Rejected: A love story

Chapter 163: Flashed

"It’s so damn cold," Viktoriya gasped as her shivering increased under Nathan’s hands.

In her mind, the surroundings were nonexistent. She was not in the Keith Manor anymore, but in an endless fog where breathing was hard and everything seemed blurred out and gray. She could sense the roaring engine noise as well as some voices which seemed to belong to those in an evil and tortured place. She could feel a figure approaching her, extending hands towards her but as soon as she focused her gaze at the figure’s face, it smudged into nothing, like a piece of artwork erased under a heavy rain.

"I can not see them! I cannot see them!" Viktoriya shouted frantically. "Why can I not see anyone around!"

"Viktoria, there is nobody around," Nathan said firmly, holding onto her hands which were shaking violently. "We are in a room. There is no one."

"Noo," Viktoriya whispered fearfully. "There was someone else. Someone was talking"

Mateo winced in the armchair as his tiny face scrunched up in pain. Nathan shifted his gaze between the scared child and the struggling woman.

"There are voices... they’re everywhere!" Viktoria panted, trembling uncontrollably as she battled the invisible entities haunting her imagination.

The environment around her had disappeared, replaced by a bleak, lifeless space of sterile nothingness. She felt herself struggling against people whose faces were blurred by the wet darkness, and she heard their voices speaking coldly and distantly to one another, but whenever she attempted to focus on any individual feature of their faces, the picture would fade away into oblivion.

"I can’t see anything! Why is everything so blurry?"

He held onto her hands, his heart beating like crazy against his chest. "Viktoria, look at me! Listen to my voice! You’re at the manor. Everything is fine!"

"No," she panted, her breaths shallow and irregular. "They were here. They were discussing... ’the treatment.’ They said I would forget..."

Mateo cringed from his seat on the chair, his little face scrunched up as he saw his mother fight for air. Nathan looked between the frightened child and the woman struggling in her bed. The accident that had claimed Fiona’s life had just been a tragic mistake. No "treatments" or other people had ever been mentioned.

Dr. Aris intervened, his demeanor serious as he examined the monitor. "Nathan, her neurological activity levels are off the chart. It is as if her brain is running into a firewall. Unless I sedate her, she might suffer from irreversible shock damage."

"Wait," Nathan commanded, his eyes locked on Viktoria’s. "Viktoria, the voices—did you recognize any of them? Was the woman from the gala one of them?"

Viktoria threw her head from one side to another in pain. A sudden burst of laughter sounded within her mind, a laughter which was sharp and cold, as if it was tearing a needle through her brain. However, just as she began to connect the sound to its owner, the pain surged inside her, making her cry out loud.

"Give it to her," Nathan ordered the doctor sharply, no longer able to stand seeing her in such pain.

Viktoria’s body relaxed as the drug took its effect on her. She closed her eyes, and the air seemed to be still, except for Mateo’s sniffles.

Nathan rose to his feet, his face filled with anger. He did not need her to see the faces that would confirm his suspicions. All he had needed was the reaction.

Nathan breathed a sigh of relief as the tension left his shoulders. He stared at the calm rising and falling motion of Viktoria’s breathing, indicating that the drug had fully settled in her system.

"She is simply tired," Nathan whispered to himself. He studied the jumbled pieces of what she was telling him; the struggling, the voices, the feeling of something being taken. It wasn’t a crime scene; it was likely the trauma of Mateo’s birth. High-pressure deliveries could be hazy, painful, and full of clinical voices.

I’m losing my mind, he thought, rubbing his face with his hands. He was a businessman, an intelligent man. Fiona died two years ago, he had seen the reports and had lived through the mourning. Believing that his new, brilliant business partner was actually a risen-from-the-grave ghost must be the greatest form of despair-induced madness.

"Dr. Aris," Nathan spoke up in a tone that had regained some professionalism. "It could have been caused by extreme mental stress due to the partnership and . The fainted and hallucinated – she might be suffering from exhaustion brought about by a familiar face. Maybe she’s met Natasha somewhere in their work environment before."

Aris only nodded but looked as if he still didn’t believe what Nathan said. "The trauma works differently, Nathan. But for now, let sleep be the solution to everything."

Nathan went toward Mateo and knelt down next to him, who was sitting on the chair staring intently at his mom. "She just fell asleep, Mateo. The doctors gave her a drug to make her sleep. So you’ll spend your night right beside her, okay?"

Mateo slowly nodded, grasping onto the side of the chair. "Sometimes they’re very loud, but they disappear when I hold her hand," he explained.

Nathan didn’t understand the little boy but he felt an overwhelming wave of guilt for bringing the two of them into his twisted world because he obsessed with a dead woman, and it was causing him to see spirits among the living. Nathan turned once more and looked at Viktoria. He looked at her hair and face one last time before forcing himself to look away from her.

"She is Viktoria," he whispered, a final command to his own heart. "Just Viktoria."

Nathan exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders finally breaking. He watched the steady rise and fall of Viktoria’s chest as the sedative took full effect.

He was done chasing ghosts. He had a major merger to finalize, so letting his personal history with Fiona affect his professional life was a weakness he couldn’t afford.

he walked over to Mateo, who was still watching his mother with wide, tired eyes. "Come on, little man. Let’s get you settled in the room next door. Your mummy needs to sleep, and so do you."

Mateo stood up slowly, reaching out to give Viktoria’s limp hand a final squeeze before following Nathan out of the room. Nathan signaled to the two guards at the door. "Nobody goes in except Dr. Aris. If she wakes up, I want to know immediately."