Blood is Thicker Than Water

Chapter One

It's funny how fast your life can change.

Take me, for instance. Three weeks ago I was a carefree sixteen-year-old, and now I'm locked in a cold concrete cell, my arms shackled to the wall. A tear slips from my eye. "I'm so sorry, Luke." I murmer. "I'm so, so sorry I did this to us."

Three weeks earlier

"I'm serious, Kay. Please, you've gotta believe me." Urgancy overflowed in Luke's voice to the point he almost had my attention. Almost. I rolled my eyes.

"And why exactly would I do that, Luke? So you can make a fool out of me all over again?"

He clenched his jaw and ignored the irony in my voice. "Kay, I swear to you I am not kidding this time! Please, listen to me. This could be serious."

I turned to look at my sixteen-year-old cousin. His short light brown hair was tossled in the light wind. His brown eyes were very convincing, so I turned my head and resolved not to make eye contact with him. If he had wanted to, he could have sweet-talked the general of the U.S army into rushing the White House. I wasn't going to get caught up in one of his schemes. He has gotten me grounded one too many times to enlist my help in his ridiculous antics.

His birthday was only a couple of days before mine, and, considering the fact that he litterly lived right next door to me, we were more like twins than cousins. In spite of how bad he could get on my nerves sometimes, he was my best friend. We did litterly everything together. We always had. From the time when we were eight and had gotten into a wasp nest (he had been the one to throw a rock a at it) and had nearly been stung to death, to the time only a few months ago when we had snuck out to a country music concert. But here lately he'd gotten so bad about lying to me, I could almost feel the wall being built between us. If there's one thing I couldn't stand, it's a liar. I'd had enough of half-truths from the girls at school who were supposed to be my friends but were only using me to last me a lifetime.

This afternoon, he had scrambled around in his deceitful yet clever mind until he had composed a brilliant new story to buy into just like a fool. He said that for the last several weeks young girls-mainly in the age range of seven and nineteen-were vanishing without a trace. No indication of who the abductor is and no fingerprints at the multiple crime scenes.

Now, I'm no idiot, and to me that sounds like perfect evidence of a blood-curling sex trafficking organization operating in our close-knit community. If somebody else had been the one to tell me this story, I might have actually believed them. But this guy had lied to me one too many times to expect me to trust him even about something otherwise believable.

"Kay!" Luke gave me a slight shove. "Don't you dare ignore me about something this serious! Come on, talk to me."

I shrugged "There's nothing to talk about. You're lying, I'm not buying your act, that's all there is to it." I started to turn off the sidewalk to my house, but to my surprise he followed me.

"Now Kay, please. I'm not leaving until you give me a fair chance to tell you the whole truth and convince you. "

I stopped. I spun around with a long sigh. "Fine. But I hope you know you're wasting your time, Luke." He fell into step next to me, and we walked stride for stride up the steps.

I leaned against the porch railing as he started relaying his ridiculous tall tale. "I already told you, there has been ten, fifteen girls, going missing in the last couple of weeks. Most of them were fifteen, sixteen. Your age. Not to mention several seven and eight-year-olds. What's gonna happen if you get kidnapped? There is no telling what they'll do to you, but I guarantee it won't be killing you. How do you think your parents would feel, not knowing where their sixteen-year-old daughter is at, what she's being forced to live through? And what about Ella?"