Leo entwined his fingers around her, and pulled the edge of his bookshelf on the side. They're still in the office, and it's probably past midnight they had been hanging out with each other.
Zella never got to see every corner of his home office. She got scared on just stepping at the top of third floor.
An eerie silence made her back down whenever she tried. Only now, Leo had to show her a secret compartment no one must have known. He sighed, talking up, "The rest of the guys who live here knew this room. We're hiding it from the staff members. Only Ms. Lavender knew about it."
Zella stared at Leo retrieving a book from the deck, and opening it up in the middle. It has a red button on it. Zella wanted to resist the urge of pressing it, as to dwindle her curiosity over the secret room Leo was showing her.
"Why does Ms. Lavender knew it?"
Leo hissed, confirming, "She's been here for 20 years. I'm not living here until I turned 10. Ms. Lavender has been serving a lot of families before she stayed under me. So, all of the secret rooms… she knew all of it."
Zella found it hard to believe. As soon as the impulse gets, she roamed her eyes in every corner, wondering if there was a secret bunker hidden behind the walls. Leo noticed her anxiousness, and smirked.
Leo reassured, "Don't worry, Zella. There's no other secret room in here but this."
Zella woke up from her daze. She turned to the button.
"Press the button so I can see it." In an instance, she got afraid. Not with Leo, but with the secret room and what he handled behind it. There are a lot of worries erupting in her mind the moment Leo pressed the button.
The door slid backwards, and after a swish, it glided sideways, and there revealed, a long, dark hallway, that leads to a center light. Leo and Zella peeked inside. It's understandable for Leo, since, he have seen the secret room a couple of times.
But Zella… it's her first time here. She didn't know if she ever saw it in the past. It didn't cause quite a stir inside her heart, raising her body hair to its ends, or even her guts screaming: 'You had been here!"
Leo closed the book, held it, and said, "You might not remember it at all, Zella. But as the doctor said: you're going to, if those rare days came."
Zella slowly averted her eyes from the hallway, and onto her husband's eyes. He held out a hand—in which, she resisted to, but like his touch, anyway—waiting. Just for a split second, Zella didn't think about it and held it.
Nothing's wrong with their love. They're a happy husband and wife. The two of them have a decent amount of conversation to warm up the relationship. And if ever something goes the way out of the wind, Leo and Zella will be standing strong against the torrent.
They walked in, and automatically, as they got devoured inside the hallway, the doors screeched, and close in a thud. Zella didn't even know why his instincts raised a moment a loud noise reached her ears.
With the echoing slam of the metal doors, Zella caught her breath. She kept looking at the doors, and Leo knew something's wrong. Her bloodshot eyes got horrified, and the moment it did, Leo came up to her rescue.
"What's wrong, Laina?"
He peeked right at her face, but she wouldn't budge. Leo returned back to his normal position, waiting for Zella to calm down, but she didn't.
The screeching doors echoed in her mind, as if it reminded her of the past memory she was trying hard to remember. Zella's vision got blind, blurry in one moment, but clear on another second. The darkness and the lights circled around her eyes, as if someone slammed a hammer in her skull.
Zella staggered, taking a step backwards, hitching Leo's hand unknowingly. Leo didn't bother to call her name twice, because he knew, at this point, Zella had seen a vision of who she was in the past.
Zella unclasped her hand from Leo, but he's too fast not to catch her right on time. He draped his arms around her waist, hugging her, but Zella held her head. Someone must be grinding inside, because she couldn't decipher what's the real image from an illusion.
"It must be. You're crying your eyes out. I'm here to pay for the damages I've done to a small car on our parking garage. It was horrible, lady."
The whispers came, and whenever she opened her eyes, a shadow came up, approaching her with a knuckled fist and a food tray on the other hand. Zella gritted her teeth, trying to wash it away, but the more she paid attention to it, the more it devoured her mind.
"I killed my family."
Leo was holding her steadily, but Zella's eyes were tightly closed, and tears came all of a sudden. She's out of her breath, and in that, Leo tried so hard to wake her up. The doctor said she could experience hallucinations…
But this doesn't seem similar to hallucinations at all.
It's the memories she had before she landed inside his mansion.
Leo had to mend it quick.
"Laina… Laina…" his voice was soothing, enough to withdraw the nightmare she experienced at the middle of the darkness.
However, Zella was still holding on to a memory of her sitting down a dark, prison cell, while she's cradling like a kid. She's resting her arms on the top of her knees, and there was no one in the door.
It's pitch-black. The only source of light was in the middle, in a high ceiling, and Zella didn't even know where the switch was. She turned to the lock, but whenever she tried to move, her limbs and joints got all stuck up.
Zella gawked at the darkness, waiting for the padlock to unlock on its own, but suddenly, the image of the gates disappeared, and was replaced by a worried man, who had his eyes anxiously checking on her.
She didn't even realize her breathing recovered. Zella inhaled, holding onto something, and it was…
"Leo…"
What just happened to her? What did she hear earlier? About killing someone's family? Zella couldn't remember what it was, and totally forgotten the sudden jolt of the memory, kicking in to disturb the romantic mood.
"Laina, are you alright?" Leo hushed. He has grown worried 'till death. It was the first time he felt it. Today, Leo realized how much losing Zella is inevitable.
The moment she remembered her name and true identity… it will be the end.
Zella closed her eyes, clutching the collar of his polo, whispering, "Don't let go of me. I'm losing my mind, Leo. What I heard… what I heard is unacceptable."
Leo caressed the top of her shoulders, and pulled her to an embrace. She wrapped her arms around his waist. Both of them got stuck on holding on to each other than to make out the hobbies of one another.