Chapter Six Hollis
Chapter Six
Hollis
Unknown location
My fingers twisted in the heavy gold-and-cream-colored bedding as I considered trying to make a run for it again. Unlike when I woke up for the first time, I was alone. No strangers claiming to be doctors poking and prodding, asking questions I mostly couldn’t answer.
It was a special kind of horror, not knowing where you were and why you were there. But even worse, not knowing who you were.
The sedatives the doctors pumped into me had dulled my senses and made my legs and arms feel heavy.
There also had to be narcotics buzzing around in my system, because my fist didn’t hurt after connecting it to the steely jaw of one of the men who’d been in my room earlier.
I had my doubts he was another MD, but at least he didn’t fight back after I punched him.
Just growled and backed up as one of the “doctors” doped me up.
I had no idea how long it’d been since they’d sent me to Nothing Land, but I was awake now and anticipating round two.
I glanced at my hands fisting the covers. No restraints around my wrists, and I wasn’t chained to the bed. Apparently not a risk in my captors’ minds, despite my best efforts to break free before.
Chills started to bulldoze their way beyond the barriers of the sedatives, and my pulse went to war with the drugs in an attempt to push my body into fight-or-flight mode.
My teeth lightly clicked together, and I needed to get this shakiness under control if I was going to map out an exit strategy. It was a strange feeling, to have my body and brain in disagreement on what to do. One side warning of danger, the other crying out to remain calm.
Who the hell am I? Knowing that might help me choose which direction to go. But the fact I couldn’t answer that probably meant whoever was watching me on the other end of the camera on the ceiling had done this to me.
The second the double doors slowly opened, the tug-of-war happening inside me came to a halt. All I could focus on were the two men striding in—one was familiar and the other wasn’t.
I shivered as I took in the sight of the men parting ways to stand on either side of the bed.
“Have you calmed down yet? Ready to talk?” the not-an-MD asshole I’d hit earlier asked.
“I don’t know. Plan on giving me a reason why I should hit you?” I hissed back.
“I don’t recall giving you one,” he steadily remarked, his dark eyes boring into me as memories from before waking up in this room battled their way forward.
A coffin that was at least six feet down in the ground.
The earth had yet to cover it, but I had to claw my way up out of the hole.
Then a lot of running and bumping into people before—
“You tackled me,” I blurted out. “Not here, but somewhere else.”
I scooched farther upright, sitting against the headboard as I converted my hands to weapons, preparing to swing. “Who. Are. You?” I enunciated each word as my mind also screamed, Who. Am. I?
“I restrained you last night, but I had my reasons. I didn’t do anything to provoke you today.” He held up his palm. “So easy with the fists, all right?” He slowly lowered his hand to his side. “I’m Gideon.” He lifted his chin. “And you’re Celeste.”
My mind circled around the names like Earth rotating around the sun. Seeking and searching for connection, trying to draw on the light for the truth. Nothing came, just nerves. “That’s not my name.” It can’t be.
“Hollis, does that sound better?” the other man asked. His green eyes held a lot less burn the world down with one look than Gideon’s dark ones.
“Are you picking names from a hat and testing them out on me? Did you two abduct me without even knowing who you were taking?” Had I bonked my head somewhere as I tried to escape, and that was why I couldn’t remember who I was?
“You’re Celeste Hollis,” Green Eyes said, then he added a string of surnames I couldn’t track. “You go by both, and we know who you are—and no, we didn’t abduct you.”
From where I was sitting, they sure as heck did.
My chest constricted, frustration piling on top of the anxiety that neither the men nor the names they offered as mine were familiar.
“If you didn’t, how’d I get into this bed?
” I pointed at Gideon, remembering his big arms wrapped around me on a street somewhere.
“Free will wasn’t involved, that much I know. ”
Gideon’s haunted eyes slipped to my face, looking at me as if I’d offended him somehow, like I’d alerted him to being knocked down to a lower tax bracket.
“We rescued you. Well, after you escaped the monastery where we first tracked you down.” His clean-shaven jaw flexed as he added, “I’m your brother, and he’s your twin. ”
I immediately guffawed, a little taken aback by my body’s natural response to fake a laugh at a time like this.
“We are your brothers. We’re in England. More specifically, Surrey. At our family’s estate, Rothvale Park,” Green Eyes said, and his words came off a little too “trust me, bro” for my liking.
It was also irritating that I could spit out slang and random facts without a problem but not know anything about myself. What kind of head trauma would cause that?
“Sure, sure,” I muttered. “You emphasizing words doesn’t make me believe them—you get that, right?”
The two men exchanged looks as if they were uncertain what to do with me.
While they shared a quiet moment, I took one myself to check in on my body, hiding my hands under the covers.
I stretched out my fingers, testing their strength for punching.
Then I wiggled my toes and shifted around as discreetly as possible to see if my legs were a little less dead in case I needed to run or kick.
My energy was coming back, which meant the sedatives weren’t as potent, so that was a step in the right direction. The fact I was able to mentally map out an exit strategy from the room had to mean something. Whoever I really am, I’m not weak.
“Are you done?” Green Eyes asked. “You know, with devising your escape plan?”
“How’d you—”
“Because you’re one of us, and it’s what I’d do if I woke up in a strange place.” A smile ghosted Green Eyes’s mouth. “Good to know you’re still you, even if you don’t remember that for some reason.”
My body relaxed a little as I processed what he’d said and how he’d spoken.
His voice was much more soothing than Gideon’s deep one.
He could probably hypnotize me with it, which was no doubt a red flag, given my present state of apparent amnesia.
I didn’t need him hijacking what was left of my mind to convince me I was his sister if I really wasn’t.
“I know this must be scary, and you’re not used to being afraid of anything, but—”
“That’s the first thing that’s made sense to me since I woke up in this nightmare,” I said, cutting off Green Eyes just as a thought dawned on me. “Wait, I don’t sound English, and neither do you two.” I brought a hand to my throat, checking if my vocal cords had been damaged at some point.
“We haven’t lived here in over thirty years,” Green Eyes explained. “We only visit from time to time. We grew up in the United States. Are you familiar with—”
“Yes, of course, I even know the name of the US president.” I lifted one shoulder. “Isaiah Bennett. But ask me if I voted for the guy? No clue.” My shoulders fell at the absurdity of all this.
“So you have some memories, just not your own,” Green Eyes said under his breath.
“Yes, but why am I not freaking out?” My voice broke on that question, contradicting what I’d said.
“Part of me wants to, since I don’t know you or me.
That me wants to act like a hot mess express.
” I glanced back and forth between them, my stomach wrenching.
“The other half is strong. Stubborn too. Wants to fight you both and run.”
“Any chance you’ll settle somewhere in between?” My alleged twin quirked a brow. “Maybe worry about not remembering anything but believe we’re who we say we are and not swing at us?”
I peeked at Gideon to get a read on him.
He was rolling a shirtsleeve to his elbow, exposing a corded forearm.
Preparing for a fight, are ya? He paused mid-roll, eyes flicking to mine, offering me that offended look again.
“The only time I’ve hit you is when we spar in the fighting ring, and you’re in head-to-toe protective padding.
” He moved on to his next sleeve. “I also go easy on you in the ring, by the way, which pisses you off.”
“Pssh.” Green Eyes waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t mind him, he’s just grouchy and unsure how to handle you like this.” His forehead tightened. “Actually, forget what I said. He’s always miserable.”
I didn’t miss the sneer-scowl from Gideon, aimed at my supposed twin.
“Any chance I can get your name so I stop calling you ‘Green Eyes’ or my ‘supposed twin’ in my head?”
“Ah, yeah, of course, that’d help.” He smirked. “Julian William Avery Wyndham d’Aragon.” He rested a hand over his heart and tipped his head in greeting. “Your honest-to-God twin. You’re more of the set-fire-to-it kind of sibling, and I’m the one who hacks the building to get you inside to do it.”
“Prove you are who you say you are, and we can talk without me putting up a fight,” I decided, because what choice did I have?
“I don’t carry an ID. It’s a whole thing. People outside our family and close friends think I’m dead. Prefer to keep it that way. Can’t really go to a DMV, you know?”
“Not the best way to get me to believe you.” I turned to Gideon. “What about me? You?”
“Your purse was stolen from your hotel room before you went missing, so I don’t have your ID.” Gideon produced his license. He walked around the bed alongside Julian and offered it to me.
“Gideon Wyndham,” I read out loud, hating that my hands were still slightly shaky. “No other names like the two of us have?” I handed him back the Montana ID, somehow doubting he truly resided there.
“It’s just one of my aliases,” was all he gave me.