Chapter 11: Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Carly Lewis
POV
I woke up with a headache. My head was throbbing, it wasn’t the kind that sat behind your eyes after a bad night’s sleep. No this was like someone hit me in the head with a hammer. It felt like someone had hammered a nail into the side of my skull and left it there to dig into my brain.
I groaned out rolling to my my side throwing the comforter over my head to keep the light out. Squeezing my eyes shut hoping it would stop the pounding inside my brain.
For a second, I couldn’t remember who I was, or where I was.
I let out a sigh sitting up. The pounding wasn’t going away. I notice the duffle bag at the end of the bed and it all comes back to me. I was at the Jacobs estate.
The duffle bag was the same one I packed yesterday in my apartment. The one, one of the nurses at the hospital got me. She felt bad for me and gave me her old one. I’ve had it for the last three years.
My eyes scan the room. The room was pretty it was better than my entire apartment. It had a dressing table.
I wondered if I’ve ever had one of those. My thoughts go to Stella. And I pictured myself standing while she sits and I do her hair. I couldn’t help but wonder if I did the same with my mother. What was my mother like? Did I grow up with her?
What was my family like? Did I grow up in foster care?
I lean against the headboard and close my eyes. The pounding was getting worse and worse.
"You should’ve done what we asked you to do!"
My eyes snapped open. The deep and menacing voice echoes through my skull.
I sat up way too quickly. I immediately regretted doing it. The room tilted and nausea rolled through me, causing me to gag.
I tried to get up and walk toward the bathroom connected to the room.
"Fuck..." I muttered, gripping the edge of the mattress as I sat back down. I waited until the dizziness settled.
I was too scared to move. One move and I could throw up last night’s supper.
The bedroom was bare like the inside of my head. I didn’t have much clothes and I didn’t have a sense of style yet either. When the nausea finally settled I stood up slowly. I walked around the room. I barely got a look at it since I just got dressed here and Stella wanted me to sleep with her.
I should probably phone Koah as well. I needed to make sure she was alright.
I felt bad about hurting Chase’s ex wife. She was Stella’s mother. I still couldn’t believe my body reacted in such a violent way.
Would that happen again in the future?
I had a feeling Chase might fire me after the stunt I pulled this morning.
I looked out the window. It was dark out. Had I slept the entire day? The last thing I remembered was speaking to Chase and then I don’t remember anything else.
My mind replayed it all like I was watching a movie, From the scream, the split second it took me to get off the bed and onto Chase’s ex wife.
My stomach twisted.
I remembered waking up startled by a scream and then being on top of her. I didn’t remember anything in between.
I tried to remember, but nothing came up...
No I was wrong, not nothing. Like bits and pieces, like flashes, like my body needed to remove a threat from hurting Stella. I met the little girl less than a week ago and all I wanted to do was protect her.
It was my job. It was like my body wanted to do everything it could to protect her.
My body neutralized a threat that wasn’t there. That didn’t exist.
The word bounced around my mind and I physically flinched.
Neutralize.
It was a word in the alphabet. It didn’t have any meaning in my life. Or I thought it didn’t. Yet my body physically reacted to the word.
Who thought like that? Who neutralized targets or threats?
My pulse quickened. My breathing picked up as well.
I closed my eyes and replayed the entire scene again.
From the scream to Chase having physically rip me off the woman before I hurt her further. I though I don’t want to admit it. I knew I might have dislocated her shoulder if he didn’t.
The rush of adrenaline I felt in the moment felt familiar. The certainty I felt in the moment told me I wasn’t a normal human being before I woke up in that hospital. I could have been running from something or someone.
I replay the moment again. Then it hit. I hadn’t thought at all in that moment. I didn’t even had a chance to weigh my options, I reacted on pure instinct. An instinct I didn’t know I had. My body had simply decided she was a threat and acted. Fast. Way too fast to be normal.
The memory of Chase’s expression surfaced in the forefront of my mind. It was weird. When I was with Stella and Chase. My memory stays sharp. I could recall moments down to the second. Nothing slipped my mind.
Chase had seen it too, the way I moved, the way I reacted way to violently. The way I’d known exactly what to do without thinking twice. Which told me I was probably fired.
My throat tightened at the thought. I was finally getting answers to who I was and I to lose this chance to get answers as to who I was and what I was in the past.
For last two years I worked the biker bar, filled with what people thought were dangerous men, yet I always felt comfortable around them. In the last two years not once have I displayed anything close to that level of violence. Or protective instincts.
I often wonder how hard I hit my head for me to lose all my memories of who I was. The doctor said there was a chance I would never get my memory back.
Amy the nurse who helped me. Helped me get pills that helped keep the headaches at bay.
I haven’t taken them in a while. Amy was away with family and I haven’t gotten a refill on those pills yet.
I should get them my headaches will only get worse from here.
Now that I was thinking about it, every situation my body deemed dangerous somehow ended with me being victorious.
A strange chill ran down my spine. Should I try to get into a self defence class and test out how skilled I really was? What if there were things I knew how to do that I simply hadn’t needed before?
The thought should’ve excited me, yet the thought terrified me instead. Because skills came from somewhere. It wasn’t like some video game where you acquire skills by purchase or by levelling up.
People learned skills through hard work. People who had histories. And every time I got close to mine, or tried to recall mine I’d experience these soul chattering headaches, that made me wish I were dead. It made me think something ugly was waiting for me when I recalled my past.
I pressed my fingers against my temples. Think Carly just think.
Where did those instincts come from? Was it drilled into me? Was it something I learnt because I wanted to?
The second I asked myself the question, pain exploded behind my eyes again.
I was gasping for air.
A sharp, blinding spike drove painfully through my skull.
Images flashed through my mind like a slideshow.
There was smoke, fire and a dark hallway.
I was running from something.
Someone shouting, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
A man’s voice drilled through my skull.
A woman screaming for me.
Blood on my hands as I stared at it.
And then it was all gone again.
I doubled over, clutching my head.
"Stop." I whispered.
The room spun violently, My stomach twisted violently, sending me doubling over as a dry heave tore through me. There was nothing left to bring up because, I hadn’t eaten all day.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the wave of dizziness threatening to send me forward onto the floor. Every beat of my heart felt equally painful. The harder I tried to recall the piece of memory the worse it became.
It if my mind was actively resist me remembering my past. I didn’t know if my mind was trying to protect me or hurt me. And I didn’t know which was worse.
A knock sounded at the door.
I nearly jumped out of my skin and the headache pulsed against my skull again.
"Carly?" Chase’s voice called from the other side. "Are you awake yet?"
I stared at the door, breathing hard. A part of me wanted to pretend to sleep, I didn’t want to hear I was fired. Another part of me wanted answers, I knew Chase didn’t have.
But I didn’t know if I was ready to face Chase, not after what I did.
I sat on the floor too scared to move. I wasn’t ready for what was to come. I didn’t know if I’ll ever be ready. But a part of me felt it in my gut, I was never someone who ran from things she was afraid of. I faced them head on.
