Chapter 2
1338 Words
SELITHRA POV. continuation
"With the head housekeeper, yes," Darius finishes for me. "But circumstances have changed. Please come with me."
It's not a request even though he's phrased it politely, and when two more guards appear behind him, also in dark suits, also armed, I understand that I don't really have a choice. Isolde is still crying silently, tears running down her face, and she reaches out like she wants to touch me but stops herself at the last second.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, though I don't know what she's apologizing for. "I'm so sorry."
"Mrs. Krey, you should get checked by medical," Darius says, his tone kind but firm. "I'll handle this."
She nods without taking her eyes off me and I want to ask her what she's sorry for, what she thinks she knows about me, but Darius is already gesturing for me to follow him and the guards have positioned themselves on either side of me in a way that makes it very clear I'm not walking out of here on my own terms.
We move through corridors I didn't see when I came in.
Darius doesn't speak and neither do the guards, and I don't ask questions because I'm trying to process what just happened—the gunfire, the way my body moved without my permission, the gun in my hands that felt familiar even though it shouldn't, Isolde's tears and her whispered words, you're supposed to be dead.
I don't understand any of it and the not-understanding is starting to make my hands shake again.
We stop in front of a door that's larger than the others, dark wood with silver handles, and Darius knocks twice before opening it without waiting for a response.
"Sir," he says into the dim room beyond. "We have the girl."
"Bring her in," a voice answers from the shadows, deep and cold and controlled, and I feel something twist in my stomach at the sound of it, recognition without memory, familiarity without reason.
Darius steps aside and the guards move me forward, hands on my arms guiding me into the room, and the door closes behind me with a soft click that sounds final.
The office is huge, floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall showing the grounds lit up with security lights, bookshelves on another, a massive desk in the center made of dark wood that probably costs more than I've made in my entire life. And behind the desk, sitting in a high-backed leather chair, half his face in shadow and half lit by the lamp on his desk, is a man.
I can't see him clearly, not really, just impressions—tall even sitting down, broad shoulders, dark hair, expensive suit, and eyes that catch the light like winter ice, silver-gray and cold and fixed on me with an intensity that makes me want to step back even though I force myself to stand still.
He doesn't speak right away, just looks at me, studies me like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve, and the silence stretches until I can hear my own breathing, too fast, too shallow.
"Sit," he finally says, gesturing to a chair in front of his desk.
"I'd rather stand," I hear myself say, and I don't know where the defiance comes from but it's there in my voice, steady and clear.
"Suit yourself." He leans forward slightly and the lamplight catches more of his features—sharp jaw, high cheekbones, a scar along his left jawline that looks old and deliberate, and those eyes, god, those eyes that are looking at me like they know things I don't. "Do you know who I am?"
"No." It's the truth.
"Do you know where you are?"
"The Corvin Estate. I came for a job interview."
"Did you." It's not a question. "And the attack?"
"I don't know anything about that, I just walked in and it started, I don't know who those people were or what they wanted—"
"What's your name?" he interrupts.
"Selithra."
"Selithra what?"
I hesitate because this is always the awkward part, the part where I have to admit I don't know the most basic thing about myself. "Just Selithra."
His eyes narrow slightly. "No surname."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't remember it." The words come out defensive, sharper than I meant them. "I had an accident three years ago, retrograde amnesia, the doctors said some memories might not come back and that's one of them, so it's just Selithra, that's all I have."
He's very still, so still I'm not sure he's breathing, and then he reaches for something on his desk—a photograph in a silver frame—and slides it across the polished surface toward me.
"Look at this," he says quietly.
I step closer, close enough to see the photo clearly, and my breath catches in my throat.
It's a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, standing in front of what looks like this very estate, dark hair pulled back from her face, wearing a school uniform, smiling at the camera with an expression that's shy and sweet and nothing like anything I've ever felt. But her eyes—
Her eyes are amber-gold, unusual and distinctive, exactly like mine.
Her face is my face, just younger, just different enough that I might not recognize it except for the eyes, and I reach out to touch the frame with trembling fingers because I don't understand what I'm looking at, I don't understand why this girl who looks like me is in a photograph in this man's office.
"Who is she?" I whisper.
"You don't recognize her."
"Should I?"
He stands up slowly, deliberately, and the movement draws my eyes up from the photograph to his full height—he's easily over six feet, broad-shouldered and lean and radiating a kind of controlled danger. He moves around the desk and stops a few feet away, close enough that I can see his face clearly now, see the way he's looking at me with something that might be grief or rage or both.
"The last girl who looked like you was declared dead three years ago," he says, and his voice is soft but there's steel underneath it. "Same face. Same eyes. She disappeared after killing her father and everyone assumed she died in the accident that followed."
My heart is pounding so hard I feel dizzy. "I don't know what you're talking about—"
"Don't you?" He takes another step closer and I force myself not to back away. "You walk into my house the same day someone attacks it, you fight like you've been trained even though you claim to have no memory, you look exactly like someone who's been dead for three years, and you expect me to believe it's coincidence?"
"I don't know who you think I am but I'm not—I'm nobody, I'm just someone who needs a job—"
"Liar," he says quietly, and the word hits me like a slap.
"I'm not lying!"
"Then how do you explain the gun? The way you moved? The way you disarmed a trained operative like you've done it a thousand times?"
"I don't know!" The words come out louder than I meant, almost a shout, and I'm shaking now, because he's right and I don't have answers.
"I don't know why I can do those things, I don't know why that girl looks like me, I don't know anything except I woke up in a hospital three years ago with no memory and I've been trying to survive ever since, so if you think I'm someone I'm not then I'm sorry but you're wrong!"
He's silent for a long moment, studying my face with those cold silver eyes, and then he says something that makes the floor drop out from under me.
"Hello, wife," he says softly, and there's something almost like pain in his voice beneath the ice. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you?”
- Writer
