A woman with the strong lines and the aging-model looks of a ballet instructor saunters over. Every motion is graceful and fluid, as if she was used to being on stage or on the catwalk. The tight bun of her gray-streaked hair only emphasizes her emerald eyes.

“Can you find a place for her?” asks Doc in a low voice.

Madeline looks me over. She’s not just glancing at me to get a quick impression of who I am. She assesses, taking in my hair, my height, every curve and plane of my face. It’s as if she’s memorizing me, cataloging aspects of my appearance. She glances back at the collection of prisoners.

The prisoners are all female and they stand in pairs. There’s a pair of twins with matching strawberry hair and freckled pink skin. The rest of the pairs are probably not twins, but at first glance, they look like it. A set of curvy women with chocolate skin, a set of skinny girls with honey hair cascading down their shoulders, a set of tall women with Mediterranean eyes and skin.

Madeline looks around the room, then back at me.

“Wrong body type, wrong age,” she says.

The door opens and a man ushers in a pair of teen girls. Dark hair, high cheekbones, petite like me.

“How about these?” asks Doc.

Madeline swings her laser focus onto the girls. Then she looks at me.

“These two are better matched,” says the tanned guy who brought them in, gesturing to the girls beside him.

“We’ll have to make do with this one.” Madeline nods her head toward me.

“You’re going to tell the archangel that this is the best match we could find?” asks the guy.

My skin prickles at the word “archangel.”

“Same coloring, same body type,” says Madeline. “After a makeover and haircut, they’ll look like twins.”

“If they don’t, it’s all of our necks on the line, not just yours,” says the guy.

Madeline looks at Doc who nods.

“Switch them.”

The guy’s face darkens. “Just because he’s got your husband holed up in a jail cell doesn’t mean you can trade our lives for his whenever the good doctor snaps his fingers.”

“Daniel, please just do as you’re asked.” Madeline’s voice is commanding with a hint of threat.

Daniel takes a deep breath. Everyone stares at us, feeling the tension.

He assesses the two girls, then takes one by the arm and ushers her out.

The cold part of me says don’t ask. As far as I can tell, it’s to my benefit. And it could help my sister. “You’re holding someone hostage?”

One of these days, I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut.

“We’re all hostages here,” says Doc. “I’m doing what I can to keep someone alive.”

That sinks in.