I pull the blanket higher, making sure it covers him, then I stand and look down at this broken, dangerous stranger.
"Don't make me regret this," I whisper.
Then I slide the heavy iron bolt on the barn door, locking him inside, and go back to my daughter.
Chapter 3: Lupo
Pain.
That's my first conscious thought. Not memory, not understanding. Just pain, white-hot and absolute, splitting through my skull.
I try to open my eyes. One responds. The other doesn’t. Won't open. Swollen, maybe.
The world swims into focus. Wooden beams overhead. Rough walls. Hay. The smell of dust and old animal feed.
Where am I?
The question forms, but there's no answer. Just empty space where something should be.
I try to sit up. My body screams in protest. Every muscle, every bone, everything hurts. My head throbs with each heartbeat, a rhythmic agony that makes my stomach lurch.
Need to—what? What was I doing?
I don't know.
I manage to lift my head an inch before the world tilts violently. I fall back against whatever I'm lying on, hay bales and a rough blanket, and close my eye, breathing hard.
Think. What happened?
Nothing. There's nothing there.
A barn. I'm in a barn. But whose barn? Why am I here?
Was there an accident? I look down at myself—or try to. My vision blurs, but I can see dark fabric. A torn shirt. Expensive-looking, even covered in dirt and what looks like blood.
My blood?
I lift my hand. Even that hurts. My knuckles are split, swollen, crusted with dried blood.
Did I fall? Crash my car?
Do I have a car?
The question should have an answer. It doesn't.
My heart starts pounding harder. I reach for something, anything—a name, a face, where I live, what I was doing—but there's only darkness. Empty darkness where my life should be.
Who am I?
Panic rises, sharp and cold, in my chest. I don't know. I don't know who I am.
I look at the clothes again. Black shirt, expensive fabric. Dark pants, also expensive. These aren't work clothes. Am I—what? Businessman? Why would a businessman end up beaten and bloody in a barn?
Maybe I'm not a businessman. Maybe I just—
The thought dissolves. Everything dissolves. The pain in my head becomes unbearable, a crushing weight that makes thinking impossible.
I try to hold on. Try to stay awake. Try to remember something, anything.
