Chapter 52

Melissa heard a small beeping sound that slowly brought her back to consciousness. It took a while for her eyes to travel from one part of the room she found herself in to another, until she finally saw somebody familiar enough to make her heart warm.

“Damien, is that really you?” she asked. She had seen him in her dreams far too many times to allow her imagination to deceive her again into believing something that wasn’t real.

As he shifted away from her, she smiled—a soft, bitter smile. If this was a dream, he would have come closer to her, telling her that he understood how much she had suffered all these years, staying away from him, watching him from the sidelines, and feeling like she was ready to do everything to be close to him again.

But knowing that being close to him would just bring danger, she had stayed distant just so she could see him grow up, being raised by another couple, and watching him regard them as his real parents instead of her and her la