She heard Chloe crying. Softly now, careful not to interrupt the freak from his task, she kept her gaze steady on his blocky body and the shadows he cast on the wall and tried again. This time, almost counterintuitively, she pulled her wrist closer to her naked back and upward toward her shoulders. It allowed her a range of movement, awkward though it was. She had trained as a gymnast in high school and also had double joints or hypermobility in her shoulders, elbows, and fingers—talents she assumed her abductor didn’t realize.

Still, it was hard work. But as she rotated her shoulders she felt the rope around her wrists give just a bit. She tried again, contorting, picking at the knot with her fingers. Noiselessly, knowing that time was running out, she gritted her teeth and kept picking.

Was it her imagination or did the rope move slightly?

Hope swelled. Heart thudding, she worked at the knots and remembered her capture. God, how could she have been so stupid to have been lured by him, to believe that her twin was in trouble?

She’d paid for her mistake, but she wasn’t going to docilely wait for whatever horror he meted out. No way! With an effort, she attempted to think clearly, to goddamned act despite the fear, deep and penetrating, cutting to her soul.

You have to get yourself free, Zoe. No one else is going to help you.

Silently, her jaw set, she picked at the huge knots in the semidarkness, working at the rope restraining her wrists, determined to break free.

Before it was too late. The clock on the wall counted off the seconds of her life.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

And still his sickening voice chanted the fateful song. “Happy birthday, dear twinsies,” he warbled tonelessly, then chuckled to himself, a freak to the core. Chloe’s sobbing continued, almost a countermelody to his grumbled refrain.

Shut up, Chloe! Don’t irritate him. He’s going to kill us, maybe torture and rape us first, so don’t hasten the process.

But her twin kept whimpering.

Zoe couldn’t see Chloe. She had tried, but the room was too dark; when she slid her gaze toward the sound of soft crying, she saw only a deep umbra.