After a terrible accident, Gemma is left with no memory of the first twenty years of her life and nobody to turn to who can help her remember. When she loses her job, Gemma sets out on an adventure to find something worth living for. What she doesn'...
FALLING BACK ONTO the stiff hotel mattress, I unfold the piece of paper in my hands. I absentmindedly run a finger over one of the many creases ingrained in the tarnishing page as my eyes scan over the words I already know by heart.
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A few days after settling into my desolate flat in Seattle, a brown cardboard box arrived at my door. Inside were my belongings— the bulk of which consisted of my small but sufficient collection of clothes— and a note from Adam.
Even though it's not much, the torn slip of paper in my grasp gives me hope that one day I'll figure out who Gemma was. I haven't had the money or time in the past year to put much effort into playing private investigator, and I jumped at the chance to come to Licapta instead of returning to Montana. But—
The sound of two raps on the door demands my attention, and I stuff Adam's note into my coat pocket before getting up to answer it.
"Émile?" I take a step back, propping the door open wider when I see his familiar dark hair and chiseled features.
"Good morning to you too," he chirps, his lips moulding into the smallest of smiles.
"Good morning," I say as a woman dressed in a navy suit passes behind him. She snaps her head to the side, glancing quickly at Émile and I as she marches forward.
It's a good thing I woke up well before my alarm was set to go off because I certainly wasn't expecting Émile to show up at my room bright and early. Not after the arrangements we'd made the previous night.
After entering the gates of Licapta yesterday evening, Audrick accompanied us to a hotel downtown. Weaving through the narrow hills and occasional cobblestone streets, I'd spent the trip watching risqué-dressed adolescents and well-dressed adults crowded outside bars, restaurants, and theatres, light spilling out from store fronts and streetlights illuminating the busy streets. While downtown Seattle had a similar atmosphere, everything here was amped up: there were more people, brighter lights, and more noise penetrating the narrowly rolled down windows of Audrick's SUV.
"You look like you've never seen a city before."
Émile's humoured voice snapped me out of my trance, and I tore my gaze from the window and twisted around to face Émile, who was sitting kitty-corner from me in the back of Audrick's Mercedes. The four leather seats in Audrick's SUV were positioned such that two were facing two. The vehicle was more luxurious than any car I'd ever been in, and I wondered if all self-driving cars were like his.
As I turned around, I locked gazes with Audrick, who was seated directly across from me. His blue eyes quickly shifted away from me when he realized he had my attention, and the motion was so quick I had to wonder whether he'd actually been staring at all.
