Dangerous Designs Read online

CHAPTER THREE

  And landed in complete nothingness.

  Storey's knees buckled. She pitched forward, barely catching her balance, and froze. What just happened? Suffocating blackness surrounded her. No bed, no lamp, no floor even. No glimpse of the moon or the rising sun peeked through in any direction. Looking up, she searched for the broken planks of her floor or ceiling tiles from the basement. Something to prove she'd fallen through the bedroom floor.

  There was nothing.

  "Hello?" Silence. The first stirrings of panic slipped down her spine. Taking a deep breath, she struggled to stay calm, to understand. There was no easing of the unrelenting darkness in any direction. Somehow, she'd ended in a pitch black empty hole.

  Her bedroom had disappeared. And this space had appeared. Her stomach threatened to spill its contents, bile climbed her throat. Her imagination couldn't help jumping from one wild scenario to the next, each worse than the one before. From thinking she'd fallen through the basement, to being caught between the floors - like, could you go in-between? She even considered she might have tripped and fallen into a hidden store room. That aliens might have abducted her wasn't even going to be considered.

  This couldn't be happening.

  Yet it had.

  She swallowed. Then swallowed again. Closing her eyes for a moment, she struggled to remember what she'd done. The last thing she remembered was throwing that stupid picture on the floor and jumping on it. On it? On the door? Therefore on the doorway. In the door? And through it?

  Her eyelids popped open.

  Could she have jumped through a picture of a door as if it were a real door? She shook her head as her mind stretched and reached an impossible conclusion.

  And if she had...where was she now? Where did that lead?

  Wherever the hell she was, she'd damned well better find a way out. Once her eyes adjusted to the all-encompassing darkness, she reached out, her arms wide, hoping to find something solid. Her fingers twitched as her mind filled with thoughts of the many unpleasant things she could encounter. Spiders being the number one yucky critter in her world.

  Nothing. She'd entered a space where she alone existed. Panic brought the acid in her stomach bubbling back up. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. She brightened. Or maybe when she jumped on the sketchbook, she'd fallen and hit her head. Maybe she had a concussion? That had to be it. Eagerly she checked her head for blood, at minimum some tenderness.

  Her skull was as thick-headed as she was. Storey groaned. "Please, someone," she cried out. "Is anyone out there?"

  Eerie echoes went on forever.

  Shuddering, the blackness threatened to suffocate her. She bent over and breathed once, twice, three times until the rapids in her stomach calmed down. As she stared down where her feet should be, it hit her. The floor was solid. Stomping to prove it, she crouched down to touch the surface. Hard cold wood or maybe even tile supported her. It gave her hope.

  Someone had built it. That meant people. Somewhere.

  She had to have fallen into a storage space or something, a closet even. Okay, that would mean one huge-ass closet, but it was possible. She took one deliberate step. She stretched her arms forward. Still nothing. Bending down, she touched the ground and crabbed forward, her hands making sure there was something for her to stand on before taking the next step.

  She continued for another ten steps. And stood up.

  Was the darkness less cloying? She sniffed the air. Still bad, musty. She put out her hands again - still nothing. Fisting her hands on her hips, she stood contemplating the situation. What a piss off.

  Where the hell was she? And as much as she'd like to understand how she'd gotten here, the priority was getting out.

  And fast.