CHAPTER ONE

He was sad. It was another day in his old apartment watching the paint dry. He’d thought a fresh new coat might brighten things up, but it hadn’t done anything to smooth out the rough, mottled texture of the walls patched far too many times, and never with the right materials. Having been laid off, he’d had ample time to make the improvement, if not the money to do so.

He’d already spent the requisite amount of time searching for jobs to qualify for his meager unemployment check, and he felt unmotivated to do anything else. Searching for jobs was a joke. Did the government really expect him to find something in these hard times? Despair rolled over him, and for the third time that day he contemplated simply crawling back into bed.

Ronald Power didn’t crawl back into bed, though. Doing so would signify defeat, and he wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel yet. He tried to pray for a while, going so far as to cup his hands together the way he’d been shown once as a child. Wasn’t there some higher power on standby ready to step in and guide him?

The exercise was a failure. He felt empty inside. Perhaps prayer was just one more thing he wasn’t good at. The exercise didn’t last long before he began to get agitated.

“Why bother talking to a God that never answers?” he wondered morosely.

Feeling so empty all the time was awful. He decided he was a loser, and that he was sick of thinking such depressing thoughts. Grabbing the remote, he switched on the television to distract himself from his misery.

“At least I still have cable . . . for now,” he mumbled to himself.

Hours stretched on and the day continued in the pattern of so many days preceding it. He doubted anything would ever change. He’d never been lucky. Good things happened to other people, not to Ronald Power.

***

The knock at the door startled him. He must have drifted off at some point during his show, but he was fully awake now.

“Who is it?” he called out, wiping at his mouth to brush away any errant crumbs. He fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and didn’t start unlocking the door until he was certain he looked at least somewhat presentable.

“Come with us,” said the man holding the badge up for his inspection.

Ronald Power didn’t have time to question as a series of hands began to propel him from his room. He hadn’t even had time to read the badge, so he had no idea what agency these people worked for. None of them were in uniform, so he doubted they were cops.

He thought absently of his wallet, and was relieved when a quick pat of his pocket assured him it was there. Had he done something wrong? More wrong than failing to keep his job and pay his bills? This seemed a little extreme for that. Didn’t corporations just send angry letters and turn off utilities?

Maybe he’d made an error on his taxes? They definitely hauled people off to jail for that. But wouldn’t they have tried to contact him first? None of this felt right.

His tongue was like glue in his mouth, making speech all but impossible. This was a shame because he had so many questions. Some bit of self-preservation rushed into play when he saw the large black unmarked van waiting in front of his apartment complex.

He started to struggle, but it was too little, too late. He was outnumbered, and after all, he’d only been half awake to begin with. When they forced the hood over his head it cut off his sight. When they cuffed his hands behind his back, he was hobbled as effectively as an animal. And when they injected the needle into his neck, the rest of his senses went dark. And that was the end of Ronald Power.

***

He didn’t question as he raised the glass to his lips. When someone is holding a gun at you it’s typically best not to argue. What did they want with him? He didn’t have any money. He wasn’t the secret prince of a faraway kingdom. He wasn’t even particularly good looking.

He’d summarily dismissed the notion of them being legitimate government agents after the whole hooded abduction incident. He was pretty sure they couldn’t do stuff like this unless people were terrorists, which he definitely was not. His eyes scanned the room.

Cold concrete floor met with stark, white walls. Was he in a basement? That would explain the cold chill seeping through his thin socks to his feet.

“Where did you come from?” one of the fake agents asked. He was holding a clipboard in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. Ronald sighed as he watched the steam wafting off of the mug. He wasn’t expecting them to offer him a warm beverage, but it sure would have been nice.

“I grew up in Wisconsin,” he replied, running his tongue along his dry, cracked lips. He knew that would likely make them worse in the long run, but wetting them made them feel momentarily better.

“And when did you last see her?” the man probed, plopping down a large photo on the stark steel surface of the table.

Ron’s heart skipped a beat. He’d never seen her before, yet the moment he laid eyes on her something changed inside of him. It was like having lunch with an old friend, like a warm memory, like he’d known her forever.

Warm brown eyes seemed to beckon him inside the photo. Her dark brown hair was cropped close to her head. He imagined that if the photo had been full body instead of a portrait he would have seen that she was wearing a dress with a wild color print. He couldn’t explain it, yet all the same he understood that was what she loved.

He shook his head dazedly, pressing a hand to the back of his neck where they’d injected him. What had they given him? It must have been strong for him to have imagined memories of a perfect stranger. He felt woozy.

“Answer me,” the man growled, grabbing the photo and pushing it closer.

“I . . . I’ve never seen her before,” Ron answered weakly, albeit truthfully.

“Lies!” the man growled.

Ron inhaled shakily, but said nothing else, because he didn’t have anything else to add. He didn’t know her. Yet . . . he wanted to.

***

Time passes differently when you’re in a coma. Melanie Farseth didn’t really understand that months had elapsed since her tragic accident. Truth be told, she didn’t understand much of anything in her present state. IV’s of various drug cocktails kept her from feeling pain. They also kept her nourished and hydrated.

But they weren’t without side effects. There was a foggy sense of unreality to her dreams, like her thoughts weren’t really hers. She felt like she was supposed to remember something, and had a sense of needing to go somewhere urgently. It was like a giant clock was counting ominously down, yet she didn’t know what the countdown was for.

Every time she attempted to track down the elusive memories, they drifted away, leaving her trapped and alone in the maze of her thoughts. She’d been close to something; something real, something important. But she’d lost it.

Machines beeped in the background, the machines responsible for keeping her alive. Her eyes fluttered briefly, before oblivion sucked her back into its warm embrace once more. She was a child now, running her hands through the sand, watching the waves crash against the shore. But as her beautiful sandcastle was washed away, she felt something tugging at her, a memory she couldn’t quite place.

***

Ron winced, pulling at the bandage on his thigh where they’d cut him. They hadn’t believed his answers, so they’d hurt him.

“Can I please have some water?” he rasped softly. No one heard him, or if they did they didn’t answer. He thought about shouting his request louder, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, not when they’d finally left him alone for a bit.

“Pssst.” The whisper was so soft that at first he felt as though he’d imagined it.

“Pssst.” There it came again.

“Who’s there?” he asked suspiciously.

“Does my name really matter?” came the sardonic reply.

“Don’t names always matter?” Ron asked mulishly.

“Let’s just call me a friend,” the voice continued softly.

“This doesn’t seem like a very friendly place to me,” Ron muttered, leaning back against the cold, hard wall.

“True enough. They’re coming back for you, and they’re going to kill you.”

Ron gasped, feeling as though he’d just been slapped in the face. “How could you possibly know that unless you are one of them?” he accused angrily.

“You can question my knowledge, or you can go open that door.”

“That door is locked,” Ron argued.

“Is it?” The stranger’s voice seemed to tease him, which was insulting because Ron didn’t find anything at all amusing about torture and murder. He glared at the wall where the voice had come from, too tired and too stubborn to move to investigate.

“You’re out of time. If you don’t leave now you will surely die.”

Something in him clicked into place and suddenly he believed every word the faceless stranger had uttered. He lurched to his feet and tried the door. To his surprise it was unlocked, just as the stranger had told him it would be.

“Go right,” the voice said.

It was strange, but the voice seemed just as close even though he’d moved out of his cell. He didn’t have time to question this oddity, though. Instead, he turned right as he’d been instructed.

“Through those doors. Now outside.”

Ron followed every order the voice gave until he was standing in the fresh glow of the rising sun. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the new air, and displacing the air from the building.

“Now run, and don’t look back, or you shall surely die.”

So he ran. He ran, and ran until his feet bled. He ran until he remembered that he still had his wallet and he used his debit card to withdraw the maximum amount from an ATM. And then he used some of that cash to purchase a bus ticket to a town he’d never heard of and left town.

He left his name behind, trapped in the ugly walls of the men who had hurt him, the men who had been prepared to kill him for his lack of knowledge. He began a new life, in a new place, with a new name. And it was okay. It was simple, but good.

***

And so our story begins, for all stories must begin at some point, in the middle of things as it were. Constance Philiper gasped when she walked into the room. She was making her rounds at the hospital when she saw something very unusual. An arm twitching.

In any other section of the hospital this wouldn’t have caused such a stir, but this was the coma ward, and this particular patient had been a vegetable for months now. She started to scream for help when she remembered protocol and rushed over to press a button on the wall. 

“Water,” came a voice so soft, and so raspy it was barely intelligible.

Constance Philiper wasn’t a rookie nurse, but the sound frightened her so much that she passed out cold on the sterile hospital floor.

Melanie Farseth watched with weary interest as the nurse crumpled to the floor. So much for her water! She eyed the call buttons, which seemed to be positioned just out of reach and took a deep breath. The tube pumping oxygen under her nostrils was holding her back, so she batted it to the side.

She was too weak to reach the controls so she began disconnecting IVs instead. When the alarms began to go off people came running. Constance Philiper was hastily moved to the side, and Melanie finally got some water.

“It’s a miracle,” someone whispered incredulously.

“She’s probably braindead,” muttered the cynic in the group.

Melanie ignored their chatter; all she cared about was the little plastic straw being guided into her mouth and the promise of water. She was awake. And she finally remembered what she’d forgotten, that elusive clue she’d been searching for while she slept. There was much to do, and soon it would be too late.

***

She regained her voice and the rest of her faculties very quickly. To the abject horror of the medical staff, she declined all of the tests they wanted to run on her. She insisted on being discharged as soon as possible. With a bag of her personal effects she slowly made her way back into the restroom and changed back into her dress.

It was a bright pink with a paisley design. It hung loosely on her frame because of all her time lying inert on a bed, but it still felt better than the scratchy hospital gown on her skin. She was both surprised and relieved to see that her purse and all of the contents of her wallet had remained intact after so much time. God must have been keeping watch over her belongings.

Once again the doctors tried to stop her, but she was unfazed. She allowed the orderly to wheel her to the exit in deference to hospital protocol. Once outside she found a taxi, positioned just as though it had been waiting for her.

“Take me to New York,” she told the driver.

He raised an eyebrow, likely due to the distance. However, instead of arguing he simply started the meter and drove. Melanie leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. The walk from the hospital to the taxi had taken more out of her than she’d expected. She wasn’t used to feeling so weak.

She’d have to work on regaining her strength. It wouldn’t do for someone to find her like this. The enemy would make short work of her in this condition. Dire though her situation was, it did not scare her. Her brush with death had changed her. She had ceased to fear her enemy.

“He would do well to fear me,” she thought to herself. “Or at least my master.”

CHAPTER TWO

He hadn’t taken long to find a new identity. He even had the fake papers to go with it. He’d learned that it was easy enough to find work when you weren’t picky about what you did, or how much you earned. He’d also learned it was easy to drink, because then he didn’t have to worry about hearing the voices. That meant he didn’t have to feel like he was going crazy.

“I’m not crazy,” he mumbled under his breath.

He had a headache. The headache was a consequence of drinking too much. It was a fine balance he’d learned. He had to drink just enough to block out the voices, but not so much that it inhibited his ability to work.

Currently he was operating a forklift in a large warehouse. It was tedious work, moving large pallets from one bay to another, a little too tedious given the fact that it allowed his mind to wander. He’d learned to clutter his mind at all costs. He did this by drinking, listening to music, and always keeping his television on. Otherwise he left space for the voice, and the words he didn’t want to hear. It had been a mistake not to put in his ear buds.

“You’re going to miss her,” came the soft, persistent voice . . . the voice he worked so hard to avoid.

He shook his head, but he couldn’t shake out the thoughts in his head. It was as though they had been supernaturally placed there.

“Stop it,” he said, practically twitching with the discomfort of the whole interaction.

“Did you need something, Hank?” one of his coworkers called from the warehouse floor.

“Sorry, no. I just forgot my headphones,” he lied.

Hearing his new name was always a jarring experience. He wondered if it would ever stop being weird, or if he would ever stop thinking of himself as Ron.

Ronald Power is dead, he stubbornly repeated in his head.

His shift ran longer than expected, and his hands were starting to shake from the dangerously low levels of alcohol remaining in his system. By the time he managed to clock out and climb into the cab of his rusty truck he was very uncomfortable. He cranked the engine and drove to the edge of the parking lot.

Home was to the right, and that’s where a six-pack and some rest awaited him. But he felt as though something was pulling on him, some intractable and invisible force guiding him to turn left. He swore under his breath as he turned, cursing himself for being the worst kind of idiot.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that going right would be a mistake. There was a bar he often frequented to the left, and he found himself driving there on autopilot. He turned off the ignition and just sat there for a moment, unsure of whether or not he actually wanted to go in. It was the hand tremors that decided him. He needed a drink, and if he wasn’t going to get his six pack this would have to suffice.

A shimmer of light pulsed in the night, almost as though the heavens had parted briefly, allowing the warm glow to leak out. And then it was dark once again. Hank drummed his fingers on the wheel, eyes straining to see the source of the strange light. He was caught between the decision of remaining in the car or entering the bar.

That was when the cab pulled up and stopped. One lone passenger climbed out, and his eyes followed her as everything seemed to move in slow motion. Long dark hair fanned out around a face, a beautiful face he’d seen once before.

Her delicate arched brows framed inquisitive brown eyes. Her nose had a determined curve to it. Her mouth was what really drew him in though. He needed to watch it move, to hear her speak, to see if her voice was as lovely as he’d imagined it would be. He needed her to explain why he felt as though they’d already met.

Yet, at the same time dread crept over him. This was the woman in the photo, the one the bad guys were searching for. Wouldn’t approaching her paint an even larger target on his back?

He’d been so busy wrestling with his inner demons that he hadn’t noticed that she’d moved. When she knocked on his truck door it startled him so much that he jumped up and hit his head on the roof. Wincing, he pressed the button to lower the window. She’d come to him. Had she noticed him staring? His tongue felt as though it were glued to the roof of his mouth, and he was at a loss for what to say.

“Scoot over, I’m driving,” were the first words out of her mouth.

She didn’t waste time with “hellos” or “introductions.” And the strangest thing of all was that he didn’t even argue. He just climbed over to the other seat, exactly like she’d ordered him to. Things were getting stranger by the second.

Suddenly his desire for a drink seemed to vanish. He had a feeling he would need all of his wits about him in order to keep up with this unusual and fascinating woman.

She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and turned the key in the ignition. It didn’t matter that she’d spent months asleep in a coma. She was still tired. But there was much to do and little time in which to accomplish it.

“We’re going to get acquainted quickly, “ she announced, turning to face him. “We’re going to be working together for some time, so we don’t have any time to waste on awkwardness.”

He gaped at her with his mouth half open, the epitome of awkwardness. He didn’t even attempt speech. This exciting yet strong woman was too much for him to keep up with. All he could do was watch and listen with avid interest.

“I’ll have to talk while I drive,” she murmured as she set the car in gear. “They’re coming for us and we don’t want to still be here when they arrive.”

He was so distracted by the lovely shape of her mouth that at first he didn’t really comprehend her words. When they finally registered he bolted upright in his seat. It was like he’d been released from a kind of trance.

“What are you talking about? Who’s coming for us?” he demanded.

Dread began to swirl in his chest. His mind flitted back to the men who had kidnapped him, to the night Ron Powers had died and Hank had emerged.

“Don’t waste time pretending you don’t know who I’m talking about. We both know you’re lucky to be alive.”

Enamorment over her beauty was fading quickly. He was starting to get agitated. He didn’t like feeling stupid, and he was going to get answers soon. If he didn’t he wasn’t going to allow her to continue driving his truck.

“Just sit still and listen,” the voice in his head said.

He recoiled, as though he’d been slapped, and suddenly his hands were shaking all over again. He’d never gotten that drink. His senses were open now. He felt exposed without the numbing cloak of alcohol. He hated this. He felt like a crazy person.

“You’re not crazy. I hear him too,” she said matter-of-factly.

That’s when he decided that they were both crazy, and that he wanted to go home. He visualized the six-pack waiting for him in his fridge. It was a comforting thought.

“You can’t go home. They’re already waiting for you there and they’ll kill you.”

“How could you possibly know that?” he growled, tugging irritably at the seat belt when it locked up because she’d taken a turn too sharply.

“I know all sorts of things,” she replied evasively.

He heard a ringing, and realized it was coming from his cellphone.

“Don’t answer that,” she ordered when he started to reach for his pocket. “They’ll use it to track us.”

“Who?” he practically snarled. “Who will use it to track us?”

“Why the enemy, of course,” she replied as though that explained everything.

He resisted the urge to bang his head against the dashboard, or even better . . . scream. Fear and disbelief were at war within him, threatening to tear him apart. He’d worked so hard to scrape together some sort of life for himself, and now it was falling apart all over again. It was all because he’d been sucked in by a pretty face.

His thoughts were morose as he studied her silhouette. Why should he trust her? Why should he believe a single word she was telling him? For all he knew she worked for them, the elusive nameless enemy, the men who for whatever reason wanted him dead.

“She’s not one of them,” sounded the voice in his head.

He closed his eyes trying to block out the world around him, the mad, mad world that somehow didn’t compute with reality. Maybe he’d take a nap. Maybe he was already asleep. Perhaps he had died that night he’d been kidnapped and now he was nothing but a confused ghost.

He abandoned all such notions in an instant. The truck was rammed, thrusting him jerkily to the side. His head cracked sharply against the window and he swore furiously. He ripped his eyes open just in time to see their truck careening wildly off the side of the bridge.

“You can’t feel pain when you’re dead,” he thought dazedly. He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until she answered him.

“Well, we’re both going to die if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

They were falling, and he screamed when his body lifted off the seat in a gravity defying feat. They hit the water with a hard crack, and he winced as the impact reverberated throughout his body. Okay, so apparently he wasn’t dead yet. He would be soon, though.

All things considered, drowning didn’t seem like the worst way to die. At least it would be fast. It didn’t seem like there was any point trying to swim to the surface, not when the bad guys were out there waiting to gun him down.

“We’re not drowning, you idiot. Take this!” she barked, pulling a strange cylindrical object from her purse.

He regarded her curiously as she fitted her own device to her face and then he struggled to mimic her actions. He didn’t realize she had a gun until she shot the window. The water began to trickle into the car. All the while she kicked furiously at the weakened glass. When it finally shattered the water gushed in.

The desire to close his eyes was strong, but something kept him from doing so. Perhaps he had a morbid fascination with witnessing his own death? His main complaint was that it had come about unexpectedly and far too soon.