Chapter 51

Chapter 51
LOUISA’S POV

When I woke, my mouth felt stuffed with cotton, thick and dry like I’d been chewing through fog. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. The air was heavy and when I tried to move, my wrists jerked to a stop. The soft clinking sound of metal echoed through the dark, and panic took over my body.

My hands wouldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t move. I was bound to the bed.

The room around me was pitch black, so dark that I couldn’t even see the outline of my own body. My breathing quickened; the air seemed to shrink with every inhale. I tugged again at the restraints, harder this time, until my wrists began to burn.

They didn’t even give an inch.

“Hello?” My voice cracked in the dark. “Is anyone here? Please….. please, I can’t move!”

I got no answer, safe for the thump of my pulse in my ears and the creak of leather against skin.

“Please!” I screamed this time, my voice scraping through my throat. “Somebody help me! Please, let me out! I’m not supposed to be here!”

The silence that followed felt endless. My heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it would rip straight through my chest. I screamed again, over and over, until my throat was raw and tears slipped hot down my face.

Finally, the door clicked open. A sliver of light sliced through the darkness like a blade. Relief tore through me so fast that I almost sobbed.

“Oh, thank God,” I gasped, twisting toward the sound. “Please, please, you have to let me go! I shouldn’t be here, there’s been a mistake! Please, I’m not crazy, I’m—”

The words died when I saw her. The nurse from before, her face calm and empty, stepped in holding a small syringe.

“Please don’t—”

But she didn’t even blink. She pushed the needle into the crook of my arm, and the cold fire of the liquid spread through me like poison.

“No! No, don’t….” My voice stumbled and broke. The ceiling tilted and the edges of the world began to smear.

I tried to fight it. I screamed, or thought I did, but the sound came out as a whisper. My body went limp, my eyelids heavy, the dark swallowing everything again.

The next time I woke, something burned.

It wasn’t a dream. It was real. The smell of smoke filled my nose before my eyes even opened, suffocating smoke that clawed down my throat and made me cough until my chest hurt.

My eyes shot open, but everything was still black. The only thing I could see was a faint flicker of orange crawling along the bottom of the door, as well as the heat.

It was slow at first, but then it began to grow, hotter and hotter, pressing against the room like a living thing. The building was on fire.

“Oh God… no… no, please!” I cried, jerking against the restraints. The cuffs bit deep into my wrists. I could feel the smoke thickening, taste the bitterness of burning my lips.

My lungs screamed for air. “Help! Somebody, please!”

The door didn’t open this time. No footsteps, no voices. Just the sound of the crackling of fire.

I pulled harder, twisting until I felt something warm trickle down my hand. The leather straps wouldn’t budge. My heart thrashed in my chest like a trapped bird.

The flames crept closer. I could feel the heat seeping through the thin blanket that covered me. The smoke rolled in waves across the ceiling, and my eyes burned so badly I couldn’t keep them open.

And then so many images flashed into my mind. I heard a woman's voice calling me “my little songbird” as her gentle hand brushed the hair from my face. Then she kissed my forehead.

There was also a little boy laughing beside me, his hand clutching mine as we ran through a garden. He was older, his smile wide, familiar somehow.

Then another face, an older man, kind eyes, salt and pepper hair. He was sitting in a chair by a fireplace, and I was on his lap, my head tucked under his chin as he read from a book. His voice was deep and soothing.

The scene shifted to screams, smoke and darkness, just like now. A locked room, my small hands pounding against the door.

I saw myself in a white nightgown, crying. Then the woman’s voice came again, shouting my name; “Aria! Aria, run!”

The door burst open, hands grabbed me and I was dragged out, coughing, choking, my eyes wide. I gasped, my lungs filling with smoke, and the pieces crashed together all at once.

The woman was my mother. The boy was my brother. The man was my father. The room, the same one that had burned years ago, had been in our vacation home where I got abducted shortly after.

I wasn’t Louisa. I was Aria Caldwell.

The name echoed through me, my real name. The one buried deep under the ashes of a fire that had almost taken me once before.

Memories began to tumble faster now, overlapping; my brother’s laughter, my mother’s lullaby, my father’s voice calling for me in the night. And then another face; older now, but still the same boy who used to hold my hand. The man who had saved me, again and again, without either of us realizing why.

I called him Angel, but he was my brother.

The truth slammed into me so hard I almost choked. Years wandering, lost and empty, always feeling like I was missing something vital. It was all because I had no memory of my past.

I was never Louisa, the naive, foolish girl who fell into Benedict Blackwood’s world. I was Aria Caldwell.

The heat was unbearable now. The flames were licking the corners of the room, curling up the walls, devouring everything in their path. My hair clung to my face, damp with sweat. I pulled and pulled at the restraints until my wrists felt raw, but they held firm.

I screamed until my throat broke. “Help! Please! Someone!”

But no one came and the smoke thickened. My lungs burned. I coughed until spots danced before my eyes. The world around me blurred in shades of orange and black.

I thought of Angel, my brother, of the way he always seemed to appear when I was in danger, the way his eyes softened when he looked at me, like he knew me from somewhere.

Now I knew why.

I smiled, even as the tears rolled down my cheeks, cutting clean lines through the soot. “Angel,” I whispered weakly. “You found me once. Maybe you’ll find me again.”

The fire was everywhere now. The ceiling cracked and embers floated. My heartbeat slowed, matching the hiss and roar around me.

For the first time in years, I felt… whole. I knew who I was. I remembered everything. My family. My name. My past.

But it was too late now.

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