Page 24 of Born in Fire (Dragonblood Dynasty #2)

Chapter 24

J uno

I wake in fire.

No. Not fire. Ash. Cold ash filling my mouth, my nose, my lungs. I claw upward through it, desperate for air, for light, for escape from the crushing weight. My fingers break through to emptiness, then my arm, then my head, gasping and choking as dawn air floods my burning lungs.

The world is too bright. Too loud. Too everything.

I drag myself from the pit, body trembling with effort. Gray dust coats my skin—skin I don’t recognize as mine yet somehow know is. I stare at my hands, turning them over. Palms. Fingers. Nails. The words come without meaning or context. Just labels for parts of this unfamiliar vessel.

Who am I?

The question forms and dissolves, too complex for my fragmented consciousness. There are more important things to worry about. Cold. I am cold. The ash circle offers no warmth, though the ground beneath radiates a fading heat. Beyond the circle stands a forest, dark pines stretching toward the pale sky.

I try to stand. Fall. Try again. My legs shake but hold. I am naked, this body female, slender, unmarked. No injuries, yet everything hurts. As if I’ve been unmade and poorly reassembled.

Wind cuts through me.

Need shelter. Need… covering.

The thoughts come in broken fragments, instinct rather than memory. I stagger forward, each step more certain than the last, as my body remembers what my mind cannot.

The forest floor is rough against my feet. Pine needles. Dirt. Stones. I catalog sensations without understanding their significance. A distant mechanical growl draws me forward. Toward sound means toward people. People mean help. These connections form without conscious thought.

The trees thin. Light grows stronger. The mechanical sound resolves into something large and rumbling. A vehicle—the word appears from nowhere—where two men are loading equipment. I stumble toward them.

“Jesus Christ!” The shorter man spots me first, dropping a chainsaw that hits the ground with a metallic protest.

“What the hell?” the other one says, stopping what he’s doing.

The short man turns to the other, who seems dumbfounded. “Hank! Get the blanket from the truck!”

I stop, swaying slightly. The men’s expressions register as shock, concern, fear. I should feel something about my nakedness before them. Shame? Embarrassment? The concepts exist without emotional weight.

“Miss? Are you hurt?” The first man approaches slowly, hands raised as if calming a wild animal. He keeps his eyes fixed on my face with deliberate effort. “I’m Mike. That’s Hank. We’re gonna help you, okay?”

Words form in my mind but die before reaching my tongue. My throat feels unused, raw.

The younger man—Hank—returns with a blanket, handing it to Mike while keeping his distance. Mike approaches cautiously, extending the blanket without coming too close.

“Here. Cover yourself.” His voice is gruff but kind. “Can you tell us your name?”

Name.

The concept exists but attaches to nothing. I should have a name. Everyone has a name. The absence creates a hollow space inside me.

“I…” My voice emerges as a rasp. Is it even mine? “Don’t know.”

Mike exchanges glances with Hank, who whispers something about drugs or cults. I wrap the scratchy blanket around my shoulders, the rough wool both irritating and comforting against my hypersensitive skin.

“We’re gonna take you to a hospital, okay?” Mike gestures toward their truck. “Get you checked out.”

Hospital. Doctors. The words trigger a wariness I don’t understand. But cold and confusion outweigh unexplained fear. I nod once.

“Where did she come from?” Hank asks as they guide me toward the truck. “There’s nothing out here for miles.”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Mike responds. “Let’s just get her help.”

As they help me into the truck’s cab, I glance back in the direction of the circle. Something important happened there. Something impossible. The thought slips away before I can grasp it.

The truck’s interior smells of coffee, sweat, and pine sap. The blanket scratches. The seat vibrates beneath me as the engine roars to life. I catch a glimpse of myself in the cracked rearview mirror—a stranger’s face staring back with wide, confused eyes. Pale skin. Oddly gold hair matted with ash. For an instant, as Hank turns to look at me, I could swear my eyes flash with golden light.

“You remember anything at all, miss?” Mike asks as we bump down a logging road. “Your friends? How you got out here?”

I try to access memories that should exist but don’t. There’s nothing before the ash. Nothing before this moment.

“No,” I manage, the word feeling foreign in my mouth.

“You think she’s one of those hikers that got lost last month?” Hank asks Mike, as if I can’t hear or understand them.

“Wrong area. And they found those folks.” Mike keeps glancing at me in the mirror. “You hungry? Thirsty?”

The question catalogs new sensations. Dry throat. Empty stomach. I nod.

He passes me a bottle of water. My hands shake as I bring it to my lips, but the cool liquid revives something in me. Words come easier.

“Where?” I ask.

“About forty miles east of Seattle,” Mike answers. “Near the national forest boundary. Hospital’s about twenty minutes away in Rockridge.”

The names mean nothing to me. Seattle. Rockridge. They should trigger recognition, but my mind remains a blank slate.

Hank’s speaking again, softly now, and casting furtive glances back toward me. “I’m figuring she’s gotta be one of those ‘tweakers’ or something, Mike. Look at that hair. That can’t be natural. And her eyes. Did you see her eyes?”

At his words, I glance in the mirror again, not sure what I should be seeing. Eyes. They’re… blue? Almost too pale to pick up the color, though.

What color should they be?

I squeeze them shut, trying to find a memory of my own features, but nothing comes.

The radio plays softly—twanging guitars and voices singing about lost love. The music feels both alien and familiar, like everything else. Through the window, mountains rise in the distance, their silhouettes stirring something deep within me. A pull. A direction that matters, though I don’t know why.

The hospital, when we reach it, is a low, beige building with too-bright lights that make my head pound. Everything is too intense—the antiseptic smell burning my nostrils, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes against linoleum, the beeping of machines whose purpose I somehow understand without knowing how.

“Found her wandering near our logging site,” Mike explains to the nurse at the intake desk. “No ID, no clothes. Doesn’t seem to remember anything.”

The nurse—her badge reads Wilson—looks at me with professional compassion. “Let’s get you into a room, honey. Doctor will be right in.”

Mike and Hank shuffle awkwardly. “We should get going,” Mike says. “Got deliveries to make. She gonna be okay here?”

“We’ll take good care of her,” Nurse Wilson assures them. “You did the right thing bringing her in.”

As they leave, I feel a momentary panic at losing the only recognizable presences in this new world. Nurse Wilson must notice because she pats my arm.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” She leads me to a small examination room. “Let’s get you a gown, and I’ll take some basic information.”

The questions are impossible. Name? Address? Date of birth? Medical history? Each inquiry meets the same void where memory should be. Nurse Wilson eventually stops asking and simply notes “Jane Doe, amnesia” on her chart.

The hospital gown is thin but clean. The examination table crinkles beneath me. I sit with unnatural stillness, my body somehow knowing how to exist in space despite my mind’s emptiness.

Dr. Martinez arrives with a tablet and a professional smile that falters slightly when she sees me.

“Hello there. I understand you’re having some memory issues.”

I nod, finding it easier to respond nonverbally than force words through the strange disconnect between thought and speech.

“Let’s start with some basic checks, shall we?”

What follows is increasingly bewildering. The doctor takes my temperature, frowns, takes it again with a different thermometer. She checks my pulse, blood pressure, reflexes, pupils—each test followed by notes and subtle expressions of confusion.

“Your temperature is… unusual,” she says carefully. “Running about 103, but you’re not showing other fever symptoms. And your heart rate is remarkably slow for someone in your condition.”

She draws blood, the needle sliding into my vein with a sharp sting that feels disproportionately intense. I watch my blood fill the vial—darker than it should be; somehow, I know this without knowing how.

“Are you in any pain?” she asks.

I consider the question. My body aches, but not in a way that suggests injury. More like the soreness of extreme exertion or… rebirth. The word surfaces unexpectedly, then sinks away again before I can grasp its significance.

“No,” I answer. “Just… wrong.”

Dr. Martinez’s expression softens. “That’s understandable with amnesia. Your brain is struggling to process without context. We’ll run some tests, see if there’s a physical cause we can address.”

She steps away to speak quietly into her phone, but my hearing is unnaturally sharp.

“…anomalous readings… temperature inconsistent with… blood work rushed… specialist from Seattle… unusual case…”

Something in her tone triggers alarm. Not danger exactly, but a sense that I shouldn’t remain here. That being studied is a threat. I don’t understand the instinct, but it pulses through me with undeniable urgency.

Nurse Wilson returns with water and a granola bar. “Doctor’s ordered some tests, but they’ll take a while to set up. You must be hungry.”

The food tastes like dust but satisfies a gnawing emptiness. While I eat, I take in the room with strange clarity: the window large enough to climb through, the cabinet likely containing supplies, the hallway visible through the partially open door with its exit sign glowing red in the distance.

“I’ll be right back with some forms,” Nurse Wilson says. “Just rest for now.”

As soon as she leaves, I move with unexpected purpose. The cabinet yields scrubs—blue cotton pants and a top. The counter holds slip-on shoe covers. I dress quickly, movements fluid despite my mental fog. The clothes are too big, but they’ll do.

I pause at the door, listening. Voices at the nurses’ station, Dr. Martinez on the phone again: “…never seen readings like these… completely anomalous… keeping her overnight for observation…”

No.

The certainty rises from somewhere deeper than thought. I cannot stay.

The hallway stretches in two directions. Left leads to the nurses’ station. Right leads deeper into the hospital. I turn right, moving with quiet confidence that belies my inner confusion. My body seems to know what to do, even if my mind doesn’t.

I follow exit signs, avoiding eye contact with the few staff members I pass. No one questions the woman in scrubs, walking purposefully through the corridors. A service door presents itself at the end of a quiet hallway. The alarm panel beside it gives me pause until I notice the tape covering the sensor—someone’s convenience is now my salvation.

Outside, the air has cooled as afternoon fades toward evening. The hospital parking lot opens to a road that leads to a two-lane highway stretching in both directions. Mountains rise to the east, but something pulls my attention southwest. An invisible tether tugging at my center.

I stand at this crossroads, this division between what should be safety and the unknown beyond. Logic says to stay, to let the doctors help, to wait for memory to return. But something deeper than logic—something instinctive and certain—tells me my answers lie elsewhere.

Southwest. Toward mountains painted gold by the setting sun. Toward something—or someone—calling me without words.

I take my first step in that direction, then another. The pull strengthens with each movement, confirming my choice. I don’t know who I am or where I’m going. But somehow, I know I’m heading in the right direction.