Page 1 of Silent Secrets

Hadley

Haveyoueverwoken up and known that today was the day that was going to change your life? Of course not, because we never know when everything is about to change. After all, today started as just another crappy day, but it wouldn’t stay that way.

I wave to two of the waitresses as they head toward their cars before ducking my head down to begin my walk home. It’s after three o’clock in the morning and not necessarily the best time of day to be walking around the city, but what choice do I have? I’d had to sell the car so that I could pay rent.

It’s been a rough year for me—what with my mom being diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and everything that came after that. She’d been responding to the treatment, and I’d finally learned to breathe again when my heart was torn from my chest. Yes, my mom was beating breast cancer, but she didn’t stand a chance against the asshole driving drunk who’d hit her head-on. Less than two months after being told that she was in remission, she was dead. I was alone and didn’t know how I was going to survive.

My mom’s life insurance covered the cancer treatment bills that had been piling up, but I lost the house that I’d grown up in so that I could afford to pay for my final year of college. Honestly, I hate the major that I chose, but I know my mom wanted nothing more than for me to graduate with a degree and it’s a little too late to change my mind now, isn’t it?

So, I spend my days in class learning about accounting and my nights and weekends working two jobs so that I can keep a roof over my head. I have no other family and my mom had been my best friend—my only friend, if I’m being honest with myself. When I say I’m alone, I’m not exaggerating. I don’t know what it is about me, but people seem… uncomfortable around me, no matter how friendly I am. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

Sighing, I try not to think about it. It’s Friday night—alright, it’s technically early Saturday morning—but I have the entire weekend without school to distract me from my depressing thoughts. Luckily, I still have to work seeing as I work as a bartender at a nightclub that’s popular with the kids at my college, and therefore, the weekend is our busiest time. But without school during the day, I have hours where my mind can wander to where I don’t want it to. My desire to not have months without class filling my time is what led me to sign up for summer classes—a decision I still hate myself for making.

“Hadley Corbin?”

I jump, confused as to why an unfamiliar voice is calling out my name, and wondering how I hadn’t heard them approach. Grabbing my can of mace from my bag, I spin around to find a woman stepping out of an alley. While I’ve had to threaten someone with the mace before, I’ve never actually had to use it on anyone—I hope that isn’t about to change.

But more importantly, I have a few questions I’d like answered. Namely, what the hell is this woman doing in the alley? And how the hell does she know my name? How had she known that I’d be walking this way? I have a few different routes that I take home, so I don’t have a specific pattern. It’s one of the first things they’d taught us in the self-defense class my mom forced me to take.

“Maybe, maybe not. Who the hell are you?”

The woman doesn’t respond as she moves closer. I lift the spray canister high enough that she can see it. If I were smarter, I’d just spray her in the face and run, but I want to know how she knows who I am. And why the hell is she looking for me? My mom often told me I was too curious for my own good. Here’s to hoping that this doesn’t end up biting me in the ass—or getting me killed.

The woman smiles, distracting me from the hand that she lifts. I’m not sure if the smile is supposed to put me at ease or to scare the crap out of me, but it definitely does the latter.

Deciding that my curiosity isn’t worth my safety, I press down on the button on the top of the can, but she blows the fine powder in her hand into my face and suddenly I can’t move. My entire body freezes up and the only thing that I can move is my eyes. I can’t seem to make myself continue to depress the button.

What the fuck?

The woman steps closer, running a hand over my cheek and shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Hadley. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

Be what way? What is she talking about? What is she doing? What the hell is going on?

But my mouth, like the rest of me, isn’t able to move and all I can do is watch as she pulls a small purple glowing orb from her pocket, lifting it as she mumbles under her breath in a language that I don’t understand. There’s something about the language that seems familiar to me, an awareness at the back of my mind—which makes no sense because I’m shit at languages and can’t remember a single word in Spanish after being required to study it for two years in high school.

There’s a flash of a bright white light that forces my eyes closed. Unfamiliar sensations rush over me—my head feels too light and my stomach too heavy.

When the glow against my eyelids disappears, I lower my arm, only realizing then that I can move once more. I blink against the lights shining in my eyes, confusion rushing over me.

I’m standing inside a brightly lit, unfamiliar room, and standing before me is a woman that looks both like the woman from before and not. Just another thing I can add to the long list of things that I don’t understand right now. Her long blonde hair is the same, only it seems to float in the breeze. A breeze that cannot exist, seeing as we’re inside and there is no fan to be seen. The woman’s face is the same as it had been on the street, only younger… and somehow different? She seems ethereal, more beautiful than any person has the right to be. It makes little sense.

My mouth drops open when my eyes land on her ears because they’re pointed like an elf’s ears, or at least how they look in the movies. But considering that elves aren’t real, it doesn’t make sense—nothing about this makes sense. I blink, sure that I’m imagining things, but her appearance doesn’t change again.

“Did you drug me?” I ask, knowing that she must have. The powder that she’d blown in my face must have been a hallucinogen—making me see things that are obviously not real.

“No, Hadley, I did not drug you.” The woman shakes her head, sighing. “All I did was keep you from moving so that I could bring you home.”

I laugh. “This most definitely isn’t my home.”

My eyes take in the room and the fancy furniture that I could never afford—not that I would want to. My preferences lend themselves to a more modern style. If I had to guess, I’d say that we’re inside a library, but it looks old-fashioned and filled with what can only be antiques.

“Only it is.”

I stop my perusal to turn back to the woman. “Look, lady, I don’t know who the hell you are, let alone where the hell you’ve taken me or why, but you better start talking right now.”

She nods. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

Seriously? I raise my eyebrows as I continue to stare blankly at her. What kind of kidnapper politely requests that someone sit after kidnapping them? And I’m damn well not going to sit after being kidnapped. Hell, I don’t plan to do anything that my kidnapper asks of me. I just want to go home.

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