Chapter Sixteen

It has been 3 days and Athena still refuses to answer any of Gabriel's calls. He has tried every excuse in the book to convince her to talk to him, but she refuses.

"Gabriel, honey, are you sure you have to leave right this second? You only just got here, and it's such a long plan ride over. Stay for one more night with Verona, she lives closer to the airport so she can drive you in the morning–"

"I wouldn't wish to inconvenience Miss Dynes; I took my own plane for this exact reason. I can never stay in one place too long. A pleasure as always mother, I will contact you again when I'm back in Luxe City and we will arrange another time to meet."

He gives his mother a kiss on the cheek and for Verona, what he hopes is a respectful kiss on the back of the hand, but with the way she flutters her eyes, and her cheeks go red, he failed.

"I'll be moving back to Luxe city next month, Gabriel. Please do take care of me when I get back, as I no longer have any friends or family there," Verona says, springing on Gabriel that she will be coming back.

"Are you not staying here with your mother and your business? Running it from Luxe City to New State will be rather hard."

Verona just beams brightly at him. "I'm so happy you're so concerned for me, but I'm sure with Gabriel by my side, I won't have any trouble."

She clings to his arm and hugs her chest to him, rubbing slightly. He pulls his arm out of her grasp lightly and makes note to brush off invisible dust from where he felt he was just slightly molested.

"I'm around, if you ever need help Miss Dynes." A common phrase when one genuine person offers help to another. For Verona, it was the first kindness Gabriel had shown her all night, offering his help to her whenever she needs it.

Will he come running to help her whenever she called? Her cheeks get flushed and her face hot just from thinking about the burly Gabriel Monroe, number one bachelor of Luxe City, comes running to her rescue.

As soon as he is free from the clutches of that woman and his mother's overly eager looks, he slows his pace down the street. He has a couple hours to kill now before heading to the airport, and it has been a while since he was overseas. Deciding to take a stroll down the street, he finds himself keeping his eye out for something, or someone, but he isn't sure who or what.

He hasn't done any business in New State, though he has thought of expanding his business here, it's a lot harder to establish yourself in the gambling industry here than it is in Luxe City, or to start a fashion company here.

A flutter of dark brown catches his eye from the corner, turning his head to see a brunette-haired woman passing by him. There is something familiar about her, even the back of her head looks recognizable. The way she walks and her posture, he has seen this woman before.

"Athena?" he calls silently.

As if hearing him, the woman stops slightly and turns her head, her light brown eyes connecting with his. She looks nothing like Athena, but something about her screams a familiarity that he can only associate with her.

"Excuse me, Miss. Have we met before?" he asks, slowly approaching. The woman seems to be wondering the same thing, peering at him with slight confused recognition.

She opens her mouth to respond, but suddenly grasps the side of her head as if in great pain and sucks her breath through her teeth. Gabriel is rushing towards her before she has the chance to hit the ground and calling out for someone to call for help.

A couple passing by stop and pull out their phones to call for an ambulance, while the other asks Gabriel what happened. It's the same thing that happened to Athena, just before he left for his trip, Margaret said Athena had been suffering from severe headaches that often made her pass out.

Is it related to her amnesia? Is this woman suffering the same?

By the time the woman is brought to the hospital, Gabriel receives a call from Julian that his plane will be boarding and leaving within the hour, meaning he doesn't have any time to question the girl further, or even make sure she is alright.

"I must run, but can you please give me the name of the girl who just went in? I'd like to make sure she is alright, I tried to perform CPR when she passed out, I feel partially responsible for her recovery. If her or her family need any help paying for the bills, please tell them to contact this number, they will help them with anything they need."

"I can only give you her name. Chloe Brass."

The name isn't familiar. What the hell is happening? Why do this girl and this situation all feel familiar?

"Thank you." Gabriel leaves his card and exits the hospital, calling for a taxi when he sees that he has a missed call from Athena's house and a voicemail.

"Mr. Monroe, so sorry to call you while you're away on business. I'd like permission to contact the doctor your family carries, Miss Rose has fainted again after another episode it seems."

"Damn."

***

Why does it feel like I'm waking up after a three-day binge? My head is killing me.

Looking around the room, everything seems to be the same as before, but somehow feels different, like she hasn't been back in Athena's room in a long time. Stretching out her tired limbs, her body feels extra heavy and exhausted.

Picking up the bell next to her bed, she rings it to call Margaret.

She is nearly shocked out of her bed when Gabriel Monroe barges through the door, his hair a mess and his clothes disheveled.

"W-what are you doing here, Mr. Monroe?" she squeaks out, pulling the covers further towards her. She can't recall what she wore to bed last night and has no time to look down and inspect now with him staring blatantly at her.

"So, you remember how to call my name, but you don't know how to pick up the phone when I call you?" he asks, stalking towards her with an angered look on his face. She can't remember ever seeing him so angry before, nor does she remember him calling her at all recently.

"When did you call, Mr. Monroe?"

He takes out his phone and throws it on the bed in front of her.

"Every day for the last week, but your housekeeper said you kept refusing to speak with me. I'm here to find out why my employee, who has very important documents in her hands, has been ignoring my calls all week, only to find out that you've fainted again."

What, I fainted again?

"Mind telling me what the hell is going on?" he asks, not directly in front of her, his eyes blazing.

"There isn't much to say, I'm still recovering from my coma and my brain obviously suffered some damage and is still weak. I'm not a doctor, Mr. Monroe, I can't very well explain this in detail to you because I hardly know what's going on myself."

"But there is something going on. You can put an act on in front of me, but your housekeeper and my family doctor can't. Stop lying to me, Athena. When I saw you last week you were passed out on the ground and when you woke up, your housekeeper said you didn't have any memory of ever meeting me. We have spent the last month working together every day of the week, how can all of that just disappear in a night?"

What the hell is going on? Trying to recall what he is talking about, and even the last week alone, she feels like she is grasping at straws.

I had a weird dream last night, I dreamt I was Chloe again. But it wasn't a memory I had made when I was her, it was something new. I was walking down the street, and I heard someone call out to me...

"I'm sorry, Mr. Monroe, but I'm in no condition to answer your questions right now. Is there a better time this week we can discuss this?"

"Tomorrow."

"I-I'm sorry, what?"

He grabs his jacket and says no more as he walks out the bedroom door. Seconds later, Margaret comes wandering in with large eyes.

"Is everything alright? I'm sorry, but he insisted on staying until you woke up."

"Why was he even here?"

Margaret suddenly looks uncomfortable. "Well, everything was fine with you Miss, but then you suddenly got another headache and fainted again. I called Dr. Carlson, but he is away on a personal call, so I needed the permission of Mr. Monroe to contact their family doctor, and well...I suppose he came over right after he arrived."

"Arrived from where? I just left his office yesterday, he said he was going to be gone for a week?"

Chloe reaches for her phone in the nightstand to check the date.

"It has been a week, Miss Rose."

She's right, the date on her phone confirms it has been exactly a week, meaning today is the day Gabriel was to return.

He rushed over he the moment he landed? Did he go home?

"How has it been a week? The last thing I remember is coming home from Gabriel's office after he cancelled our study session, and then..."

What happened after that? Now that she tries to remember, she can't.

"What happened after I came home that day, Margaret?"

"You had another one of those terrible headaches and fainted. You woke up the next day and started making claims that you couldn't recall the last month, or even meeting Mr. Monroe. It was like you had become a completely different person."

What if I did?

It has been a month, but she hasn't done any research or looking into the mysterious soul swap she has experienced. There must be something about it in this world, a book or person who can help explain to her what has happened, and why she landed herself in another empty body when she herself is supposed to be dead.

It will explain why her memories are missing and she keeps bouncing back between bodies. It seems the dream she had about becoming Chloe again wasn't a dream, and that explains why it was a new memory rather than an older one.

So, does that mean the real Athena Rose had been controlling her body again for the last week? What has she done during that time?

"Margaret, please go prepare tea and refreshments for us. I would like for you to explain everything that has happened since I last fainted, in as much detail as you can remember."

It's time to get down to business.

***

Over the next hour, Margaret explains all the missing details over the past week and reveals to Athena that the books she had received from Gabriel Monroe have gone missing from the study.

"There are two people I can think of off the top of my head that would steal those books without even knowing what is in them. I can assume it was my father, he's the only one who can take one look at those books and realize they belong to the Monroe Group, and just having them in his possession can be dire."

"What do you think he plans to do with them?" Margaret asks, still bewildered that she is sipping on some of the finest tea this country has ever created. Just the cup she is drinking alone costs a day's work.

"I don't think he has the guts to use them to attack Gabriel directly, so that means he must want them to use against me. The question is how he plans to do that."

She already has enough to worry about, now she has to track down those books and get them back before Gabriel realizes they are missing. She can buy herself some time with the excuse that she is once again recovering, but with how fast she recovered last time it will only buy so much.

The other big obstacle she is facing is getting out of telling Gabriel about her amnesia. She already had Margaret ask the Monroe family doctor if he can keep quiet about what he discovered about her amnesia from Gabriel and his aide Julian for the time being, so she doesn't have to worry about that.

She does have to worry about the constant poking he seems to be doing. He will be back again tomorrow, and she will have to come up with a passable excuse to send him off again, but she has no idea what to say.

How can one explain forgetting a person for a week and then suddenly remembering them? There is no logical way to explain it without telling him about her broken memory and brain damage. If she reveals that, she is afraid he will fire her from her job and cancel their study sessions, bringing her plans to a halt.

She doesn't want him to think she isn't fit enough for the job and anyone else experiencing a normal case of amnesia wouldn't be mentally fit enough, but she isn't a normal case. She is a soul trapped in a different body, given no choice but to carry out the new life she has been given.

Yeah, that explanation would go over smoothly.

The first place he would send her is the insane asylum.

"I think you should tell him," Margaret suddenly says.

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell what you're thinking right now. I think you should inform Mr. Monroe of your condition; I feel he is a man you can trust with such information, and I don't think he will look down on you for this."

She may be right, but is the risk worth taking? That's the real question, not whether she can trust he won't look down on her.

Will he trust she is telling the truth?

"I need to focus on regaining my memory as quickly as possible. We've tried visiting places I used to frequent and that hasn't worked, if anything it seems it has set me back a little. Can we think of any other ways to accelerate memory recovery? There have been other cases of severe amnesia, someone has to have thought of something quicker by now."

"I was speaking with one of the kitchen staff, and one of the young girls there said that hypno-therapy was becoming a big thing with people who are trying to forget tragic moments in their life. You could try asking if it's possible to help someone who is trying to recover forgotten or suppressed memories."

Chloe jumps up and grabs hold of Margaret with an excited grin on her face. She kisses both of her cheeks aggressively.

"Margaret, you are a genius. Bless you and your gossiping mouth, after this you're going to make sure the girl and anyone else you spoke to this about understands that whatever they heard and said is to never be repeated outside this household. Then, we're going to look up some hypno-therapists."

Margaret nods as best she can with her face still trapped between Athena's palms. "I'll make sure none of them say a word and get the study ready with your laptop, Miss."

One step closer. It also means she is one step closer to shedding her identity as Chloe Brass. This might help with the bouncing between bodies as well, if she regains all the memories or even part of the memories she is missing from Athena's mind, she will be able to solidify her soul in this body.

It's just a theory, but it's better than nothing.

Within a few hours, they have only been able to find one name of a person within Luxe City that fits the description, but their title is different. They claim to be a psychiatrist, but their description suggests their methods are experimental.

"It's our best shot," she mumbles, sitting in the back of the car with Margaret as they drive to the office address. The name of the person is Cane Richmond, or Dr. Cane as the website said.

"Do you really think he's what we're looking for?" Margaret asks.

"The website was pretty vague, but he is the closest one to what we're looking for, it's worth a shot to at least check him out. He sounded friendly enough on the phone when we made the appointment, and for someone like him to be available on the same day of calling and within the hour, tells me he doesn't get a lot of clients."

"So, isn't that a bad thing?"

Chloe shrugs. "It could be a bad thing, or in our case, it could mean that the experimental methods mentioned online are ones that not a lot of people are looking for, like erasing one's memory."

Margaret still looks confused but doesn't question further.

The car comes to a slow stop outside what looks like your standard business offices that dentist's or therapists might use for their private business. But it looks like only one office is in use, and the sign above simply reads 'Dr. Cane, Psychiatrist'.

"Well, here goes nothing."