Page 9 of Queen of Ruin

“No!” The cry escapes me like an explosion and I shift forward on the bed, instantly regretting it as pain quakes through me once more. Wincing, I gasp and sag back down onto the bed. “Y-You can’t!”

“What? Why not?”

“I—I don’t know!”

“You can’t remember your name or how we met, but you can remember that you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Disbelief weighs down his words. “That makes no sense.”

“We can’t go there,” I gasp, deafened by the alarm bells ringing in my mind. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Why can’t we go there? I wanted to take you last night. Hell, I even wanted to call the cops, but you wouldn’t let me. Now you’re unable to tell me your name, but you remember that?”

My mind is a mist-covered lake where the sensation of danger still lurks in the waters. I just can’t see clearly enough to pinpoint exactly what the danger is. Closing my eyes, I press my lips into a firm line and wrestle with the growing nausea in my warm gut.

“Please,” I gasp, opening my eyes. “I don’t know. I just… you said it and I knew I couldn’t. Please, I don’t know why, but we can’t, okay? I can’t!” Erupting into a coughing fit, it takes me a few long minutes to calm myself and catch my breath. By the time I calm, Diego rests on the edge of the bed.

“This makes no sense,” he murmurs. “Do you really not remember me? Or anything about last night?”

I shake my head.

“What about before last night?”

Another no.

“High school? Childhood? Anything at all?”

The ache behind my eyes grows bigger the harder I try to think. It’s like wading through syrup and by the time I finish and come up with nothing, I’m slightly breathless. “Everything is fuzzy. Like… like trying to see through a fogged window.”

“And we can’t go to the hospital?” Diego rubs a hand over his jaw. “None of this makes sense.” After a few seconds of silence, he faces me fully. “Last night, you leaped into my car and turned a gun on me, demanding that I drive. So I did because I was pretty scared you were going to kill me. We drove, you bled all over my car, and then we ended up getting run off the road by two assholes who I’m pretty sure were going to beat us to death. One of them was about to kill you, I think, so I just—” He cuts himself off suddenly, and a flash of pain blooms in his eyes. “I killed them instead. Does any of that sound familiar?”

None of it. Shaking my head slowly, warmth pricks behind my eyelids. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of that. You… killed someone?”

“Two. They were going to kill you and I stopped them. But you remember you don’t want to go to the hospital or let me call the cops?”

“It… It’s like a feeling, right here.” I press one trembling hand to my chest. “You mentioned it and it was like I was falling off the bed again.”

His hard expression suddenly melts into something softer and he drags his hand through his dark hair, shifting the curls with his knuckles. “Well, no one’s ever accused me of taking a lady somewhere she doesn’t want to go. But I’m not a doctor, okay? I manage a bar. My name is Diego Pérez, I’m thirty-three years old, and I have no idea who you are but…” He sighs deeply. “I did what I could to patch you up last night. You look like you went through hell so… maybe it’s expected that you don’t remember anything.”

Should I be scared of this man? Waking up here without a thought on my tongue and only a sense of danger in my chest, maybe I should fear him. Except that he exudes a certain warmth while keeping his distance, and nothing about the details he’s given me has caused any other alarming sensations.

“I don’t… I don’t know what to say,” I admit softly, then another wave of pain forces me to double over. “Ow.”

“I’m sorry,” Diego says immediately. “I don’t have any painkillers here, but I can get some. I just… I don’t want to be responsible for your death, Lady. What I did last night is… I can’t even spare the thoughts for it right now, but my mother raised me to be a gentleman. Maybe some painkillers, rest, and some food will unlock that mind of yours, and I can call someone? Do you remember anyone? Friends? Family?”

A warm sensation enters my chest when I meet his eyes once more, and part of me wants to say yes. Those people do exist in my mind, but when I try to remember a name or a face, there’s nothing there. An empty weight that fades the harder I try to focus on it.

“No,” I murmur. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.” Glancing down at myself makes the back of my neck throb, but I endure it to take in what I can see. Dark bruises on my legs disappear under the hem of an old T-shirt. Both my arms are bruised and both wrists have the same looped bruise. Several cuts and scrapes are clean and covered in tape. “You did all this?”

“Yeah,” Diego sighs. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you’d been through hell. As respectfully as possible, I cleaned you up and stitched what I could. Your head wound is the worst of it, so please make sure you move slowly. If you start throwing up everywhere or you fall asleep and I can’t get you to wake back up, I’m a thousand percent taking you to the hospital.”

That cold fear swoops into my chest again and I want to tell him no, but both those options sound like I wouldn’t be able to say a word, anyway. Instead, all I say is, “That’s too dangerous.”

“Mmhmm. The hospital and the cops. Dangerous.” His brows twitch together, then his eyes widen. “Wait! I never checked your clothes. Wait here.” He’s at the door before he turns back to me with a soft, boyish smile that softens his entire face. “Not that you can go anywhere, but y’know…”

He vanishes, and silence closes around me like a cold blanket. Heat radiates through my body with every subtle shift and twitch of my limbs as I test just how pained I am. Pressing on my bruises does nothing to ignite a memory, nor does running my fingertips over stitched cuts or the wad of gauze taped to my hairline.

By the time Diego returns, I’ve pulled the blankets over my legs to protect from the cold. He sits beside me with a white basket on his lap. Inside are a pair of ripped, blood-soaked jeans and an equally ruined T-shirt.

“Those… were my clothes?”