Kiara
Present
Scarred hands. Black ink lines on a wrist. Black eyes. My bathroom.
It’s all just a blur.
Pain. My head hurts so much it feels like it’s going to crack open any second.
Pillow. Wow, this is such a comfortable pillow.
It was just a dream. I should stop drinking so much.
I roll over, nestling my head to the side, and suddenly feel bile rising in my throat.
I get up as quickly as I can to stop the vomit from coming up.
I crack my eyes open and slam them shut again as a hundred lasers stab behind them.
I hiss and take my head in my hands, sitting up more comfortably, but slowly.
I didn’t drink that much, did I? What the hell?
The sharp pain calms as I sit motionless on the bed. I slowly open my eyes, looking down so the light doesn’t hit me with such force.
Wait, this isn’t my bed. Did I booty call someone last night?
Please not the police officer again. He was sweet but horrible in bed.
I’m starting to get a moral hangover.
What did I do this time?
I open my eyes, not completely, but enough that a sudden panic hits me when I see I’m in a huge bedroom that isn’t mine or anyone else’s I know.
French windows cover one wall from floor to ceiling. The rest of the walls are dark grey, hung with abstract paintings. Massive wooden furniture and an oriental-looking rug fill the room. This whole place feels like an old-money manor and smells like expensive materials, cardamom, and wood.
Where the hell am I?
I slowly get up from the bed, now realizing how enormous the bed is, covered in black silk sheets. As I step onto the floor, my feet hurt like they haven’t touched the ground in a week.
How long was I asleep? Everything feels so sore.
The huge windows grab my attention and I’m stunned for a second. Beautiful trees covered in orange, red, and a hint of green, their leaves flowing in the light autumn breeze and soft rain. But there’s nothing except trees and empty land covered in the colors of fall.
No buildings. No familiar landmarks. Just endless trees. The horizon gives me no hint of where I am. I slowly move around the room, my head hammering and screaming.
Huge wooden doors lead to an even bigger space, probably a living room, judging by the dark green sofa in the middle and a wall-length wooden library covering one whole wall.
The scent of leather fills the room.
God, this feels like some gothic den. I woke up in Dracula’s manor.
I’m not sure if it’s the fear, the hangover, or if I’m just cold, but my body is shivering so much I need to hug myself and finally realize what I’m wearing.
What in the hell?
This isn’t mine. I didn’t put this on. It’s a huge T-shirt and some shorts, and it’s not mine.
Fuck.
I check in with my body, trying to figure out if I’m sore down there, but nothing hurts. I check my inner thighs—nothing. No bruises on my hands either.
A small relief calms my nerves for a millisecond. But then I head toward the huge doors that probably lead out of this gothic suite and start banging on them when I surprisingly can’t open them, yelling like a lunatic to God knows who—to let me the fuck out.
I’ve always been more of a do-first-think-later kind of person, but when the doors open with a huge figure standing in the doorway, I internally slap myself.
I could think this through. I didn’t take any weapon or anything. I didn’t check the whole suite. My head just hurts so much I can’t think straight, so I just act.
“Hi, Troubles,” the man standing in front of me says with a happy tone and gives me a little side smile.
Huh?
He steps through the door, closes the distance between us, and when I don’t move, he stares at me, confused.
“Are you gonna move or do you want a hug?” He lifts his eyebrows and smiles, this time almost grinning.
I find myself losing the anger for a millisecond because God—he’s really beautiful.
He can’t be older than me, though. He has curly dark brown hair giving amber reflections under the light.
Brown, puppy-like eyes and a mischievous smile.
His neck is partly covered by tattoos, getting lost under his black T-shirt and reappearing again on both hands, covering his skin all the way to his fingertips.
He’s big. Way too solid to feel comforting.
“No really, move.” His expression gets a bit more serious but his face is still somehow nice?
He’s got that cocky, too-sure-of-himself vibe.
I finally wake up from my trance and quickly step back—I don’t know how many steps it takes before my ass hits the wooden table in the middle of the room right in front of the sofa. He chuckles as I flinch at the impact from hitting my ass on the hard wooden edge.
“Am I being funny?” I spit out maybe too aggressively.
“A little,” he says, unbothered, and puts his hand in his pocket, his other hand holding a glass of cloudy water.
He notices where my eyes land and tips the glass toward me, then puts it on the small table next to the door, not breaking eye contact with me.
“Hangover pill. It’s already dissolved in the water,” he says, looking at it, then right back at me. “Drink.”
He slides his other hand into his pocket as well and waits.
I stare at him, my expression getting confused and utterly furious.
“Fuck you!”
God, I was just kidnapped, why am I being so… me?
I should shut up.
His smile spreads to the sides. He’s really enjoying this.
“You drugged me!” I yell at him.
I can’t help myself. I keep being rude to my kidnapper.
Such a good idea, Kiara.
“No,” he points his index finger at me. “That wasn’t me,” he says with a serious tone.
What the hell?
I edge sideways, gripping the table behind me for support, never taking my eyes off him. I just need distance. He stands there, also not breaking eye contact with me. Suddenly he lets out a breath, kind of like he just realized something and decided he doesn’t want to play with me anymore.
“Okay, I’m sorry, of course you don’t want to drink it. Wait.”
He spins around and heads out the door. I’m confused and frozen for a second, then I rush after him, but it’s locked.
Shit. It probably only opens from the other side, meaning I’m definitely a prisoner now.
I take a quick look around the room, looking for another exit, just as he crashes back through the door, and this time he holds a bottle of water and a packed, unopened hangover pill.
I look at him with fury and confusion as he just holds it in front of him.
“It’s packed,” he explains, as if I was stupid. “You don’t have to worry that it’s roofied,” he says with a small smile this time.
Who the hell is this? He really doesn’t look like a dangerous person.
“You kidnapped me,” I blurt out.
I snap the water from his hand, ignoring the pill and stepping far away from him. I’m not risking anything. He just stares at me and I can’t make out his expression.
“Again, not me.” He shrugs like an innocent teenager.
Wait, so… was it?
God, my head hurts so much I can’t recall anything from last night. Or actually, I don’t know how many nights I’ve been out.
“Who kidnapped me then?” I say firmly, my teeth grinding against each other, my jaw tight with anger.
I need to blink all the time because the light hurts my eyes and my brain feels completely blank.
He just stands there with his hands in his pockets, staring at his shoes and entirely ignoring my question. So I grab the nearest glass vase and hurl it at him without thinking.
He ducks and the vase shatters behind him, the pieces of glass falling to the ground. He looks at me as he’s trying to hold in a laugh and then just nods with appreciation.
“I knew you’d be fun, Troubles.”
“Stop calling me that,” I snap.
“Then stop making trouble.”
He spins around to leave, smirking, and closes the doors. I don’t get a chance to answer or to attack as the doors shut behind him.
I can’t believe it. Who the hell was that? If he wasn’t lying, then who kidnapped me? Was it not a dream? The scarred hands?
I feel so disoriented. The room feels like it’s getting smaller around me, my vision blurs and sharpens over and over again and I can’t put anything together. I down the water in one breath and drop to the floor in front of the sofa, thinking.
Okay, I was definitely kidnapped by the Vermilion Organization. That makes sense since I exposed a couple of operations at the paper lately. I had that coming.
Why didn’t they kill me though?
Oh God, are they going to torture me? I don’t think I have any valuable information for them.
But his scent. I’m sure I smelled him last night. It had to be him.
Does he want to kill me? To shut me up?
I never told anyone about that night. I never exposed him. I never actually betrayed him. I was just looking for him. Why would he come for me after six years?
I suddenly realize how disgusting I smell. Sweat and hangover breath. I get up and find the bathroom right next to the bedroom.
Black, clean and luxurious. Huge shower.
There are towels precisely folded by the mirror and an unopened package with toiletries on the sink. Toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush and—a razor.
Good.
If this goes bad, I can at least slit my wrists.
?
I forced myself to vomit in the shower to clean my body of whatever they gave me, while I completely barricaded the bathroom door for privacy.
But now I feel the dizziness coming back. I sit on the bed, in the same outfit I woke up in, and I stare out the window, waiting. I took one pointy piece of the broken vase and hid it under my pillow, but I’m so weak that it’s ridiculous to even think I could fight my way out.
I’m so tired. So powerless.
I lift my eyes only to see that cocky bastard in front of me again.
The hell? Did I fall asleep sitting? I didn’t hear him come. I must be starved and dehydrated.
He’s standing in front of me with a huge plate full of—whatever. I think I’m passing out.
I feel my head falling toward the bed but it doesn’t hit the perfect pillow. It lands on something solid. Something moving. I open my eyes and see that curly motherfucker right above me. Am I lying in his lap?
Jesus, get the fuck up Kiara.
Something cold touches my lips and fluid starts to fill my mouth as I choke on it, the coughing waking me up.
“I’m sorry, but you need to drink this,” he urges me.
His voice is deep, yet soft.
“What is it?” I blurt out between the coughs and he keeps pressing the glass to my lips.
“You haven’t eaten or had anything to drink for far too long. If you pass out, he’s gonna kill me.”
He sits behind me on the bed, my head resting on his chest as he holds my head with one hand and the glass with the other.
Wait, what?
“He?” I lift my eyes up to him as a subtle smile appears on his lips.
“Drink it, I promise it’ll help.”
He lifts the glass to my lips once more, and I do as I’m told. I don’t think I have a choice anyway. I slowly gulp the whole thing and he sits up straighter, with me still resting on his chest, so I also sit more upright.
“Who are you?” I mumble.
“Adrien. You wanna rest?” he asks, his voice almost caring.
What the hell?
“No,” I want to yell but it comes out almost as a whisper.
I don’t think my eyes are even open anymore.
I feel him getting off the bed and slowly putting me on the pillow as I fall into darkness.
The scarred hands are on my skin, holding me.
“Please don’t leave me, Kiara.”
I won’t.
“I won’t leave you this time, Kasien.”