Airhead

What was happening to me? Since when did I hate ice cream?

What had this doctor done to me?

Fortunately no one noticed. Everyone chattered away about how great it was that I was making so much progress so soon.

Which was flattering and all, but might have meant more to me if I’d known exactly what I was making progress from. I mean, what was I supposed to be recovering from? What had happened to me? Which part of me was hurt?

And what exactly was this ‘procedure’ they’d used on me?

Dr Holcombe had been right about one thing: I was begi

And not just my not liking ice cream any more. That was the least of it. The weirdest thing so far was how the people in my own family acted around me… as if they didn’t know me.

Almost as if — and I know it sounded crazy — but almost as if I was someone else.

Seven

‘What — what’s going on?’

That’s what I asked the doctor and nurse — both wearing full surgery gowns, including masks — who showed up in what seemed to be the middle of the night to shake me awake, then transfer me from my bed to a hospital wheeled stretcher.

‘Shh,’ said the nurse, pointing at my mom, dozing in the chair next to my bed. ‘Don’t wake her up. She’s exhausted.’

‘But where are we going?’ I asked, stiffly rolling from my bed to the stretcher.

‘Just to do some tests,’ the doctor whispered.

‘In the middle of the night?’ I asked groggily ‘Can’t they wait until morning?’

‘These are very important tests,’ the nurse said. ‘They can’t wait.’

‘OK,’ I said, sinking down against the thin mattress. As usual, I was so tired. I was dimly aware that they were wheeling me down a long, empty hospital corridor. But they could have been rolling me down the middle of Times Square and I wouldn’t have known the difference, that’s how sleepy I was.

‘How we doing?’ the doctor asked when he stopped the stretcher to push the button to an elevator, way down at the end of the hall, about a thousand miles, it seemed, from my room.

‘Fine,’ I murmured, at the same time that the nurse pulled her mask down to say, ‘Looks good so far. There was no one even sitting at the nurses’ station. The whole floor is empty. I think we’re going to make it.’

That’s when I got my first good look at her.

And I realized she wasn’t a nurse at all.

‘Hey,’ I said, feeling suddenly wide awake. I leaned up on my elbows.

And, my head didn’t feel at all throbby any more. ‘You’re —’

The elevator doors chose that moment to slide open.

‘Go!’ Lulu Collins yelled at the guy in the surgical mask.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I demanded as the two of them rammed my hospital stretcher into the elevator.

‘We’re kidnapping you,’ Lulu explained, stabbing the button marked B for basement. ‘But it’s all right. It’s us, Nik. Me and Brandon. Show her, Brandon.’

And the doctor — although I guess that’s not who he was after all — peeled off his surgical mask and looked down at me.

‘It’s me, Nik,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Brandon. See? Everything’s going to be all right. We came to rescue you.’

‘Rescue —’ I blinked right back at him. He was young, blond and impossibly handsome.

And clearly completely insane.

‘I think there’s been a really big mistake,’ I said. Was I hallucinating again? Except that I couldn’t be. Because hallucinations were never this detailed, were they? I could hear each ping of the elevator as it went down. And I could smell Lulu’s fruity perfume (or maybe that was her gum). And I could see that Brandon was sprouting a pretty serious case of five o’clock — in this case, five o’clock in the morning — blond shadow along his jaw.

It wasn’t until we emerged from the elevator into the hospital’s underground garage, and my captors wheeled me towards a limo — yes. A limo. Black stretch — that I realized just how dire the situation really was. Because there wasn’t even anyone around to hear me if I screamed for help. The place was echoingly empty.

That’s when Lulu turned to Brandon and said, ‘She’s not going to get in willingly. She still has no idea who we are.’And he gave a sigh, turned around and swiftly yanked me off the stretcher and over his shoulder.

Now, I may have just spent a month in a coma or whatever. But I wasn’t about to let myself get kidnapped by a celebutante and her FFBF henchman. I sucked in my breath and let out a shriek that I swear had to have been heard halfway to New Jersey —

— if there’d been anybody around to hear it, that is.

There wasn’t. Brandon stuffed me, kicking and biting any part of him with which I came into contact, into the rear seat of the limo, then settled into the seat opposite mine and sat there looking hurt. And not just physically.

‘Jesus, Nikki,’ he said, as Lulu jumped in beside him and yelled at the chauffeur to go… ‘It’s me. Brandon! You know me. We’re going out!’

And the thing of it was… I kind of did recognize him. Seriously. From some of Frida’s magazines. It was Brandon Stark — as in Stark Megastores. Brandon Stark as in the Brandon Stark, Nikki Howard’s onagain, off-again album-producing boyfriend. Brandon Stark as in heir to the Stark family fortune… which one magazine of Frida’s put at a net worth of like a billion dollars or something.

Which pretty much makes him the richest person I’ve ever met.

But that still didn’t mean it was OK for him to grab me and then stuff me in a limo like that.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I demanded of both him and Lulu. ‘Can’t you see I’m sick?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lulu said, pulling off her surgical gown and mask. I could see that, underneath it, her make-up and skintight black catsuit were still perfectly in place. ‘It’s just that we couldn’t think of any other way to get you out of there. I mean, seeing as how they’re brainwashing you.’

‘No one is brainwashing me,’ I cried. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t even know you!’

This was the wrong thing to say. Lulu and Brandon exchanged glances.

‘See what I mean?’ she asked him under her breath.

Brandon, meanwhile — all six-foot four or five of him — gaped down at me. He was so good-looking, in a frat-boy way — sort of like Jason Klein, Whitney’s boyfriend. He had a big square jaw and blond hair that hung a little bit into his green eyes… but maybe that was just because he was still partially wearing the surgical mask on top of his head. ‘Nikki… what did they do to you?’

‘Yeah,’ I complained. ‘That’s the other thing. Why do you people keep calling me Nikki?’

‘Oh God.’ Lulu dropped her head into her hands, while Brandon just stared at me as if I’d asked him why carbon-based life forms need to breathe oxygen.

The limo driver turned his head and asked calmly, ‘Back to Ms Howard’s loft, Mr Stark?’

Lulu lifted her head to say, ‘Oh God, yes.’ She looked over at Brandon, slumped beside her. ‘Maybe if she sees something familiar… ’

‘Yeah, to the loft, Tom,’ Brandon said in a dejected voice.

‘You guys can’t do this,’ I said, trying to stay calm. Which wasn’t easy, considering everything that was going on. I mean, that I had just been kidnapped. In a hospital gown, no less. I didn’t even have any shoes on. So it wasn’t like I could throw myself at the car door and bail.

‘Nikki,’ Lulu said in a patient voice. ‘We’re doing this for you. Because we love you. Whatever they’ve told you… it’s a lie. All right? We’re your friends.’

‘I’m more than your friend,’ Brandon said, coming to sit beside me. A little too close to me, actually. Why was he… looking at me like that? The neon lights from the signs on the buildings we were driving past along Second Avenue flickered across his face, turning it from pink to blue to green and then back again. ‘I’m your boyfriend. How can you not remember me?’