Chapter 6

Annabelle groaned weakly as she woke with a stabbing pain in her head.

At this rate, she was expecting that she might die at any moment.

She could feel herself going in and out of sleep many times already.

At one point, the nurse tried to get her to take something before she got swallowed by the darkness again.

She couldn’t remember what she took, but she remembered the feeling of its smoothness down her parched throat.

Had she seen a pair of cold, ice-blue eyes staring at her?

She dismissed it as a dream and tried to gather enough strength so she could sit up.

Her heart jumped into her mouth when she opened her eyes and saw the piercing eyes.

The muted light created a halo around the head staring at her.

She wanted to scream, but something told her that would be a very bad idea.

Where were all these men coming from? She wondered in panic.

Something told her this one was more dangerous than the first.

The first one had caused chills racing over her skin, but this one?

Annabelle could feel herself going lighthearted from just staring at those chilling eyes.

She wanted to close her eyes back but jerked them open again when she heard his grave voice, “Are you done?”

Done? Done with what?

Annabelle whimpered in her throat when he stood straight and towered over her.

He was wearing a tight-fitting shirt that sculpted every inch of his muscular build.

When her eyes wanted to wander downward, she fixed them on his face and quickly looked away. That was a grave mistake.

His eyes.

There was something about his eyes that she didn’t understand.

It was as if many things were going on in them at a time.

Things she didn’t want to know about.

Things that could mean her death.

Her death? Her breath caught at her morbid thought. Why would she even think like that?

She was in the hospital, which meant he couldn't do anything to her, right?

Then she remembered she wasn’t really in a hospital.

She was….

A movement to her right made her thoughts shut down.

Her mind sent a warning alarm, and she shrank against the bed as she started shaking badly.

The hand he had stretched towards her paused in the air, and he gave her a curious look.

Annabelle had no idea that she was shaking until she heard him say, “Are you cold?”

Cold? How could she be cold when her insides were tumbling over each other?

She was feeling a lot of things at the moment, but cold was not one of them.

She looked down at her hand to see it shaking and tried to pull it behind her back.

Pain made her hiss as tears squeezed out of her eyes.

When he took a step forward, she shrank further against the bed, almost fainting with the pain that coursed through her.

He stepped backwards until he was standing afar from her.

To her surprise, the panic reduced though it didn’t fully go away.

She was sure she would be fine again the moment he left.

“Who are you?” he asked in a deceptively soft tone that wasn’t helping her nerves at all.

Anything to get him as far away as possible from her.

Annabelle opened her mouth to tell him her name with the hope that he could tell her how she came to be in that room.

“I am…I…”

Her heart started racing as she tried so hard to remember her name.

He raised his brow at her and his eyes narrowed in a way that made the space between them meaningless.

“I…” Annabelle started sweating in panic as she tried so hard to remember her name.

Try as she may, she couldn’t. Her eyes widened, and her pain didn’t register as she raised her injured hand to her head.

She looked around desperately to see if something would remind her of what her name was.

Nothing.

Her heart was beating double time as she looked at him in panic.

“I…”

He didn’t move from where he stood.

His stance was easy, and he had his hands in his pockets while his eyes took in every inch of her movement.

She couldn’t remember. How could she not remember her name? Annabelle wondered in panic.

“So, you like to play games?” his voice had even gone softer this time, and she knew it was not a good thing for her.

Still, her frustration made her reckless and she croaked out, “I can’t remember, okay? I…I can’t!”

His frown darkened and she almost leaped from the bed to run for her dear life.

But the reminder of how she had fainted the first time she tried that stopped her.

How could she remember that and not remember…

“You are not like her,” he said almost to himself.

“Like who?” What the hell was he talking about now? She thought in frustration.

How could she not remember her name?

She ignored him as she tried to see if she could remember any other thing.

“No, no, no” she shook her head when she realised that she couldn’t remember any other thing apart from how she had woken up in that room.

“What did you do to me?” she cried as tears of pain washed down her face.

She held her throbbing head but couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What did you do to me? How could I not remember?”

“What did I do?” he asked in a disbelieving tone. “When you are done acting, how about you tell me where the fuck you came from and why you look like…like that.” His voice went through a series of changes in the seconds he took to complete that statement.

Gone was the chilling soft voice. He sounded like he was strangling.

Why did she look like what? Annabelle wondered. The bandage? How was she to know? Some idiot must have hit her and…

She dropped her hand and fisted it against her waist as she said, “It was you. You…you did this to me. This…this. It was all you.” she pointed at her bandaged head and body even while her body screamed with pain from all her movement.

She was sure she would pass out at any moment, but she needed to know. To know her name. Her thoughts were scattered as her mind ran in different directions to get any information at all about who she was.

In the meantime, she was sure he had something to do with this. It was him. “What did…did you do to me?” she said breathlessly.

“You seem to have gone mad,” he said softly again as he folded his arms across his body. Was that amusement she saw in his eyes? Annabelle was not so sure as a roaring sound filled her head. “I should get rid of you,” he said almost conversationally.

Get rid of… “You are…you will kill me?” the fight had gone out of her voice as her body weakened, and she sagged against the bed again.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, and she could have sworn she heard that amusement again. “You are useless to me and to the person who sent you now. You dare to waste my time with silly games too. You don’t deserve to live.”

I have to remember. She thought as darkness licked at the edges of her vision.

A sense of urgency filled her, and she knew there was something she was supposed to remember.

There was…something important she needed to remember.

She just needed to try harder.

She…

The familiar scent of the nurse tickled her nose just as she felt herself being pulled under by the weighty darkness.

“Miss? Miss, can you hear me?” she heard the kind voice that was the opposite of his voice.

Something suddenly came to her mind and she strained to beat the darkness.

Her body had a different idea, and she slipped under just as she whispered something.