Chapter 63
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
My feet are cold, and I feel like I’m stuck waking up from a dream on repeat.
I’m trying to track down Weston, only I can’t seem to stop losing time.
Every time I wake up, I’m in a slightly different spot in the house.
I fucking hate it. I’m staring at the computer screen, my research on the condition they think I have staring at me in cold, clinical facts.
Signs and symptoms and all that bullshit.
I crumble the paper I ripped out of the notebook I found by Oakley’s bed. It had a term in it that I didn’t know. And my name.
I think I blacked out after I first looked it up.
Now, I stare at the note again.
What does this mean for me? Us? Can you date someone with DID? Like, only date one personality? If I’m with Ky, does that mean I’d be in a relationship with Wyatt too?
That would never work.
I can’t have DID. I may have something, but it’s not full-blown DID. I just got hit too many times as a kid. Concussion and shit.
As I stare at the screen, the chill of the floor sinks into my feet, and I stack them on top of each other. I look down. I have no shoes on.
Where are my sneakers? I hate being cold.
Holland is a shrink. She thinks I have multiple personalities. Oakley thinks I have multiple personalities, too. Thinks Kyan is me, and he wants to…date me? There’s a rush of panic through my veins. I don’t date, period. I fuck.
If, and it’s not even possible, but for the sake of argument, if I do have multiple personalities, that would mean they’d share my body. And if they did, then anyone they fuck, I’ve fucked too?
A vague image of a child that looks like me being shoved to their knees in front of someone who looks like my brother hits me like a brick to the head. Nausea rolls through my stomach.
I don’t want to be out of control like that. I don’t want my body to belong to someone else while I’m a silent prisoner in the back, screaming to be let off my knees.
I would have remembered if Oakley fucked me. Right?
The disturbing memory loss I’ve been having makes me drop my head on the desk.
Velvet always made comments that were weird.
Like I had told her things before that I never had.
Then I remember the comments people made when I was a teen that never made sense.
They said I hooked up with someone under the football stands in high school.
The oddly suggestive language they’d always use about me and… Dad.
Adrenaline rushes through my system, and impending doom grips me hard, and for some reason, all I can focus on is the fact I’m barefoot and can’t remember why.
And if I’m barefoot, then someone did something with my shoes. Did they take them off? Did I not have any on to begin with? And if that can happen without me realizing it, then what else could? What if I’ve been…if I—someone—has been fucking people, and I didn’t know?
The thought of something happening to my body without my permission makes me want to vomit. It triggers that same fear in my head, the one that screams that we need control. The one that gets so loud it forces me to fall to my knees.
Holland. The woman who can tame that fear with one look. The woman with the eyes so deep I could look at them for hours and still not see all her secrets. The woman who has so much power over me that she’s dangerous.
I need those secrets. I need them to make sure she can’t hurt me.
I’ve found no evidence she’s working with Weston. Yet. But if she’s not, then she shouldn’t even be on this island. Except, it was approved somehow. Was it Kyan? And is Kyan…me?
No.
A perimeter alarm starts going off. I don’t have perimeter alarms set up for the villa; I only have them set up here to keep players from getting too close to the house.
Pulling up the few cameras I have, I search until I see Holland stalking down the path to the private beach. For a second, I let out a short breath.
Then, I see someone following her. It’s a man in a mask. He’s tall and large, a lot bigger than Oakley. And he has something in his hand.
Is that a…sword?
I shoot up in my chair, an odd mix of alarm and fear gripping my chest. The weapons drop happens on day seven. What day is it even now?
He’ll kill her. And in this moment, I know with certainty that he can’t kill her. If Fourteen belongs to anyone, it’s me.