Chapter 3: The Awakening

I woke up to hear someone's breath.

Deep. Measured. Too intimate.

My body contracted instinctively. Two decades of living, of living under threat, of never relaxing, had conditioned me to wake up to protect myself. But in trying to rise, a jagged shock of pain coursed through my ribs, keeping me in place.

What?

My eyes opened, and the world around me crystallized—a dark apartment, the smell of something faintly flowered, and heat that didn’t emanate from myself.

Where am I?

I pushed up on elbows, and jagged pains ran through my body in protest. The clothing on my body was unfamiliar: dry joggers, unfamiliar shirts—but I didn’t know where or how. The last thing I remembered, though, was the lake. The creak of ice beneath my weight. Darkness swallows me up.

Someone had rescued me.

And now, only a few feet ahead of them, tucked up in an armchair, asleep.

A woman.

She was small, but there was strength in the way she stood, even in sleep. Loosening dark hairs fell around her face, and soft shadows played beneath eyelashes on her cheek. She didn't seem to be old—to have any entwinement in whatever in hell's name my life had descended to.

She stood exposed to the cold as the blanket that had been placed around her shoulders slipped off. I wasn't sure if the agony in my chest was from being so near to drowning or something else.

Who was she?

And why the hell was I here?

The paranoia hit me like a freight train. My pulse beat in rhythm to thoughts running through every possible situation. Did she do their bidding? Were they sending her to save me, to keep me in captivity? No—if they wanted to murder me, I never would have awakened.

Which meant, therefore, that this girl, whoever she may have been, rescued me herself.

That didn’t make me trust her.

With slow, slow movements, I pushed my legs up and over the couch and stood up. My muscles creaked, stiff and achy, but I pushed forward. I had to leave. Now.

I scanned around for my gun. For my knife. Anything.

Nothing.

Then, I heard, faint, the intake of breath.

She was waking up.

I turned sharply, concentrating intently on her as her lids opened. Brown. Wide. And for a moment, filled with something dangerously close to relief.

Then, confusion.

Then, wariness.

She whispered, "You're awake," her throat thick and dry.

No.

"Where am I?" I demanded, and my tone was rough, filled with wariness.

She straightened in her chair, brushing sleep from her eyelids. "My apartment."

"Why?"

A flicker of something appeared on her expression. Annoyance. Maybe frustration. "Because you were drowning, and I do not have the habit of leaving people to their deaths."

She said it in such an informal manner. As if saving my life did not amount to anything.

I didn’t trust it.

I took a step closer, seeing how she would handle herself. She didn't jump, but I did notice the tension in her shoulders. She was anxious, but afraid. Interesting.

"You went into the lake for me?" I asked, voice low.

She exhaled sharply, running through her hair. "Not quite. I was walking, and you—" She hesitated, wrinkling her forehead. "You strode onto the ice to take your life."

The man kept quiet, staring only at her.

“Drink this,” she urged him, offering out a cup of medicine she had prepared for him.

He knocked aside the cup and grasped her wrist. "Who sent you?"

“No one sent me,” she said in a calm voice. “Now let go. You’re hurting my hand.”

“You’re trying to poison me. You think I’m a fool?” he said, his grip tightening.

The girl punched him in the face.

He was surprised. He hadn't expected to.

“You tried to commit suicide by drowning yourself in the lake in the morning, and now you're asking if I poisoned you!" "Who authorized you to commit suicide? And I almost died while trying to save this massive body of yours! You woke up after sleeping in style for five days, and now you're treating someone who rescued your life in such an inhuman manner?"

“You’re good in acting,” he mumbled.

“Do you ever hear what I am saying, you numbskull?”

He let go of her. "Five days?"

I clenched my jaw.

The memory is sketchy, but I knew better. That night, I hadn't been myself. Too many dangers converging on me. Too many ghosts whispering in my ear. But by no means did I have any intentions to drown.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

She folded them. "Who is who?"

A beat of silence fell between us.

This girl had nerve.

I almost smirked. Nearly.

Instead, I watched her, and for the first time, saw dark rings around her eyes, and how she stood, straining and fatigued, as if fatigue were stitched into bones. She tended to me, no doubt stayed awake for days keeping watch.

Five days.

My stomach turned when I looked at the wall-mounted clock. I'd lost five solid days.

That meant that people would be looking for me.

Enemies.

And my own personnel.

I needed to get back.

I said, "I have to go," and started to head for the door.

She leaped out of her chair and blocked my path with her body before I could move another step. sternly, "You can't just leave," she added. I raised an eyebrow."Watch and see."

"You're injured. You almost died—do you have any clue where you're going?"

"Not your business."

"You don’t even know who I am," she muttered, shaking her head, and I watched as her face momentarily changed from irritation

Something was hurting.

I didn't recognize who she was.

And I shouldn't have cared.

But for reasons unknown to myself, I did.

She sighed, and folded them. "Isla."

The name remained in my mind, unfamiliar but. right.

Isla.

"I saved your life, you know," she remarked, tilting up her chin. "A 'thank you' wouldn't do any harm."

I smirked, but only faintly. "Sure of what?"

She rolled her eyes.

I should have passed by and vanished in the dark. But something made me stop, my instincts screaming in my mind that this was by no means over.

And I was right.

Because at that point, there was a loud *bang* on the door.

We both froze.

Another bang.

Then—

"Open the door!" someone cried on the other side.

A voice I knew.

One of my staff. And if someone did ever locate me, someone else may have, also. Then—gunfire.