Rejected, Then Reborn
Chapter 52

“So, where’s your sexy friend taking you to, Lace?”

Lacy only rolled her eyes at her sister, Elise’s words, refusing to rise to her bait, choosing instead to ignore her, for she knew that if she didn’t do that it was just going to be hours of rigorous teasing.

“He’s taking me to the Lincoln City Hotel, Elise, and Lord knows I haven’t been there in ages, but it’s actually the only one I was familiar with from the long list he sent me.”

Lacy didn’t believe that she’d ever say this, but she was really grateful her big sister had set her up with Alrik Hunter.

The guy she had matched up with on that dating site her sister had set her up on had actually turned out to be a very nice person, and they were even having plans of meeting for the first time since they became acquainted almost a week ago.

Was Lacy excited about it?

I mean sure.

But she was also kind of torn about it.

You know those kinds of people who were totally perfect during chats and conversations on the phone, and then they turned out to be incredibly boring when one finally met them in person?

Yeah, what if he turned out to be one of those?

As a matter of fact, what if she was one too?

“So, what are you wearing to this fancy dinner with the sexy man, Lacy?”

“Can you stop calling him that already?” This time Lacy did her best to shut it down.

If her ignoring her second eldest sister had not done the trick the first time, you can be rest assured that she wasn’t going to drop the teasing any time soon.

“Jeez, jeez… alright.”

That had always been Elise’s strong suit, riling people up… it was why she had turned out to be such a successful lawyer anyway. Lacy remembered that back when they all used to live in the house with their parents, she had hated her sister’s way of talking, because it was mean, and snarky and downright spirit crushing, but it seemed to Lacy that in the space of the time she had been gone, the mother of one had gotten down to toning it a little bit.

Perhaps, it had something to do with her young three-year-old son who already adored Lacy to bits.

Lacy badly wanted to meet him in person, but her doctor had still not cleared her for air travel yet, and they lived a lot of states away now, which was why they were currently discussing her choice of an outfit and what they had practically been up to via video call.

“You have gained some sexy weight in the space that you were gone, so I’m pretty sure none of your formal clothes you left behind at mother and father’s would fit you anymore.” Elise was saying, snapping Lacy out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah, about that… Liana actually got me a couple of things when she came to visit, so I am pretty sure I can find something appropriate to wear.” The younger girl responded. But her elder sister would have none of it, “No, Lace. Pick it out now and let me help you decide—” She trailed off to answer someone in the background, and then she turned her attention back to Lacy, a sheepish grin on her face, “Actually, sorry, Lace,” She winced, “Something important came up, you’re gonna have to pick that outfit without me after all. Make sure you send me lots of pictures and tell me all about it, and please… have fun. Okay, byeee.” The call hung up before Lacy could get a single word in.

Jeez. Wasn’t her sister such a parrot.

But moving on to other matters, what was she even going to wear to this friendly dinner date?

She didn’t even know.

The human girl hadn’t given it much thought to be very honest.

But first impressions did count after all too, right?

And she didn’t know why, but for some reason, she found that she wanted to make a very good one on her newfound friend.

They were meeting at the Lincoln City Hotel.

So, if Lacy knew nothing at all, she knew that she definitely had to don something more on the formal side, but other than that, she had nothing else to go by. She glanced at the huge antique clock in her room with its oak wood furnish and vintage design.

2:34 pm.

She really needed to get up and get started on getting ready if she wanted to be all set by the time he dropped by to pick her up. Thankfully her mother and father were both away on business trips out of the country so at least, that was one major part out the way… though just like their two other children, they had also asked her to keep them posted as well.

They were all fawning over her, yes… she knew that, but hey, she knew it came from a well-intended place, and so this time she didn’t allow it to get to her much like it almost had when her father had decided she go out with security since they didn’t really know the man, but Eliana had been insistent and she really put her foot down on that one… promising their parents that she knew the man and he was one of her clients, but if what Eliana had told her was true, she also had eyes all over the place watching over her baby sister, and so she wasn’t really worried about having her sit in someone they were now starting to know’s car all alone.

The human girl with the dark curls snapped out of her second batch of musings with a deep sigh, and then she stood up from her bed and headed to her closet, wondering what at all she could wear. Of course, that led her to think of Alric.

What was he going to wear?

Perhaps, she needed to ask him so his tie could match her dress?

Was that even still the mode de fashion around?

Your girl didn’t even know!

But now that her mind had flitted over to her new friend, she couldn’t help but start thinking more about him.

Was he as handsome as he was in his pictures?

Was he actually six foot five like he had told her or was he exaggerating things a bit?

Lacy had barely opened the closet when a sharp pain suddenly gripped her head, causing her to press her fingers tightly against her temples as she winced painfully.

What the hell was this?

Her eyes suddenly became hazy, her heartbeat slowing to a sluggish, dull thud as she slowly grappled onto the closet’s door handle with one hand and gently lowered her form to the ground, the other hand still wielding her smarting head.

This was it.

The end.

She was certainly sure of it when what seemed like an eternity passed and the pain remained constant, if not becoming worse. It was suddenly like at the hospital, but this one was a thousand times worse.

She was surely going to die, she told herself… for there was no way in hell one could go through a pain this excruciating and live to see another day.

The saddest part was that she couldn’t even open her mouth to scream for help, nor move her body towards her bed to even reach for her phone to call any of the help she was stuck with in the huge mansion, or even the first number she managed to dial.

No.

Our girl was seemingly paralyzed at the face of her sudden affliction.

In that moment, Lacy shut her eyes and prayed to whoever cared to listen to welcome her to the other side— wherever that was, for she hadn’t really been that much religious growing up, but yet even in her dying state, she had felt the need to put things right so that if nothing at all, she wasn’t cast into eternal damnation.

Her entire life flashed before her eyes in that moment, a fresh bout of tears slipping down her face in pain and frustration.

She had five years unaccounted for.

Five years she could totally remember nothing of.

What if she had done despicable things that were quite unforgivable in that space?

What if she had had a child?

Her own small family?

A whole other life she couldn’t remember a single thing of?

Or even worse… what if she hadn’t lived a life worthy of any special words at all? Worthy of any gallant mentions?

Would the only worthwhile thing that would be said of her be that she had strongly rebelled against her parents and started work as a nurse? She had barely even been a year in the position when she had taken the camping trip that had been the start of all of her problems.

So, in conclusion, she was a failure.

Wasn’t it just so poetically saddening and fitting that one would be her own judge even before Hades called them to permanent slumber?

As the human girl lay on the ground bawling her heart out, waiting for death to claim her, her hands still clutching her head to offer some relief that was barely doing s**t, the pain stopped just as suddenly as it had come.

The human girl was baffled.

It was gone.

All gone.

Not a single trace.

Nothing at all.

Her legs were working just fine, her heart was thumping in her chest at a normal rate… It was almost as if she had dreamed the past fifteen minutes!

What the f**k was that about?

Slowly and shakily rising to her feet lest she did something to bring all the pain back again, Lacy Reynolds dried her tears and took a soothing breath, trying to kick-start all her nerves that had still not recovered from the impromptu attack.

It was then she saw it.

A hole in the wall beside her closet, almost about the size of a regular wall clock.

No, but this wasn’t just any hole.

This one seemed to have appeared out of nowhere all of a sudden. And then there was also the fact that it was in a perfect circle, shaped as though someone had purposely taken a pair of mathematical compasses and produced the figure right on the wall of her room.

Now, now… the girl knew that she had suffered a long period of memory loss… one that could very well possibly re-manifest at any point in time, but she remembered this one very well…

Nothing like this was ever on her walls.

And there was no way anything like that would ever be.

Even if she went along with it and she had actually had a memory blank episode, she knew without a single doubt that there was no way in hell her parents would allow her to keep sleeping in such a room if it had a problem as this.

She needed to get one of the helps to come have a look.

And so, with that decided, Lacy made to leave the room, but a weird rippling in the hole in the wall suddenly caught her attention.

She had watched enough movies to know that this was the time to flee if she had any running away to do, but like a human possessed, instead of walking away from the boiling circle, she trudged towards it, her curiosity getting the better of her.

She stood right in front of it and leaned in, closely studying it to see what at all it could possibly be. It seemed like a gentle river of sorts, calm on the surface, but seemingly bubbling underneath, and Lacy couldn’t help it, something about it beckoned to her, asking her to reach out to caress its soft, shimmery, rippling surface. And so closer and closer and closer her hand went, until finally,

She touched it!