Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 10

Ella's POVI came back to myself with a jolt, that harsh buzz from the call button still vibrating in my ears.For a few seconds I couldn’t place where I was. The chair pressed hard against my back, the air smelled sharp and clean, and exhaustion sat on my chest like a stone. Then I remembered the rain.A downpour I’d sprinted through, my portfolio hugged tight, my heart slamming because I was about to be late for the one interview that mattered. Sterling & Webb. A real firm. The kind that could lift a fresh design graduate out of coffee shop gigs and give me a future. I saw those glass doors, so close. And then I saw nothing but a dark shape, a collision, and the horrible soft sound of a body hitting wet pavement. My portfolio exploded. Papers scattered. And the man who had simply been there was suddenly on the ground, motionless.Now I was outside his room, peering through the door’s little window.I’d expected bandages, blood, some visible proof of the damage I’d caused. Instead

Ella's POV　　I stared at the laptop screen until the numbers blurred. The rent had cleared.The utility bill had posted. What remained in my account looked flimsy and cold.My savings, the tiny cushion I had scraped together from months of budgeting and freelance work, were fading fast.And now I had two mouths to feed instead of one.Two weeks had passed since the accident.Two weeks of tiptoeing around the stranger who slept on my sofa and fabricating childhood memories every time he asked a question.He hadn't pressed me again after that first awkward night in my bed. He had pulled back into a shell of quiet observation.His questions came less often now, but they were sharper when they did.He was building a world from the scraps I gave him, and keeping my story straight left me exhausted all the time.One evening he came home with his hands torn and bleeding.I looked up when the door opened and the sight of him stopped me cold.His knuckles were raw, the skin split and oozing. A

Ella‘s POV　　I woke up to a hammer pounding inside my skull. I groaned and pressed my palm against my forehead.Sunlight stabbed through a gap in the curtains, too bright and too sharp. I was in my bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes. The pillow smelled faintly of wine and something else, something clean and warm that I couldn't immediately place.Panic arrived a half-second later, cold and electric.I tried to piece together the fragments. Mrs. Geller. The roast chicken. The smiling fish gravy boat. The second glass of wine, and maybe a third. After that, nothing. Just a black void where my memories should have been.I had been completely defenseless. I threw back the covers and stumbled into the living room. My legs felt unsteady, my mouth dry as cotton.Noah sat on the sofa, already dressed in his work clothes, a cup of coffee cradled in his scarred hands. He looked up when I appeared, his expression calm and unreadable."Good morning," he said. "There's coffee."I ignor

Noah's POV　　The sign above the door read MIKE'S ELECTRONICS in faded blue letters, and the windows were plastered with posters for virus removal and screen repair.The shop occupied a narrow storefront on a street lined with pawn shops and discount liquor stores.It wasn't the kind of place that asked for a resume or a polished interview. It just needed someone who could hold a screwdriver and follow instructions.I walked in on a Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon, I had a job.Mike was a bearish man in his fifties with a graying beard and fingers stained yellow from years of nicotine.He had been running the shop alone since his last employee quit without notice, and the backlog of broken devices was threatening to bury him.He handed me a laptop with a shattered screen and a fried motherboard, told me to figure it out, and disappeared into the back office to argue with a supplier on the phone.I sat down at the workbench.In front of me lay a mess of plastic and metal. I ha

Ella’s POVThe groan came from deep inside the wall, low and wrong.I barely had time to register the sound before icy water shot from the pipe near the floor and soaked my bare legs.I yelped and dropped my toothbrush.The towel I grabbed did nothing.The water poured right through it, drenched my sleeves, and pooled around my feet in seconds.The bathroom was becoming a shallow, freezing pond.The apartment door slammed open.Heavy footsteps crossed the living space and Noah filled the bathroom doorway, his chest heaving.He still wore his repair shop jacket and I saw a smear of grease on his cheek.His toolkit hung from one hand.He looked at me on my knees, shivering and clutching a useless towel against a pipe that ignored me completely."Move," he said. “I scrambled aside and pressed my back against the cold tile.He dropped into the rising water, his toolkit open beside him.His hands moved fast and sure, the same way they did on circuit boards.He reached into the dark mess