor of a shuttle. Using the seat for leverage, she tried to sit up and managed to look out the side of the shuttle. She didn’t recognize the place. It looked as though it was still under construction. Large stacks of drywall and other building supplies lined the walls.
This must be one of the residential areas still under construction.
Darcey turned and carefully peered over the back of the seat. Across the way was a room that resembled the operations room, only on a smaller scale. Inside, Lilly frantically flipped switches and pushed buttons. Darcey could tell Lilly didn’t have a clue about what she was doing.
Panic began to set in. I have to get out of here. Now!
She scooted out of the shuttle onto the concrete floor from the side away from the room. Crawling on her hands and knees to the back of the shuttle, she looked desperately for some way out. A short distance from the vehicle, she saw an open doorway. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Lilly still working on the control panel. Darcy looked back at the open doorway tentatively.
There was no cover between the shuttle and the doorway. Could she run fast enough? She still felt groggy. However, if she waited until her head stopped spinning, it might be too late.
I’m going to chance it.
Moving cautiously on her hands and knees, she inched out from behind the shuttle. She glanced back. Lilly still had her back to the windows that gave an unobstructed view of the unfinished space where Darcey was going to run through. Darcey moved out a little farther, inched herself up into a bent over position, and gave one last look at Lilly before she sprinted through the doorway. Once in the corridor, she ran as hard and as fast as she could, hoping she was going in the direction of the closest connecting corridor.
She found the connecting corridor and looked for directional signs on the wall—there were none. She guessed that she was in the center ring but had no idea which way led to the outer ring or the connecting tunnel to the main dome. She took a deep breath and ran as fast as she could, hoping she had chosen correctly.
