Chapter Seventy Five

Bella

I was too hoarse to scream any more and although I felt him close to me he wasn't hurting me, instead he was holding me and whispering the name he called me all the time, Bella. It sounded more familiar to me now but was that just because I had heard it so many times? I didn't know and my head hurt too much to think any more. There was a terrible pressure building up in my skull as if something was alive in there and struggling to break free.

When I finally stopped shivering he left me long enough to fetch a glass of water and two small white pills.

"Take these, they'll help with your headache."

I wanted to ask him how he knew I had a headache but I couldn't speak so I took the pills meekly and swallowed them down not without difficulty although the cold water helped my throat which was burning.

"I'm going to get you something to eat, you need to keep your strength up, I won't be long."

I watched as he left me after kissing the top of my head and then closed my eyes but strange images started to solidify when I did that so I opened them again then got up and started to pace. If I was too scared to close my eyes then what would I do? Sleep was my only refuge from everything, was even that to be denied me now?

I wandered over to the window to gaze out at the night sky, all the tall buildings with their multitude of colored lights, the twinkling lights of planes flying in and out of the airport and down below the headlights of cars and buses as people hurried home in the light drizzle. I wondered if I would ever be one of those people, if I would have a job and spend my days going back and forward from an office.

I had no idea of my past but I must have one, I had not appeared fully grown in that cellar with Kat so I had a past but what was it? Had I been to school? Or even college? Who were my mother and father?…...My kind skittered away from that question. How had I come to be there with him and who was the stranger who seemed to know me, know all about me, yet who I couldn't place? I had this feeling of dread, as if I could answer that question but then I would remember everything and that would be incredibly painful.

Moving away from the window I ran my hand along the bookshelf and then onto the table where the phone sat silent and brooding. Laying next to it was an envelope and I picked it up to read the name on the front, Mr J Whitlock. So my stranger had a name, a name I found vaguely familiar too. As I turned it over to see if there were anything on the back something caught my eye twinkling in the light from the lamp. I moved over to look at it and without thinking picked it up and put it in the palm of my hand. It was a ring, a beautiful ring, ruby and diamonds. So did this mean there was a woman in his life? I hadn't seen a woman here but there was a woman's clothes, the dressing gown I had ruined for a start. Maybe he had gone to see her, or maybe he didn't want her to know he'd got another woman captive here.

I heard him coming back and slid the ring back where I found it but I was loathe to leave it there, somehow I felt attached to it.

"Bella? Are you hungry?"

I went slowly into the kitchen but something had me looking back to make sure the ring hadn't vanished like smoke in a breeze. He was standing at the counter arranging cartons in front of a plate put out for me. The food smelled good and made my mouth water. I wanted to snatch it up and eat as quickly as I could but somehow I knew he wouldn't snatch it away from me, not like…...I closed that thought down and took the fork he offered me,

"Use your fingers if you feel more comfortable Bella. How is your headache now?"

I touched my temple dropping noodles on the counter top and froze but he just smiled and wiped them up with some paper towels and I continued to eat then remembered his question,

"Its much better thank you. You know I don't have any money, I can't pay you for the food or clothes."

"Bella what you see is yours as well as mine, and the clothes that I have are yours too. Don't you remember?"

I shook my head and he didn't speak again until I finished my meal.

I cleared up my mess while he watched seemingly amused but I knew how to behave and I wasn't going to make a mess or start crying this time. I felt stronger but there was only one thing on my mind, the ring. It hovered there, a picture of it in front of my eyes and it called to me.

"Can we go into the other room?"

It was the first time I'd really asked him anything and I waited nibbling my lip until he nodded,

"Sure, I'll bring dessert through."

Dessert?

I went back into the other room feeling happier as I spotted the ring still where I'd left it as if waiting for me.

He came in with a bowl of ice cream and a spoon handing them to me and sitting opposite to watch me as I ate. It tasted wonderful and slid down my sore throat like silk. When I finished he took the bowl from me and went through to the kitchen to wash it up which had me feeling guilty but somehow it seemed almost familiar which scared me for some reason. I felt a pressure building again and swallowed as bile rose up in my throat. The ring called me and I couldn't stop myself from moving over to look at it again a voice in my head telling me to pick it up. I stretched a hand out to do so when I heard him come back in. Turning guiltily I moved back and sat on the edge of a chair by the fire and he handed me a mug of chocolate which smelled divine but the ring still called to me.

"Are you married?"

The words burst out unbidden and I waited for him to shout at me, to tell me to mind my own business but as always he just smiled and shook his head,

"No but I hope to be very soon Bella."

I nodded jealous of the girl who would wear that ring.

I put my mug down and stood up my hand shaking as I walked over to the table and picked up the ring,

"It's very beautiful."

"Yes, but not as beautiful as the girl who agreed to marry me Bella."

I turned to him,

"She's very lucky."

I looked down and saw to my horror that as I spoke I had slid the ring on my finger and was about to slide it back off when the dam burst, images flickering in front of my eyes one after another, a dead woman wearing this ring, a woman with her throat cut, a man laying on the road blood all round his head from a gunshot, a young woman lying dead soaked in blood, the cellar and then the man and I screamed dropping to the floor as everything started to come back and I realized who I was, where I was, and what had happened to me and my family.