Begin Again (Strangers #4)

Prologue

One Year Ago

April 2028

AN OVERWHELMING BLAST OF antiseptic fills my lungs when I suck in a breath for what feels like the first time in a year. Antiseptic, bleach, and the slightest tang of metal. I can almost taste it on my tongue. Speaking of my tongue, it feels like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth, and my throat feels like a thousand nails have been scraped across the raw flesh. The word is shrouded in darkness because my eyes won’t open. No matter how hard I try, the muscles refuse to cooperate with my direction. Loud whooshes in my eardrums give way to a variety of sounds…

A door closes in the distance.

A few loud dings echo through the air.

Muffled voices speak behind a wall, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

Finally, I force my eyelids open, blinking one, two, three times until finally the weights fall off, and they peel back to reveal a blinding light.

I try to shield my eyes, but my left arm feels like a ton of bricks, and it stays in place at my side. My right is easier and it moves freely. I rub my eyes until they adjust to reveal a…hospital room.

I’m in a hospital.

Why am I in a hospital?

I have to get out of here. I have to—

“Oh!” A shrill voice sends a jolt through my head, and the dull pain sitting in my left temple cracks my skull in two. The voice belongs to an older woman—a nurse—dressed in blue scrubs with yellow ducks on them. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun on top of her head, and her eyes are hidden behind thick, round glasses. She stands in the doorway with a wide smile. “You’re awake! Good. I’ll get the doctor. He’ll be so glad to hear this.”

Maybe he can tell me why I’m here. Where is here anyway?

The nurse returns with a gray plastic pitcher and a white cup filled to the brim with ice chips.

“I was startin’ to think you’d never wake up,” she says, pouring water into the cup, opening the bendy straw, and stabbing it through the ice. She holds it up to my mouth. “Drink, sweetie, it’ll help your throat. You’ve been out a few days. Guarantee your throat’s as raw as sandpaper.”

Her name tag dangles from a daisy clip off the pocket of her scrubs— Janet , it reads. She radiates the same energy you’d expect your grandma to have. She has crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes and a smile that drags down around the sides of her lips. As she holds the cup to my mouth, I can see a jagged line on the outside of her thumb extending through her wrist to her arm.

“T-thank y-you,” I rasp out, barely able to hear myself.

“Take it easy, darlin’. Don’t want to strain yourself.”

“Good morning, sunshine!”

My stomach twists in knots when an older man walks into the room. He’s dressed professionally, with a white lab coat over his clothes, Doctor Sanders, M.D. embroidered above the left breast pocket. His stark white hair is perfectly styled with a small swoop over his forehead, a white mustache rests atop his upper lip, and I swear his striking blue eyes pierce through my soul. He reminds me of Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder .

“Glad to see you’re still with us. How are we feeling?” Doctor Sanders swoops down with his stethoscope, placing the cool metal against my chest. He moves it around my chest and then my back, and instinctively I take a few deep breaths. “You sound great,” he says, straightening himself and wrapping the listening device around the back of his neck.

I take another sip of water, and the liquid soothes the rawness of my throat. “W-what happened?”

“Well.” Doctor Sanders sighs and pulls the stool up next to the bed. He crosses one foot over his knee and leans back against the thin air. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ol’ Bill Wyatt, his boy, and Mr. Blackwood found you wandering out in the woods ’bout two days ago. You were in pretty bad shape, son. Two bruised ribs, a sprained ankle, and a pretty bad hit to the ol’ noggin. Looked like you’d been out there a while; you were severely dehydrated and chilled to the bone. Honestly, don’t know how you were still up and movin’ when they found you.”

“I don’t—I don’t remember anything.”

Doctor Sanders shares a look with Janet. I don’t like that look. He looks back at me, asking, “You remember your name?”

“It’s…It’s…”

Oh, come on. I know my own fucking name.

How could I forget my name?

It’s…it’s right on the tip of my tongue! Ready to roll off the edge so I can tell him who the fuck I am and go the fuck home. Home. Where is home? And where am I right now? What happened to me? Why can’t I remember anything ?

My fists ball at my sides, grasping the cream, knit blanket covering my legs between my fingers. “It’s…”

“Take it easy, son,” Doctor Sanders says. “It’s alright. We’ll get this whole thing straightened out.”

This time, he doesn’t hide the concern etched in his features—his brow creases and his lips pull into a thin line, his eyes expressing a new level of pity—when he looks at the nurse. “Just give me a few minutes. I’m gonna make a few calls.”

Before the door closes behind them, I hear them talking in hushed tones, trying to figure out what they’re going to do. I can’t decipher what they’re saying, but I know it’s not looking good for me. Having an amnesiac loony toon show up in their town is probably the last thing on their list of wants.

A black hole forms in my stomach, slowly sucking me inside of it. How could I forget who I am? What the hell happened to me and why was I wandering in the woods? Was I alone? Of course, I was alone. Sanders would’ve said if they found someone with me here in…I still don’t know where the hell I am.

He said I was wandering in the woods…Well, that really narrows it down. There are a million different areas in the continental United States with woods. I am in the United States, right?

After what feels like hours have gone by, the door clicks open again. This time, Doctor Sanders is followed by two other men. One of them is an older man dressed in blue jeans and a button-up with a cowboy hat on his head. The other is a police officer. He’s a tall, aging, dark-skinned man with thinning gray hair. His white button-up looks freshly pressed, with two patches on either arm and a thin black tie clipped to the middle of his shirt by a gold tie clip. The patch on his right sleeve reads Bezer Police Department . I notice a whiteboard behind his head: Bezer General . Janet’s name badge says the same thing, and so does Doctor Sanders’.

Bezer.

Where the fuck is Bezer?

“What’s your name, son?” the officer asks, and steps forward.

“I already told the doc, I don’t know.”

“Just give it another go for me.”

I sigh. “It’s…” A million names go through my mind, but not a single one hits home. I rub my eyes, trying to connect the dots, searching for anything that will tell me who I am, but I get nothing.

“Alright, take it easy,” the officer says, patting my shoulder. “I’m Chief Sloan. I’m the officer who responded when Bill and Joe found you the other day. Do you remember any of this?”

I shake my head.

“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad.” Chief Sloan hisses over me toward the doctor.

“I said we couldn’t be sure until he woke up,” Sanders defends himself. “There’s no way to tell what the body will do to protect itself. He’s obviously been through something, that much was apparent from his injuries.”

Chief Sloan sighs, rubbing the crease of his brow before he meets my eyes again.

“Where am I?” I ask.

Finally, the other man in the cowboy hat steps forward, clearing his throat. “Bezer. Bezer, Colorado.”

Colorado? What the hell am I doing in Colorado?

The four of them look down at me, then at each other, a hint of pity etched in each of their features. They don’t know what to do with me. They don’t know who I am or what I’m doing here, but neither do I. They said I’ve been here for two days, but how long was I out in the wilderness before that? Isn’t there anyone looking for me? Don’t I have a family trying to find me? Or maybe I’m just a drifter, alone in the world with nothing to call my own, with no one to care if I find my way home or not.

“Welcome to the City of Refuge, son.”