The honey-toned skyline gives way for cold steel and the grind of metal. I shift on my feet, scuff the bottom of my boot against the tile floor and lean back against the railing. One by one, I descend into the earth, watching the floors tick by impatiently.

There's a beep, and the elevator doors slide open. I push forward and step into a steel hallway with industrial lighting and the sharp tang of copper. A woman waits up ahead, her blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail, and a clipboard held to her chest.

"There you are," Lina says, smiling as I approach and pull her in for a hug. She returns it for only a brief moment.

"You called, I came," I say in answer, leaning back and shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans. Lina nods curtly, her inquisitive brown eyes roving over me.

"I called thirteen times; you came because I didn't give you a choice," Lina responds with a raised brow and a cocked hip. I shrug under her scrutiny and gesture at the closed metal door behind her.

"Just tell me why I'm here," I insist, leaning my shoulder into the wall. Lina rolls her eyes and turns; she pulls a badge from the pocket of her blazer and waves it over the scanner. There's a loud chirp and the sound of the lock disengaging as Lina turns the doorknob.

I follow her inside, teeth clenching as her heels click against the floor. We walk down a small, cold hallway illuminated by floor lights that flicker between white and red. "Don't remember the red," I mutter, only half interested in a response.

Lina throws me a look over her shoulder and makes a sharp left turn. "It was added after you left." She remarks with a note of bitterness in her voice. I clear my throat, cross my arms over my chest.

"Wish I hadn't come back."

We approach another door, and Lina swipes her badge. She places one palm on the knob, turns her head to glare at me. "You don't know the circumstances, so just shut up." Lina gripes, shoving the door wide and gliding inside. I grit my teeth, run a hand through my hair in irritation.

She takes me down another bland corridor and around another turn, then up a flight of stairs, before the chatter of people can be heard up ahead. The click of keyboards, the hum of computers, the light of one hundred monitors casting a sickly hue over the walls.

When we enter the central hub, all eyes turn to face us, and more than a few gasps can be heard as I step up beside my sister. Lina's gaze never deviates from her path as we skirt around clusters of people in suits staring up at flat-screen monitors like zombies. They're all wearing earpieces, their minds constantly filled with the sounds of chatter and the buzz of life even though their own lives are wasting away within these stoic walls.

"This way, Logan," Lina advises when I fall behind, staring at one man who looks a little too lost in the two people making out on the screen before him.

I tear my gaze away, meet Lina's eyes, "Sorry," I scoff, "just reacquainting myself with the people here." Lina laughs shortly, lips quirking in a smirk.

"No need, you won't be here long." She informs, pulling me inside a windowless room. Monitors line the walls within, and a group of people sits around a circular table, tablets before them. There are two empty seats left, and Lina directs us toward them.

I settle into mine, kicking my feet up on the table and clasping my hands behind my head. Lina's killer gaze zeroes in on me like fire. Still, I ignore the holes her eyes drill into my skin, choosing instead to study the other individuals seated before me.

A woman with brown hair, bright blue eyes. A man, his green eyes alert despite the threads of gray in his black hair. Another older man, his wrinkled face hidden behind a pair of glasses and a beard that brushes against his breastbone. He smiles, and I see a flash of gold.

"Logan, welcome back," the gravelly voice says. I straighten up, dropping my feet to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Don't talk to me," I growl, hands fisted around the arms of my chair. Lina's hand on my arm keeps me seated, but my hands burn to punch a hole through his miserable chest. "You have no right."

"Stop," Lina snaps, "both of you." She turns, levels a look at old Granddad. "We're here for Ryleigh, not so that you two can settle a grudge." She bites.

I'm about to interrupt with a pissy remark when her words sink in, and I whip my head around to stare at her. "What?" Lina smiles, pleased to have my full attention.

"We found her, Logan," Lina informs, clicking around on her tablet. Instantly, all the other tablets on the table lit up with the picture of a young woman with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a small golden crown on her brow.

I scoop up the device, start tapping at the picture as if I'd never left. My fingers pull up the woman's demographics, her history, known associates, any information I can sink my teeth into.

The more I read, the harder my heart thumps in my chest, and the less I believe my sister. "This isn't Ryleigh; this can't be," I mutter under my breath, flipping through a series of photographs. One of a woman standing between an older-looking man and woman, each with a ten-pointed crown resting on their heads. Another of the same girl in a sundress, walking a dog down a stone path. Then that girl again and a man in a suit, strolling arm in arm over a manicured lawn.

"It is," Lina counters, drawing my gaze up to hers. She nods, looking suddenly tired. "She's been in plain sight this entire time."

I shake my head, jabbing a finger at the woman in the pictures. "She's a blonde," I deadpan. Lina laughs, leaning back in her chair and steepling her fingers.

"Dyed blonde, yes." Lina gestures at the screen, "Notice anything else?"

"Don't insult me, of course I saw the damn crown."

"She's been posing as Princess Messalina all these years, Logan." The woman across the table leans forward, one hand extended toward me. I feel the jolt of recognition a second before the blood drains from my face.

"Mrs. Morrison," I breathe out, placing those kind eyes and gentle hands in my mind, in my past, in places I left behind when I ran from this place. "Mr. Morrison," I acknowledge, turning numbly to the man beside her. He nods a greeting, remains perfectly still in his chair.

"Call us Rick," Mrs. Morrison gestures at her husband, "and Elena." She presses that same hand to her chest, smiling when her eyes meet mine. I swallow my tongue and avert my eyes.

"Logan," Granddad barks. My head snaps up out of reflex, "your task is to retrieve Ryleigh and bring her home."

Lina makes a noise by my side, "His task is to approach her, see if she remembers her life before the abduction, then try to bring her home. Ryleigh may very well be Messalina now."

"You are Messalina," I interrupt, facing my sister angrily.

She pinches her lips together. "In this world, yes. Not in Quinovia. There, I'm dead. Ryleigh is my replacement."

Quinovia. The parallel universe that opened up after a breach between the dimensions twenty-one years ago. It's the monarchy equivalent of our world, another time that formed differently, but with the same people living in it. Slight variations in names, appearance, personality, but essentially the same soul in both universes.

"You both are, actually," Granddad adds, he leans forward in his chair, groaning with the effort. "Do you remember when Ryleigh was taken?"

The question hits me like a bullet in the gut and I stare at him in disbelief, my fingers curling around the arms of the chair to keep me seated. "I could never forget," I growl, jaw clenching. Granddad's lips quirk slightly, and it's Lina's fingers digging into my skin that stops me from hurtling over this table.

"The original target was me," Lina cuts in, drawing my attention toward her with a finger under my chin. I jerk away from her touch entirely, retreating in on myself like I've done so many times before. "But then, I was sick, and they likely chose Ryleigh instead because they knew her from their world, and they saw she was healthy."

"They didn't know her; they didn't know any of us."

Lina scowls, "Did you not recognize them? Remove the crowns, the stoic expressions, the pomp, and class. The king and queen of Quinovia, Daniel and Maribel Elspeth, are our parents in that world."

I guffaw and grab at the tablet for another look. "Our last name is Everett, not Elspeth." I spit out the last word, tasting its poison on my tongue.

"A small deviation in the timeline, nothing more." It's Richard Morrison, Ryleigh's father, who reminds me of that fact. I shake my head, unwilling to believe that the parents I know could be capable of kidnapping. But as I scan through the pictures and locate the one of Princess Messalina standing between her mother and father, a weight settles on my chest.

My father's dirty blonde hair, dark brown, almost black, eyes. The ragged scar over the top of his left hand, the familiar curve of his smile. My mother's serious green eyes, her braided white-blonde hair, pale skin, red lips, and delicate frame.

I throw the tablet on the table and lurch up from my chair, heading for the door. "I'm leaving."

"Logan!" Lina follows after me, hand on my shoulder as I make my escape out the door. "We need your help."

"Why me?" I whip around to face her, hands clenching and unclenching by my sides as I stare down at her. Lina takes a step back and crosses her arms, meeting me with the same level of defiance.

"Why not you?"

"I left this place for a reason!" I bark, throwing my arms wide. Lina barely flinches at my raised voice. Instead, she gets right up in my face and jabs her finger into my chest.

"You've been walking around with the guilt of Ryleigh's abduction for the last twenty-one years! You're the only one that can't get his head around the fact that it wasn't your fault. You were a kid; you couldn't have been expected to fight off two adults." Lina's hand comes up to grip my face, her lip curling at the scruffy beard.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want to do this, because I know you'd rather it be you than anyone else. I get it's not easy to see our parents as her abductors, but they aren't our parents. They're the parents of that world's Logan and Messalina, not us. So shave that squirrel off your face and do something productive." Lina's voice rises on the last word, her eyes blazing a liquid black. She releases me with a shove that I allow to move me back a step, pressing my shoulders into the cold door.

My jaw ticks as I watch Lina cross the room and pour herself a cup of water, then another. She rounds the table toward me, holds one cup out for me to take. When she lifts her gaze to mine, the fire in her eyes is barely burning and her face is lined with exhaustion.

"It's taken us this long to find her, do you really want me to send in some clueless idiot instead of you?" She challenges.

We eye each other for a long moment before I nod, take the cup, and sit back down at the table. Granddad is smiling as I pick up the tablet, and I have to fight the urge to make my pent-up anger out on him next. "How did we not catch it?" My voice is all business, a front I'm comfortable with after so many years working here, in the void between worlds, monitoring both sides, keeping people from crossing over.

Lina lets out a long breath, "Just before Ryleigh's abduction, Princess Messalina, Prince Logan, and the princess's best friend, Ryleigh, were killed in a car bombing. Reports claimed that the princess survived while the brother and Ryleigh died. But Messalina was never seen after the accident, not until a few months ago."

"We suspect that all three of them died," Granddad cuts in, "and the rulers of Quinovia panicked so they made up a story that kept one royal heir alive. Their intention was to replace their Messalina with ours," Granddad waves his hand at Lina, who shrinks into her chair.

"But you were sick," I add, remembering the days spent in the children's hospital while my little sister battled cancer and Ryleigh clung to her side, leaving me to watch over them while our parents fought with the doctors over Lina's treatment plan.

A brief flash of memory invades my mind, one of a man in a mask reaching for me in the darkness of Lina's hospital room. Me screaming for the nurse, the hand slipping back into nothingness, and Ryleigh along with it. "They tried for me before her," I mutter to myself, adding another layer of guilt to the ocean already drowning me.

Lina hears my admission, offers a sympathetic smile. "They kept her inside the mansion for as long as they could. But now, Messalina's twenty-four, and she's expected to step up as ruler within the next year. It's time for her to choose a consort." Lina flicks through a few images on the screen.

"This is the first picture we have of her, it's when we realized our mistake. Tomorrow is the masquerade ball, where the princess will choose seven suitors at random from a pool of approved men." Lina explains. She looks up, locks eyes with me. "That's where you'll meet, and you'll make sure she picks you." 

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Word count: 2388.