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“Come on,” Madden grunts.
When I look up to find him waiting in the doorway, he seems annoyed. I’m not sure I want to go with him even though my brain is pleading with me to find a way out.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“You hungry?” The muscle in his jaw ticks. It seems like maybe he’s trying to be nice for a change, and it goes against his every instinct. I’m not sure if I should be alarmed or relieved.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go. I’ll cook some eggs.”
After seeing the same four walls and nothing else for weeks, I’m not going to turn down his offer. But as I stand and follow him, I also consider he might just be luring me to my death. On cue, when I reach the doorway and pause, he narrows his gaze at me.
“Try to run, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t,” he says. “And if you stab me again? We’re going to have a fucking problem.”
“I won’t,” I assure him quickly, placing a hand over my stomach as I try to erase the memory from my mind.
He nods and lets me go first, and it occurs to me as I walk that I’m wearing one of the shortest dresses Birdie brought me. It barely skims my upper thighs, and sure enough, when I turn around, his eyes are on my ass.
“Fucking Birdie,” he mumbles.
When we get to the kitchen, he points at a seat at the table. “Sit down there.”
I do as he requests, and he retrieves his phone, pressing a few buttons until music fills the speakers above us. There isn’t much else for me to do but listen to the song lyrics and watch him as he takes out a pan and a carton of eggs, along with some bread.
While he heats the pan, he opens a brand-new bottle of vodka and pours two shots, sliding one in front of me.
I stare at it, not really sure if I want it. Do I even like vodka? Drinking it straight seems intense, but Madden doesn’t hesitate to swallow his in one pull, the muscles of his throat working as he does. I try to do the same but nearly choke on the burning sensation in my throat, coughing and sputtering until he hands me a bottle of water.
“That’s awful,” I croak.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have any peach schnapps lying around.” He returns to the stove, cracking the eggs directly into the pan and uses a spatula to scramble them.
Something about the process makes me realize it’s all wrong. And then it hits me out of nowhere. I’ve cooked eggs before. More information floods my mind, seemingly useless but also important. I count all the different ways I know how to cook eggs as Madden flips them onto two plates and adds a couple of pieces of hot toast. When he sets a plate in front of me, I stare at his creation, quietly cringing at the small piece of eggshell inside the overcooked yellow protein.
He sits down across from me and drowns his eggs in hot sauce to make them edible before stuffing a forkful into his mouth. When he looks up at me, he pauses mid chew, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
“I just realized I’ve cooked eggs before,” I blurt. “And other things too. I remember the recipes. I think I know how to cook.”
He sets down his fork and stares at me as if trying to determine whether I’m full of shit. But I’m too consumed with processing this new information to give it much thought.
“I don’t know when I cooked before, but I must have at some point.” I say it like I’m trying to make him understand, but I know he can’t. Nobody seems to understand what it feels like when your own brain unlocks a hidden vault of information.
“You went to culinary school.” Madden tears his gaze away and forces the rest of his food down his throat, but the atmosphere changes after that information bomb.
It seems that, at least in his own mind, he’s confirmed I’m Bianca. But he doesn’t add anything else, and I don’t either.
Quietly, I eat what he made for me, making a mental note to ask if he’ll let me cook the next meal, just so I can prove I’m not imagining it. When we finish, he takes our plates to the sink and glances at me. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with me now.
He pulls something from his pocket, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s a joint. He takes a hit when he lights it up, then looks at me. The question is in his eyes, but he doesn’t voice it.
Do I want some?
I don’t know. The alcohol is still burning my belly and making my head fuzzy, and this seems like a dangerous path. But what do I have to lose at this point?
