Chapter 4

Zara Pov 

The first thing I noticed when I came through was the smell. It was sharp, clinical, antiseptic in a way that had nothing to do with any room I recognized. 

My eyelids felt heavier than they should have, almost as though something was holding them shut on purpose.

When I finally managed to open them, the ceiling above me was wrong. Off-white tiles instead of the pale gray of my bedroom, a fluorescent light humming faintly instead of the soft lamp Cole always complained about leaving on.

For one strange second, there was nothing. No memory, no weight, just the quiet confusion of wondering where I was.

Then it all came rushing back at once, too fast to brace for. The ballroom. Mara's voice calling out to someone else. The house, the folder, the door locking behind me. My father's face, cold and unmoving. The cold pavement rising up to meet me.

My body ached in places I couldn't fully separate from each other, a dull throb settling into my ribs, my knees, somewhere behind my eyes. 

My throat hurts too, felt like sandpaper and dry enough that swallowing felt too much. 

I tried to lift my hand to rub my face and felt resistance- something was taped down against the skin of my palm. 

I turned my head slightly, enough to see the IV line running into the back of my hand and the small bruise already forming around it.

A monitor beeped steadily somewhere to my right, tracking something about me I hadn't consented to being tracked.

I stared at the ceiling a while longer, unwilling yet to ask anyone where exactly I'd ended up, or how.

A nurse came in soon after, moving around the bed with practiced ease.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Sore. Confused."

She nodded, jotting something down without elaborating. "You gave us quite a scare."

"Has anyone come by?" I asked, before I could stop myself. "Called, maybe?"

Her hands paused over the chart for just a fraction of a second. "No visitors. No calls that I'm aware of."

She didn't say anything more, but I understood anyway. 

Nobody was coming. Nobody had even tried.

"Who brought me in?" I asked. "I don't remember much after I fell."

"A man, I think. It happened fast." She thought for a moment. "He carried you in himself, wouldn't wait for a wheelchair, told the front desk what happened. Then he left. No name, no number. Once he knew you were being attended to, he just walked out."

I tried to conjure some image of him, some detail to hold onto - his voice, his height, the shape of his hands as he must have lifted me off that pavement - and found nothing. 

It felt strange, being kept alive by someone whose face I couldn't picture, who apparently hadn't wanted to be found either.

I let it go,not because I didn't want to know but mostly because I didn't have the energy to hold onto a mystery on top of everything else waiting for me.

The nurse hesitated before her next question, the way people do right before mentioning money to someone clearly not equipped to think about it.

"I do need to ask about payment. For the treatment, the stay."

"Right." I almost laughed, a short, humorless sound that surprised even me. "Of course."

I reached for my phone on instinct more than actual hope, my fingers fumbling slightly with the unfamiliar weight of it, like my hands hadn't fully caught up with the rest of me yet. 

I opened my banking app, half expecting some small, manageable number waiting on the screen.

Zero.

I blinked at it, certain I'd misread it, and refreshed the page like that might change anything.

"I take it that's a no," she said gently.

"That's a no." I set the phone face down on the blanket, like that could make the number disappear.

She was quiet for a moment, tapping her pen against the clipboard, turning something over before deciding to say it.

"If you're in need of money, I might know of something. Not related to the bill… just something that could help, given where you seem to be right now."

"I'm listening," I said, too tired for pride to get fully in the way.

"A family I know is looking for a live-in nanny. Good pay, room and board included." She paused. "They've had trouble keeping anyone in the position. They're not exactly picky at this point. Almost anyone, really."

Something in the way she said almost anyone caught my attention. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just that they're desperate," she said, a little too quickly, already reaching for a scrap of paper. "Desperate enough that your situation wouldn't scare them off."

It wasn't the most reassuring answer, but reassurance wasn't something I had the luxury of demanding right now.

"Can I get the details?"

She wrote down a name and an address, folded it once, and handed it over. Her expression gave nothing away.

I took it anyway. It was still more than I'd had five minutes ago.

I didn't rehearse anything on the way there. There was no room left for pride or careful phrasing, just the paper in my hand and the address on it, and the simple fact that I had nowhere else to be. 

Holding on to the hope that this had to work, I saw the estate slowly come into view long before I even reached its gates. 

The iron bars were rising higher than anything I'd seen up close, the house behind them cold and imposing against the gray sky. 

I almost turned back twice, certain a place like this had no use for someone who currently owned nothing but the clothes on her back but I didn't. 

I kept walking until raised voices reached me from somewhere near the entrance, sharp enough to carry across the drive.

A woman stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed tight, her voice climbing. "She's impossible. No child behaves like that unless someone's failed to discipline her properly." 

"You're done," a man's voice cut through hers, low and final. "Collect your things." I stopped at the edge of the driveway, half-hidden by the gate's shadow, watching a scene I clearly wasn't meant to witness yet, staff hovering nearby with the careful stillness of people trying not to be noticed.

The woman opened her mouth to argue further, saw something in his face, and thought better of it. 

She brushed past him with her bag clutched to her chest, rattled and refusing to look at anyone, she stormed past me without a glance. 

The man remained in the doorway a moment longer, jaw tight, something unreadable moving behind his eyes before he schooled it back into stillness. 

Then his gaze lifted, past the space she'd just vacated, and landed directly on me. 

I felt my legs wobble under the weight of my trembling body. His gaze was unwavering as they bore into my soul- waiting. 

The compound had now fallen into perfect silence and my eyes lowered, unable to keep his gaze any longer. 

“Who are you?”