Page 101 of Guardian

“But then I’ll get angry even if I don’t remember, wouldn’t I?”

She tilted her head. “Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what fuels you.”

Footsteps echoed behind the wall, and a door creaked open in front of us. My sight fell on a white hallway, a figure quickly blocking it once they stepped forward. Large black sunglasses blocked her eyes while vibrant red lips motioned as she said, “Get her.”

Two large men in white suits stepped in and gripped my arms, my body dangling as they dragged me outside. The door closed before I could do anything. My head spun as I tried thinking, the memories slowly piecing themselves together.

It then dawned on me.

“Sonia.”

Although she continued forward, she glanced to the side. The men turned sharply, and the place grew brighter to the point it blinded me. What was it with these fucking lights? Were they trying to ruin people’s eyesight?

There was no way to distinguish where we’d gone, with each hallway sharing the same white exterior. Then it hit me.

I was in a fucking hospital. Like the one I had been in right before I entered the CEG.

Sonia opened a door, and the two men entered, the same plain-white interior across the room. There was a bed in the middle and a chair beside it, the position of it sending shivers down my spine. There, the familiarity came over me.

The bed wasn’t just in the middle of the room but was placed directly where the two-way window could oversee. The chair wasn’t just next to it, but resting slightly to the side, exactly how it’d been when my aunt would visit me. Elia.

All that was missing was me.

The men forced me onto the bed and dragged my cuffs across to shackle my arms and legs at the ends. They clinked as each of them were easily attached, my body struggling underneath their hold.

They left me alone with Sonia.

“What’s going on?” Memories of her were still scattered. But they slowly surfaced. I needed time for them to settle, to come back before they strayed. “Was this all part of your plan?”

With each question, more came up.

“Where’s the notebook?”

A voice echoed in my mind, sending a wave of warmth.

“It’s in Alek’s possession, just like we had agreed to before the Christmas Ball.”

Alek. . . The Christmas Ball. . .

It all came crashing down. The night replayed with gruesome detail. Especially Lorenzo's frigid body on the ground.

“Why would you do this?” I asked as I remembered our interaction, the anguish coating my body with heaviness. “Do you even know what you are?”

“I do.”

“Then how can you do this to me!” My arms swayed forward, but the shackles kept them from slipping over my head. “We’re the same. Not half-humans, but—”

Sonia motioned toward me as she removed her sunglasses, revealing what she’d hidden until now.

Sharp slits cut deep into her obsidian eyes, the sight of it difficult to distinguish as one fused with the other. But no fangs filled her mouth. No fur covered her skin. She remained in her human form perfectly, something I was never capable of.

Her expression altered, the deadpan face I knew vanishing. Now she was someone I hadn’t met before. Someone full of vulnerability through her emotions and words. Someone that showed her fear even through confidence.

“Half-vampire, half-lycan.”

“Hybrids.” I froze at my response, the sudden word transporting me to a time that I had forgotten—had completely pushed away. It’d been all I heard of during my time here before my aunt sent Lorenzo and me to the CEG, where I buried the memories. It had been shoved so deep down that I had lived as if it hadn’t been a part of me. As if everything that I had done wasn’t a part of me.

Because of her.

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