Chapter 3
1537 Words
While Edward still tried to process what her response meant; What did she mean she didn’t know?
Gabriel, on the other hand, had gone into full doctor mode. The furrow between his eyebrows deepened. He pressed his lips together for a moment. Then slowly he said, “Madam, I need to check your head and ask you a few questions, ok?”
He waited for her to nod before he raised his hands and gently pressed his fingers into her hair, checking her scalp for injuries. “Does your head hurt?”
“Ye... yes... somehow.”
“Somehow? On a scale of one to ten, ten being unbearable… how badly does it hurt?”
The woman took a moment to answer, clearly trying to gauge her pain.
Edward clenched his jaw hard. It was difficult to just stand by and wait for answers that seemed to come on the back of an old, tired snail.
“You make me very nervous when you have that look on your face,” Trey said quietly next to him.
Edward blinked. He chanced a glance at his friend before returning his intense stare to Gabriel and the unknown woman. She still hadn’t answered Gabriel’s question about the level of pain she was in. That didn’t sit well with him. Was she in need of serious medical care? The kind only gotten from a hospital? That would be a complication they didn’t need. Unless they just dumped her ass at the door of a hospital and drove away. Edward frowned. That wasn’t an idea he liked. He couldn’t wash his hands of her without knowing exactly what her story was. What if, by dumping her in a hospital, he literally signed her death sentence?
His hand rose so he could scratch his head. Damn. Why couldn’t it have been a deer that ran into his car? He wondered.
Trey, clearing his throat, reminded Edward of his statement. “What look?”
If Trey noticed how long it had taken him to respond, he didn’t comment on it. He went on with whatever he had been saying instead.
“Like you are contemplating murder or something.”
Edward snorted quietly, conscious not to disturb Gabriel and his questions. “Not at the moment.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Trey said with a chuckle, and shook his head. Then he jerked his chin towards the woman. Gabriel continued to ask questions quietly, but they couldn’t catch any of the answers she gave. “What are you thinking?”
“Hell if I know.” And Edward was done waiting for answers. “Gabriel, what the hell is going on?”
Gabriel was slow to respond, and slow when he handed the words over, like he was testing each one for flaws first or making sure he said nothing that would alarm them. “We have a minor problem with memory.”
“What kind of problem?” Edward asked in a flat tone.
“The kind brought about by trauma from her injuries and maybe… her mind is just trying to protect her. She has amnesia.”
The woman in question barely seemed to be aware they were talking about her. Edward looked at the lost, confused gaze in her eyes.
“Gabriel, a moment please… alone.”
Gabriel murmured something to the woman and helped her lay down again on the couch. He checked the IV line, then stood up and joined Edward and Trey a few steps away.
“Speak clearly,” Edward said in a hard voice.
“Like I said… we have a memory problem. She can’t give me her name or tell me what happened to her. She can’t even tell me her age. I can’t tell you if it is temporary or permanent. I can’t access the true degree of her injuries without proper medical equipment. But the summary is… That woman does not know who she is or what the f**k happened to her.”
Trey blinked and looked at the woman. “She is lying,” he said in what sounded like a matter of fact.
“What makes you say that?” Edward asked immediately, without missing a beat.
“It’s just not possible and awfully too convenient an explanation. Don’t you think?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Wow, that is a very well analyzed conclusion, Doctor Trey.”
“Oh...Shut up. I am just saying… how do you know she is for real?”
Edward suddenly walked back towards the woman. He stared at her with unhidden suspicion in his eyes. “Are you trying to play a game with us?”
Her head was pounding at a steady, annoying as hell beat. She had told the man who said he was a doctor that it was a three on the pain scale, but it was more like a five or six. Not yet, at the cry baby level, but close.
What was making it worse was the tension in her body and her efforts to try and remember anything. Her sight kept getting foggy before it cleared again. Exhaustion hummed in her body, deep from her very bones. She also had aches all over her body. She didn’t even want to check how bad it was. Just like she didn’t want to look down and see how dirty she was and almost naked. It all made little sense, and she didn’t want her imagination to take over and fill in the blanks.
What she knew was that she was scared, but didn’t know why. She knew she had to run, but had no idea what or who she was running from or where she should go. There was just a whole blank space in her head. And the more she tried to fill in the blanks, the more her head hurt.
Then there was the strange place she had woken up in. It didn’t look like a hospital, more like a very fancy, rich hotel or apartment. Everything in the room screamed money. From the couch she was laid on, to the massive flat screen TV mounted on the wall.
Even the paintings on the walls didn’t look like general store cheap purchases. She couldn’t remember who she was, but she could at least tell when something looked expensive. It gave her the slightest comfort that not all was lost.
Her eyes moved to the three men that spoke quietly among themselves a few feet away from her. They were all handsome young men. She doubted any of them were above the age of thirty-five. She tried to give them a more critical look.
Apart from Gabriel, the doctor who had been checking on her, the other two men had ink all over their exposed arms. It made them look like real bad boys. Dangerous men. Her stomach knotted in apprehension.
One man in particular was bigger than the others. He looked at her, watching with a frown.
It was obvious they were talking about her; she didn’t need her full brain functioning to know this. Just as they had spoken about her diagnosis as though she hadn’t been seated right there.
She should have been angry, but anger required energy, and she had none left. Her body was running on fumes. She felt weak, and her thought process was so slow, as though each brain cell had to drag itself through molasses before interpreting the data she was receiving.
Movement grabbed her attention. She looked up and saw that the man that had been watching her was walking towards her. He stood over her for a moment.
“Are you trying to play a game with us?” he asked in his deep voice.
Her slow brain took a moment to get what he was saying, but even after understanding his question, it still made no sense. “Game?”
“Yes. Are you lying? Can you actually not remember who you are?”
She bit her lip. Angry despite her state. “Why should you assume I am lying?”
“Woman, I don’t know you. You ran out of the trees straight into my car in the middle of the night.”
She tried to think through what he said, if it struck any memory in her head. To her frustration, nothing came. It was all just a big blank space. She let out a frustrated cry and closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t know how to deal with the void in her head and the insecurity it gave her.
She felt so vulnerable and terrified. They thought she was playing games? If it was a game, she clearly didn’t know the rules and was in over her head.
A hand touching her arm snapped her eyes open. She saw the man had crouched down and was now looking at her with more concern than accusation in his eyes.
“Don’t stress, I will help you get to the bottom of this.”
She had no reason to accept his help or believe he meant her no harm, but she nodded and closed her eyes again. Sleep took her almost immediately.
- Writer
