A Familiar Stranger (2)

She let out a hollow laugh, her grip tightening on the iron bars. "Friends? You call this friendship?" Her voice trembled with fury. "Friends don't abduct each other. Friends don't stand by while someone suffers in a damn dungeon!"

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling erratically. "Noah, what the hell happened to you? This isn't you. Did they force you? Are you being threatened? Or have you always been like this? Were you deceiving us all along?"

Her red eyes burned as she searched his expression for something—anything familiar. But all she saw was a stranger in the body of someone she once trusted.

"If you really think we're still friends, then prove it. Get me out of here."

"Sorry, I can't do that."

Nadia's pitch went up a notch. "Why? I don't understand. If you don't share the same goals, then why are you here? Why are you with them?"

"I just am. I was already with them from the beginning."

From the beginning?