Chapter 3

June’s Pov

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thought that crashed through my mind was simple and impossible. I’m alive. I’m fucking alive.

My entire body felt numb, heavy, like it belonged to someone else. I tried to move, tried to understand where I was, but even the smallest shift sent sharp jolts through my limbs.

The lights overhead were blinding. They stabbed into my skull like needles, and I couldn’t help the sound that escaped my lips. “Ouch.”

“Chloe!”

The voices came from both sides of me, sudden and loud and full of emotion I didn’t understand. Two figures lunged toward me, their faces blurry at first, then slowly coming into focus.

“Chloe, you’re alive! You’re alive, you’re alive!”

Before I could process what was happening, they were on me, arms wrapping around my shoulders, squeezing so tight I could barely breathe. The pressure made everything hurt worse, and I tried to pull away, but I was too weak.

“Amelia, you’re hurting her! Let her go!”

One of them pulled back, and I finally got a good look at her. Coily black hair, wide brown eyes glistening with tears, a face I’d never seen before in my life.

“Stop it, Sarah,” the one called Amelia said, wiping at her eyes. “We’ve missed our friend so much.”

Sarah. Amelia. Chloe.

None of those names meant anything to me.

“How are you feeling, Chloe? Are you good? Can you talk?”

I opened my mouth to tell them they had the wrong person, that I wasn’t Chloe, that my name was June. But the words wouldn’t come. My throat felt like sandpaper, and the pain in my chest made it impossible to push air through my lungs. I tried again, harder this time, but all that came out was a strangled gasp.

“I’m going to get her mom right now,” Amelia said, already halfway to the door. She disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone with Sarah, who just stood there staring at me with this bright, hopeful smile on her face.

I tried to smile back. I didn’t know what else to do. Who were these people? Where was I? And why the hell did they keep calling me Chloe?

The door burst open again, and a woman rushed in. She was older, maybe in her fifties, with soft features and graying hair pulled back into a loose bun. She looked at me like I was the most precious thing in the world, and before I could react, she threw her arms around me.

“Oh, my sweetheart,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “I missed you so much. I thought we lost you. I thought you were gone forever.”

I stiffened in her embrace. This woman was a stranger. I’d never seen her before in my life. But the way she held me, the way her voice broke with relief, it was like she knew me. Like she loved me.

Since when did I have a different mom? An alive one too.

“I’ve called the doctor,” she said, pulling back to cup my face in her hands. “He’s going to come check on you, okay? Just hold on, baby.”

As if on cue, the door opened again, and a man in a white coat stepped inside. He had a kind face, calm and professional, and he gestured for everyone to move to the side. They obeyed immediately, stepping back to give him space.

He leaned over me, shining a light in my eyes, checking my pulse, asking questions I couldn’t answer. I tried to focus, tried to make sense of what was happening, but everything felt wrong. My body felt wrong. This place felt wrong.

And then I saw it.

My hands.

They weren’t my hands.

The fingers were longer, the nails different, the skin a shade lighter than mine. I stared at them, my heart pounding harder and harder in my chest.

“I’m not Chloe,” I managed to croak out, the words barely audible.

Everyone froze. The doctor stopped what he was doing. Sarah and Amelia exchanged confused glances. The woman who claimed to be my mother looked at me with wide, worried eyes.

“Don’t worry about this,” the doctor said gently, turning to address the others. “She’s going to be experiencing some amnesia, but she’ll be fine. It’s a normal side effect given the trauma.”

“No,” I tried to say, shaking my head weakly. “I’m not—”

But then it hit me. A sudden, overwhelming wave of panic that drowned out everything else.

My babies.

Frederick’s babies.

I tried to sit up, my body screaming in protest, my hands clutching at the sheets. “My babies,” I gasped, my voice rising into something desperate and wild. “My babies. He killed my babies. My babies, my babies—”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down!” Sarah and Amelia rushed over, trying to hold me down, but I fought against them.

“My baby is gone!” I sobbed, the words tearing out of me. “Where are they? What happened to my babies?”

The woman, my so-called mother, looked horrified. “What? She was never pregnant. What is she talking about?”

The doctor pulled something out of his pocket. A syringe. I saw it just in time, and I tried to pull away, tried to stop him, but I was too weak. The needle pierced my skin, and almost immediately, the world started to blur.

“No,” I whispered. “Not a memory. These are my babies. Where are they? Where…”

And then everything went dark.