With the Assassin Brotherhood's various operations all running smoothly—and everyone assigned enough work to keep them busy for the next six months—Bella finally made her way back to Los Angeles.
She still needed to administer the viral enhancement to Natasha. She needed to focus on her own studies. And she was planning to warm up to the female doctor there, see if she could worm her way into Monarch.
Busy, busy, busy.
Any stolen moment of rest was precious.
At home, Bella and Natasha were careful. At most they held hands under the table, nudging each other's feet in secret. Charlie had all his attention fixed on the expectant mother anyway; he never noticed their small gestures.
With Bella's finances at this point, she could easily afford to buy her own place—a million-dollar home somewhere in California, with property taxes she could cover without blinking. A place just for the two of them. That would be ideal.
But Natasha was the kind of person who thrived on a certain edge of risk, and Bella had learned to just go along with it.
Charlie was busy tending to the pregnant woman, leaving just Bella and Natasha at the breakfast table.
Bella sipped her milk and asked in Russian, eyes dancing: "Hey, comrade. Do you happen to know where Stalingrad is? I can't seem to find it on the map."
Natasha's foot connected sharply with her shin under the table. That was a reference to their private little game—the one they called "drawing maps." Bella maintained that it was extremely educational for geographic knowledge. And Natasha, as an elite operative, had to know her geography.
"Smartass," Natasha muttered, and went back to her juice. She picked up a thin pancake, then a few strips of bacon, and proceeded to eat in a way that made everything sound impossibly delicious.
Bella watched with profound inner conflict written all over her face.
She wanted to eat too. But she'd spent weeks bouncing around the globe, and sorcery was practically a sedentary profession. Add in the injury recovery binge from a few weeks ago, and when she'd weighed herself two days ago she'd found she'd gained nearly 4.4 pounds. She was officially on a diet.
Bella had strong willpower—especially when beauty was concerned. She finished her milk, then propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin in both hands, and stared at Natasha eating with a glazed expression.
While she was zoning out, Yinglong crept out from the bedroom, peering around the doorframe like a suspicious little mouse.
Bella had told her a thousand times—do not let Charlie or Samantha see you. But Yinglong had been watching so many cartoons lately that she'd apparently forgotten she even had an invisibility gift. She slunk out into the open and, seeing Natasha first, gave her a little wave. Then she held up a phone and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper:
"Bella, Bella—there's a call for you."
Bella blinked slowly, the expression of a deeply confused Psyduck settling onto her face. "...Who is it?"
"Your contact label says 'Dr. Jackal.'"
She gave her head a slow shake to wake herself up and took the phone with one languid hand. As she tilted her head to answer the call, Natasha couldn't help licking her lips. Not that she would ever admit it, but Natasha found herself more and more drawn to that unhurried, intoxicating quality Bella carried about her.
"...Mm. Yeah. Got it." Bella hung up quickly.
Nothing urgent—Dr. Warren's experiments were running short on an industrial compound, and she needed Bella to source it immediately.
She'd barely set the phone down before Dr. Harlo called, pressing her about a medical equipment order.
After that, her phone didn't stop. Someone from the cloned organs division wanted to know when the next client was scheduled for surgery. The head of security reported catching a suspected corporate spy. A dozen other miscellaneous problems piled up and ruined her pleasant morning.
By the time breakfast was over, she was still on calls.
Yinglong had refused to go back to the bedroom and was now napping draped over Bella's shoulder.
"Your company needs a proper executive to handle the day-to-day," Natasha advised quietly. "You should only be managing the big picture."
Bella sighed in frustration. "Easier said than done. People I actually trust and who are actually competent are rare. For now, it falls on me."
A vague idea surfaced in the back of her mind—she was the laziest person she knew, so why hadn't she hired a president for Weyland to field all of this? Why were all calls coming straight to her? This was ridiculous.
Had she done things differently before? She seemed to remember... not getting quite this many calls directly...
The thought came and went in an instant, then it was gone.
Breakfast was finished. The two of them tidied up briefly—Natasha headed back to her room to read through a classified file, while Bella laced up her shoes to go visit a friend.
But just as she was about to walk out the door, she froze.
Bag in hand, shoes on, she stood in the doorway with a strange, uncertain look.
What had she been going to do?
See a friend, she thought—something about dropping by a set?
Her friend should be at a film shoot. But she suddenly couldn't recall the person's name. Couldn't picture their face. Did she even have this friend?
She drifted back to the dining room and sat down, visibly puzzled. Natasha looked at her strangely.
Yinglong peered out from her shoulder perch. "Bella, what's wrong? Still hungry?"
A cascade of overlapping images washed across Bella's vision. She looked at Yinglong, and in doing so, felt that particular section of memory slowly begin to solidify.
"...I... I suddenly forgot what I was going out for. Do you remember?"
"We were going to see Sadako, weren't we? She has scenes to film today..." Yinglong stared at her, expression shifting to pure bafflement. What was wrong with this person today?
Sadako. The name arrived, and Bella's mind immediately jumped to her memories from her previous life—the pale woman in white crawling from the well, the iconic horror image. Not a single thought connected that figure to anyone she actually knew.
"Sadako?" Her expression grew more lost by the second.
Yinglong went from confused to indignant. She hopped up onto the table and pointed a tiny accusatory finger at her. "Bella. You forgot Sadako? She's our friend! You heartless jerk!"
"Heartless jerk!" Natasha seconded, with full conviction.
She had no idea who this person was—the name sounded Japanese. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she watched Bella.
Bella looked down and thought hard. The more she reached for it, the more certain she became that something was wrong. The name Sadako felt more than just familiar—it was far more than a leftover impression from her old life.
"...No. No, something's wrong with my memory."
Her spiritual development wasn't at Yinglong's divine level, but her psychic sensitivity had always kept her attuned to the faintest shifts in her environment. Even the tiniest change sent a ripple through her mind.
The flood of urgent calls from Weyland. The friend who seemed to both exist and not exist. Both things tugged at the same thread of suspicion.
Yinglong stared at her with enormous eyes, apparently finding the whole thing entertaining.
Bella worked through it methodically. Bit by bit, following the faintest traces, she began to recover memories connected to 006. Her phone had received a call last night—she'd been too tired to answer.