“She's pulling through,”
A drone of a few voices invaded Diana's mind. Gosh. They were too loud. She wanted to silence them all. To shut them all. To get some peace in the darkness that promised to give her just that.
Once again, She stopped fighting and she was falling back into the deep, endless pit of darkness.
“We are losing her again!” A voice said. “Stay with me,”
It was begging for the impossible. Diana had lost every strength she had to fight. She just wanted it all to end.
“Diana,” She heard a male voice. It somehow managed to reach her down the pit, stirring the darkness around and calling out to her soul. “Diana, fight,” She could feel the breath of whisper against her ear. “Stay with me. You have to fight back Diana, don't cave into the darkness. I'm right here. I'm with you,”
His voice was like a lifeline tied around Diana's waist, refusing her the freedom of plunging to her death. “I won't let anything happen to you, I swear on my life. Come back to me, Diana. Please,” Those simple words weighed heavily on her. It was as if they held silent promises within them. One Diana wanted to uncover.
She made several attempts to open her eyes, but it was futile.
“We have her!”
“She's coming through,” Another voice sounded, but unfortunately, it wasn't the one she wanted to hear.
Diana mustered enough strength again and her dense black lashes twitched. And then with excruciating effort, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a blurry vision of a woman in a white lab coat and nurses moving around, tending to her.
After a few seconds, Diana's vision steadied and then she saw him. She knew instantly that it was him. The one that kept her from plunging into the darkness.
And he was a sight to behold. God, he was beautiful.
Who was he? She still couldn't remember.
After a while, the doctor and her nurses left Diana and the handsome stranger alone. She glanced around and realized she was in a private ward in a hospital. She remembered what happened last night, Antonia had tried to kill her.
But how did she get here? And who was this man?
“Miss Diana Tate,” The man called cautiously, staring at her, and instantly, she recognized the voice. It was him. Killian Blackford.
“Killian Blackford,”
A smile formed on his lips, as he finally settled on a chair. “I'm glad you recognized me, I was worried you wouldn't,”
“How did I get here? Antonia tried to kill me last night after our conversation and—” Diana paused, looking at him. He was staring at her in an unusual manner. “What's wrong?”
“I'm also glad you remembered what happened, Diana, but that happened six months ago,”
She froze at his words. “What?”
“You've been in a coma, Diana. It was a miracle my people and I were able to find you just in time that night, otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation,”
“Six months? And the guard who stabbed me, did you find her? Did she confess to everyone that Antonia had sent her?”
Killian remained silent, but Diana knew something was amiss.
“What happened, Killian? I don't see any prison guards around waiting to drag me to prison. Something else happened? Tell me,”
He leaned back into his chair, those piercing ice-blue eyes of his boring into her very own gaze. “I'm not sure where to even begin, Diana, because you're in for a lot of shock,”
“Tell me Killian, what the hell happened?”
“You died,” He stated bluntly.
“I know I almost died, I was stabbed—”
“No,” He shook his head; his face lacked any trace of emotion, making it hard to tell what he was thinking. “You really died, Diana. That night after I had left, my people realized you hadn't returned to your cell, so they started searching for you but they couldn't find you. I was already out but there was no way I could just leave you. I had to return. Somehow by some stroke of fate, one of the inmates started a fire. It grew out of control and when they couldn't contain it, everyone had to evacuate. It was sheer luck that I found you at the nick of time before the fire consumed you and got you out. The next day, it was reported some inmates had died in the fire, and you were one of them, Diana Tate. You were in critical condition, bleeding from the stab wound and the burns you sustained during the fire. The doctor considers it a miracle you hadn't died instantly,”
“So everyone… the whole world…”
“Thinks you died in that fire six months ago. My people made it possible for a random body of an inmate who also died in the fire to be identified as you with your wedding ring,”
“Oh my God, that also means I died like a criminal. I didn't get to clear my name, the whole world still believes I murdered my own father. Antonia and her daughter as well as that asshole of a husband won,”
“Is that what it looks like?” His eyes sparked with amusement as he stood up from his chair, picked up the small glass mirror on the table, and walked closer to her bed. “What it looks like to me is that the Saunders as well as your husband should better watch out because they would never be able to foresee what's about to hit them, love,”
“What do you mean?”
A small smile played on Killian's lips. “Trust me, Diana. You'll be able to clear your name, and we'll drag the Saunders to hell, along with your ex-husband of course, there's no way we'll leave him out of the fun,”
Killian pulled the mirror up and a gasp escaped Diana's lips at the new face staring right back at her in the mirror.
