CHAPTER THREE: THE GHOST

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound pulled me out of nothing, somewhere between sleep and death where the world had no shape.

 Bright and cruel white everywhere. The room felt weird, like it was moving, and I didn't know which way was up.The pain in my chest felt so intense that every breath felt like my last.

I tried to move but my body refused. Tubes curled around my arms and machines sang their endless digital song. A plastic mask pressed against my face and I was trapped inside myself.

"Aurora?"

A woman's voice pulled me back,soft and professional. "Can you hear me? You're in the hospital. You're safe now."

Safe?that word would have made me laugh if only I had the strength to.

And then the memory hit.

Adrian, the gun, that look in his eyes just before everything went dark.

"She's waking up more," the nurse said"Aurora, you've been unconscious for three days. You're at Mercy General. You're going to be okay."

Three days gone while I was lying here clawing for every breath, and Adrian was probably out there pretending, smiling, telling the world his perfect little lies.

I croaked out barely a whisper. "Water."

"Small sips," she said while pressing a cup to my lips. It tasted like metal and medicine but it was heaven.

Marcus came that afternoon and I heard his voice before I saw him, shouting at the front desk about visiting hours. Then he was there filling the doorway with his messy hair and worried eyes.

"Oh my God," he whispered while pulling a chair close to my bed. "Aurora. I thought—"

He couldn't finish because tears rolled down his face and Marcus never cried, not when we were kids, he was always the tough one who never showed weakness.

"Hey," I teased. "Don't cry. Makes your face all ugly."

He laughed while wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Shut up. You look like death warmed over."

"Feel like it too."

We sat in silence with him crying and me trying to figure out how I was still alive. The machines beeped and nurses came and went while somewhere in the world the girl who believed in fairy tales was dead.

"What happened?" Marcus asked finally. "The cops said a break-in but nothing makes sense. Your apartment wasn't trashed and nothing was stolen."

I looked at him, my best friend who'd always been there, who'd never hurt me or lied to me, and my throat went dry. I couldn't tell him the truth, that the man I loved had tried to kill me.

"It happened fast," I whispered. "I didn't see his face."

He didn't believe me. "Bullshit. Aurora, talk to me. What really happened?"

"I don't remember much, just pain and darkness."

The cops came later with their bored faces and notepads. Did I know anyone who wanted to hurt me? No. Threats? None. Anything missing? No. They left promising to investigate but I saw it in their eyes, they already thought the case was cold.

If only they knew the truth, that Adrian was probably at his office right now playing the devastated fiancé for the cameras.

That evening Dr. Martinez walked in with news I wasn't ready for.

"You're pregnant," he said. "About twelve weeks."

Pregnant?Adrian's baby?

"The baby is fine.More than fine actually," the doctor continued. "It's a miracle."

I pressed my hand to my stomach, to this tiny life that had survived.

"How?" I whispered. "How am I alive? How did anyone find me?"

Marcus looked away. "Mrs. Brown heard the shot and called 911. You were barely holding on, you'd lost so much blood."

Mrs. Brown, my cranky old neighbor who smelled like cats and hated my music, had saved my life.

"The e bullet missed your heart by an inch,your lung were punctured and ribs broken. But you're here," Marcus said softly.

The TV caught my eye with news playing and there he was, my Adrian, golden and broken with tears streaming down his perfect face.

"Turn it up," I said.

Marcus obeyed and suddenly Adrian's voice filled the room, that voice that used to hum love songs in my ear, now performing grief for everyone to see.

"I can't believe someone would hurt Aurora," he said while shaking. "She's the kindest person I know. We were supposed to get married next spring."

The reporter cut in with updates about the investigation, about how police had no leads, about how the fiancé of billionaire CEO Adrian Thorne remained in critical condition.

Then Adrian was back on screen looking like a man whose world had ended.

"I just want her to wake up," he sobbed. "I want to tell her I love her. I can't lose her, she's everything to me."

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and I remembered how that same hand had held a gun and same fingers had pulled the trigger without shaking.

"The Thorne family is offering a million-dollar reward for information about Aurora's attacker," the reporter said.

A million dollars to catch himself?Well that's funny.

Marcus looked at me. "Poor guy. He really loves you."

I wanted to shake him and tell him the truth, but who would believe me, aurora Winters against Adrian Thorne? I would be locked up before anyone listened.

The news switched to sports but Adrian's performance kept echoing in my head, the way he had looked at the camera with those wounded eyes, playing the heartbroken lover while the whole world ate it up.

He was good, better than I'd ever imagined.

And somewhere out there he probably thought he had won and aurora Winters would die quietly in this hospital bed taking his secrets with her.

But Aurora Winters was already dead.

And in her place something else was stirring, harder, angrier, smarter,and that person is going to make him pay for every lie, every tear, every second of this performance.

I pressed my hand to my belly where his child was growing.

"Mama's gonna keep us safe," I whispered. "And daddy, he's going to pay for what he did to us."

The machines beeped on and my anger increased but for the first time since I had woken up I wasn't afraid.

I was planning.