“Your guardian should be here soon, but it’s better if you rest,” Dr. Anderson says before he leaves.
I have a guardian, but I’m in college. How does that work exactly?
“How…how old am I?” I ask the nurse.
“Twenty-one, remember, Rei?” the asshole on my right says with a sickening smile that doesn’t even come close to reaching his eyes.
It’s fake.
He’s fake.
There’s nothing genuine about him. I must’ve been out of my damn mind when I accepted his proposal.
That is if he ever proposed in the first place. For some reason, I think I just ended up with him and that’s it.
That’s even scarier.
“No, I don’t remember,” I hiss. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? I just told the doctor I don’t remember my life.”
He raises one thick, perfect eyebrow. “Huh.”
Just one word. Huh. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
“You’re just distressed, Miss Ellis.” The nurse smiles down at him with so much affection, like he’s her son or something. “Asher has never left your side since you were admitted. He’s been so sweet.”
Asher.
Asher…
The name doesn’t ring a bell, but the fact he’s been by my side… I watch him again, trying to get a different feel for him.
No. Nothing.
He’s just the nightmare voice and the one who called me a monster.
Those sinister eyes meet mine as he speaks to the nurse with a disgusting friendliness. “She’s the only one I have. Isn’t that right, Rei?”
Rei.
Fucking Rei?
He doesn’t get to give me a nickname after he called me a monster. How can he say them both and sound so convincing and…frightening?
He doesn’t get to act like the perfect human being in front of other people when I can sense him plotting my demise.
The nurse almost swoons at his words.
My shoulder blades knot together as a strangling fear closes my throat.
Wrong. Everything is so freaking wrong.
The nurse smiles as she injects my IV with something. “You’re a lucky girl, Reina.”
Would everyone stop saying that? How can she not see the threat looming over me like damnation? It’s pouring onto my skin like acid.
And for crying out loud, would everyone stop calling me Reina? That’s not my name.
But again, if I don’t remember my name, what makes me so sure it isn’t Reina?