She shoved herself to her elbow, lifted a finger to her eye, and recoiled when it contacted her eyeball. A chill broke over her head and she threw her arms out. They collided with cold stone. Or cement.

She was in a dark cement room—a holding cell. She must have been thrown here after the dart.

Sherry turned and extended an arm, afraid it would contact another wall. But it swished harmlessly through the stuffy air. She leaned forward and it touched the opposite wall. Five feet.

She was in a holding cell. Blacker than tar. It all came crashing in on her like a wave hitting the beach. In that instant Sherry became a girl again, trapped in her father’s box with no way out.

Panic surged through her mind. She whirled about, whimpering, lurching in all directions, feeling the air and cold cement surfaces. The whimper rose to a wail and she fought to her knees, shaking.

Oh, God, please!

The blackness felt like syrup over her face. A heavy, suffocating syrup. Waves of dread slammed into her mind, and she thought that she might be dying. Again. Dying again like she had in the box.

Her wail changed into a dreadful moan that lingered on and on. She knelt there in the dark, moaning, crumbling, dying.

Oh, God, please, I’ll do anything.

She suddenly froze. Maybe this wasn’t a cell! It could be a dream. One of her recurring nightmares. That had to be it! And if she just opened her eyes, it would all be gone.

But her eyes were already open, weren’t they?

Sherry pulled her legs up and hugged them. An ache filled her throat. “Oh, God, please.”

Her words whispered in the small chamber. She bobbed back and forth, groaning. “Please, God . . .”

Are you ready to die, Sherry?

The father’s words rolled through her mind, and she answered quickly, “No.” Then rocking, feeling the terror freeze her bones, she suddenly wished for death to come. She swallowed again. “Yes.”

But she didn’t die. For an hour she sat trembling and rocking in the cold, damp space, mumbling, “Please, God.” She had no idea what lay above her. She had no desire to find out. Her body had shut down except for this rocking.

It occurred to her through the fog that she had come full circle. Eight years ago she had been trapped like this. She had made a vow, and now God was testing her resolve. She was in the black belly of a whale and the vision was her acid.

Will you die for him, Sherry?

For who?

The light lit her mind abruptly, without warning, while she was still rocking. Her first thought was that a strobe light had been dropped into the cell, but then she saw the beach and she knew she was in the other world.