Page 51 of Broken Princess
10
Willow
I was stuckin a state between sleep and wakefulness; those fuzzy moments of confusion when your brain reboots and starts to tell you who you are and where you are after snapping out of a dream state.
It was a blissful few minutes, my mind whirling through all sorts of scenarios in which I could be anyone, be doing anything, be anywhere in the world. Then my brain finally woke all the way up and told me none of it was true. I wasn’t a French archaeologist working on a dig in an imaginary crystal cave. I wasn’t an environmental lawyer campaigning on behalf of an endangered rainforest animal. I was none of the things I’d imagined.
So who was I?
A great wave of panic washed over me as I realized I had no idea. None whatsoever. I didn’t know where I was, either. All I knew was that I felt a crushing sense of fatigue, so intense I couldn’t even peel my eyes open. My limbs ached too, and there was a stinging pain on the side of my neck.
I tried to move, but my body refused to cooperate. A singular word flashed in the front of my mind. Coma.
Yes, that had to be it. Whoever I was, I’d been in a terrible accident and suffered severe head injuries. I could remember words and concepts, but my identity had been shattered to smithereens, extinguished from my brain.
That meant I had to be in a hospital right now.
I tried to concentrate on the smells and sounds around me to confirm that, but all I could hear was the low hiss of a heating unit. No voices or beeping heart monitors, and no scent of disinfectant in the air, either. I could feel a thick blanket pulled over my body, though. The fabric was luxuriously soft and smelled of rich, spicy cologne.
It occurred to me that I might be in a hotel. Perhaps I was a rich heiress who attended far too many parties, and I was deeply hungover after a particularly wild evening. That made more sense than a coma. My head didn’t hurt that much, after all, and I couldn’t feel the cold, foreign sensation of a feeding tube in my throat or a drip in my veins.
I saw a shadow behind my eyelids a moment later, and a deep masculine voice murmured somewhere close to me. “Are you awake yet, beautiful?”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
A hand started stroking my hair, slowly and gently. I stayed as still as possible and kept my eyes firmly shut as my body flooded with inexplicable terror. Even though I didn’t know who I was or how I got here, some primal part of me knew I should be afraid right now. Something about that voice…
The man went on. “Don’t worry, you’re okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “I had to give you a strong tranquilizer before we left, but you’ll feel fine when it wears off.”
I stayed frozen in place, silent and stubborn.
Smooth fingertips went to my cheek, moving in soft little circles. “Poor Willow. I’ll let you sleep a while longer.”
Something sparked in my mind at that, and a few key fragments of my identity flew back to me.
My name is Willow Rhoades.
I’m twenty-one years old.
I live in Washington, D.C.
What else made up my life? Was I a student? Did I have a job? Did I have a boyfriend? Girlfriend? I had no idea. Even though I could remember my name and age, my story was largely incomplete, like most of the pages had been ripped out.
I saw shadows moving behind my eyelids again, and I realized the man was finally walking away.
I remained in my spot with the blanket pulled up to my neck, brows furrowing as I tried my best to unearth the rest of my memories. Something dark was clawing its way to the surface. I recalled lots of voices, raised and excited, and some sort of stage with bright lights. Accompanying those fuzzy memories was an intense, bone-chilling sense of dread.
Something very bad had happened to me.
But what? When? Why?
I didn’t know. My mind was failing me again.
Shit.
A golden dollar sign suddenly appeared in my mind’s eye, sending me spiraling into confusion all over again. Why a dollar sign? Was I supposed to buy something? Sell something? Was I having financial issues?
Another memory crept back as the symbol kept hovering in front of me. My father sold me to a rival family. The Thornes. That had to be the bad thing I was starting to remember… and yet, something told me that it wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg.
