Chapter Eight

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Three Years Earlier

She lay in bed, fighting the pain. Fighting the exhaustion, too, that kept overtaking her and pulling her under. She needed to get up. Needed to find out what was going on.

Every now and then, she could hear those voices again outside the door, but no one came into the room where she was. At least they didn't when she was awake, but she was pretty sure there were drugs in the IV. Some kind of sedation that made it so hard to think and impossible to stay awake.

Were the meds necessary?

They must be if they were in an IV. But this wasn't a hospital. So, who had prescribed them?

She didn't know, but then she didn't know a lot of things. Like how she'd gotten her.

And who she was.

That had been terrifying when she had tried to call out to someone, to anyone, and had realized there were no names in her head.

Including her own.

There were no memories either, before this place. Before the pain. That was it. The sum total of her life.

Her gaze slashed to the door when the knob moved, and she closed her eyes. Pretending to sleep. Hoping the person would come in.

And they did.

She could hear the slight creak of the door as it opened. Heard the soft footsteps, too. Coming closer and closer until someone was standing right by the bed.

Should she open her eyes?

That was a short debate, mainly because it was hard to latch onto a thought, any thought, long enough to try to make sense of it. So, she peeked out and saw the tall, blond-haired man staring down at her.

He was smiling.

"You're awake," he said as if that were a good thing. Maybe something he'd been hoping for.

She nodded. Tried to speak. And her throat clamped shut. Only a ragged cough made it through.

The man quickly reached for a cup of water that had a straw in it, and he put it in her mouth. She drank, never taking her eyes off him.

"Are you the doctor?" she managed.

Something went through his crystal blue eyes. Shock. Maybe something else, but she couldn't figure out what.

"You don't remember me?" he asked.

She tried. She really did. But if she had any memories of him, they were just out of reach. She shook her head. Then, she winced at the stabbing pain that the movement caused.

"Don't move," he instructed. "Just rest," he added, and then he turned as if to leave.

She managed to reach out, not without jolts of pain, but she was able to take hold of his hand. "Don't go, please. Tell me…everything. Who am I? Who are you? And what happened to me?"

He stared at him, studying her, and he kept that puzzled look on his handsome face.

"I'm Trent," he finally said. "And you're…Anna. We're in love."

That didn't feel right. Did it? Then again, nothing felt right.

"Anna," she repeated. She said it several times, hoping that it would force some memory. Any memory.

It didn't.

"What happened to me?" she repeated.

He stared at her again and stooped lower so that his face was close to hers. "Someone tried to kill you," he whispered, "and I saved you."

The terror shot through her. Terror and realization that of all the things he'd said, that was the one that felt right. It explained why she was in so much pain. It explained why she had this storm of sickening dread racing through her. It explained the overwhelming fear.

"Who tried to kill me?" she asked.

He glanced away. "We can go over that later. For now, we're going to have to move. Anna, if you want to stay alive, you have to trust me. You have to leave with me tonight."

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