Chapter Nine: Awakenings
855 Words
The first thing I noticed was the cold.
It seeped into my skin, prickling against the fine hairs on my arms, threading up my spine until my whole body shivered.
The second thing was the quiet.
No screams.
No running footsteps.
No Killian Reyes barking orders like he ruled the damn world.
And then—
“You’re awake.”
His voice.
Low. Controlled.
Too controlled.
I blinked against the dim light above me. The world swam into focus slowly, like someone had turned the volume down on reality and was just now dialing it back up.
Stone walls.
A small fire burning in a grate across the room.
Killian sitting in an old armchair, one leg crossed over the other, his black suit jacket slung over the back. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and his tie hung loose around his neck.
He looked tired.
And still impossibly sharp.
I tried to sit up.
Big mistake.
My head screamed.
Killian was out of the chair in an instant. “Easy.”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You’re a terrible liar,” he said, crouching next to the couch I was on.
“Maybe you’re just a terrible judge of character.”
His mouth twitched. “Debatable.”
I hated that he almost smiled.
Hated that a small, stupid part of me wanted him to.
⸻
I glanced around. “Where are we?”
“The old conservatory,” he said. “Nobody comes here anymore. Not since the fire.”
“Comforting.”
“Don’t get too cozy. We won’t stay long.”
I looked down at myself. Still in my dress from the gala. My shoes were gone. My gloves were gone. My jewelry was missing too.
Killian followed my gaze. “I took them off.”
I glared at him.
He held up his hands. “You were overheating. And they could’ve been tracked.”
I opened my mouth, shut it again, then settled on a scowl. “I didn’t say thank you.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Smug. Of course he was smug.
But there was something softer under it, too. A quiet kind of worry.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
⸻
“How long was I out?” I asked.
“Six hours.”
I flinched.
Killian’s gaze sharpened. “This isn’t the first time.”
It wasn’t a question.
I didn’t answer.
“You’ve blacked out before,” he said. “That’s why you didn’t remember leaving the conference room.”
I stayed silent.
He stood abruptly and crossed the room, pacing like a caged animal. “What else don’t you remember?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
Pieces.
Fragments.
A memory of someone calling my name in the rain.
Another of hands pushing me, hard, into darkness.
And always, always the same question burning at the back of my mind:
Who am I forgetting?
⸻
“Vale.”
I snapped my head up.
Killian was standing close again.
Too close.
But his expression wasn’t mocking now. It was serious. Intense.
“You need to tell me what’s going on,” he said.
I hated that part of me wanted to.
I hated that I already trusted him more than anyone else in this place.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what’s real,” I whispered.
He stared at me.
And then he did something that made my heart trip over itself.
He reached out—slowly, carefully—and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“You’re real,” he said quietly.
“For now,” I shot back.
A faint smile ghosted over his mouth. “We’ll work on that.”
⸻
The silence stretched between us.
Not awkward. Not tense.
Just… waiting.
And then there was a sound.
A soft click.
Metal on metal.
Killian was on his feet before I could blink, crossing to the door.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
I slid off the couch anyway, ignoring the spin in my head. “Like hell.”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t argue.
We both moved toward the sound.
He cracked open the door, peered out.
Nothing.
But I saw it.
A shadow at the end of the hall.
Too fast.
Gone before I could say anything.
“Someone’s here,” I whispered.
Killian nodded once. “Let’s go.”
⸻
We moved fast again, through halls that felt less empty than they should have.
And when we finally emerged into the old greenhouse behind the conservatory, I stopped cold.
Because scrawled across the glass walls in deep red paint was a message.
“GIVE HER BACK.”
I stared at it, the words tilting in my brain like they didn’t belong.
“What does it mean?” I asked, my voice thin.
Killian’s expression was unreadable.
But his hand brushed against mine again.
“Stay close,” he said.
And I did.
Because suddenly, I wasn’t sure who they wanted back.
Me…
Or someone I didn’t remember being.
- Writer
