Blood and Bone(36)

My heart breaks. "My aunt Pat?"

"An actress paid to be your aunt. She was told you were a victim of the  life we made you believe you lived. She was paid to be your aunt and to  participate in the therapy sessions you were undertaking."

"Oh God, oh God." I can't take any more. I get up, looking around. I don't know where to run. I don't know what to do.

"Sam, wait. There's more. Don't run yet."

I close my eyes, letting the whole of Paris spin around me in a violent circle, a vortex.

"There is a way back. The layers in your mind, the subconscious that has been manipulated, it can be healed, I think."

I scowl, dropping my hands. "To what end? You will give me back my  memories of living in a fucking cell and being tortured and made into  this-killing machine who can't actually kill anything." Hot tears blind  me.

"It will take away the false walls built in your mind."

"How do you know?"

He shudders. "I did it on myself first. How do you think I remember meeting you in the dark?"

The words have no meaning to me.

"I love you, Sam."

"You don't know me." I turn and run. I know he can't follow; his  injuries are too severe. People become a blur and direction becomes a  circle I run, chasing after myself in many ways.

When I think I am nowhere and everywhere all at once, I stop, heaving  against the brick wall of the old building next to me. I grip the bag he  left me, the one with all my identities in it. Which one is real? Are  any of them? Was I an orphan? Was I the perfect candidate because no one  would miss me?

I sink onto my heels, leaning and deep breathing. My head feels like it  might explode, but in my heart I want to know the truth. I have come  this far in the rat race they have set me up with. I want to know who I  am and who I was and how I got here. I want to separate the fact from  the fiction.

I get up, and as I walk down the alley I open the map app on my phone. I  use it to get back to the bridge, feeling defeated and stuck at the end  of the road. I am only halfway when I hear his voice again. "Trust me, I  swear I will make it all better."

I look up, seeing a red spot on his shirt where his wound has obviously  opened. But he offers me a hand, ignoring his own wounds. I walk to him,  feeling a weepy silence overpowering me. I don't take his hand; I don't  trust him with that part of me.

We stroll the street to a dark car parked across from the bridge. He holds a hand out. I pause. "Who was Rory?"

"CIA. They all were. It was a full op for them. They didn't know that  they were being used to run a scenario with you. They don't even know  Pat is an actress. They think I am Dash, gone rogue with you."

It doesn't make sense. "Rory said we were together, we were partners once, we had a past."

He nods. "You were operational then. It was the first phase of the  training. You were pulled into a special-run program, a branch off the  tree that was Area Seven."

"Rory is one of us too?"

He nods. "Rory's final phase was to leave you to die in the burning  house. Randall was one of the doctors in charge of the assignment. He  was to Rory as I am to you, in charge of your file."

"Did we kill Randall?"

He nods.

"And the other man?"

He nods again. "No one but Rory and Antoine know you exist now. That's  the beauty of a top-secret assignment-very few people are in the need to  know."

"I don't know if you're lying to me."

He opens the door and smiles weakly. "You will."

When we get inside the car, a man drives us out of the city. He doesn't  speak. None of us do. I should have run. I should have kept running.  That thought eats away at the rest of my mind, becoming my entire  obsession. Derek's hands grip his legs, like the pain of his wounds is  too much for him to take.         

     



 

"You need a doctor."

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes darting to the driver. "Just going to take a few weeks to heal fully."

The driver doesn't look back. He doesn't notice us. He takes an exit off  the small highway we're on and ends up driving down a country road.  Expecting to see random farms, I am surprised by the beautiful chalets,  old stone mansions, and vineyards. It's amazing, even if it can't get my  mind off the situation I am in.

He slows as we near a large stone arch. Part of me hopes we turn into  the archway, and part thinks the opposite. Turning down a driveway  toward an old mansion doesn't bode well for me getting my memories back.  In fact, it seems likely something contrary to that will occur.

But he turns into the archway, making a lump form in my throat. I am  going to be murdered or something worse. I have been tricked again.  Well, if I'm honest I've been tricked again and again and again and  again, and I have let myself be tricked.

When there are no options on who to trust, you trust the lesser evil.  The castle-like mansion we come upon when we crest the hill makes me  think I might not have chosen the lesser of my evils.

It's creepy, laden with moss, vines, and gargoyles. I hate gargoyles. I think I do, anyway.

Fuck it-who cares what I liked or hated before? I hate them now. They're  creepy. And only creepy people would put them on their house. The  French estate is creepy.

That's a bad sign . . .

When the driver stops the car I can't feel my legs. Fear has settled in  deep. Derek takes my hand in his, squeezing tightly and pulling me  through the door. When I get a good look at the driver my stomach starts  to sink. He's familiar. All familiarity makes me nervous. It means the  person has been part of the charade since at least midway.

Or is it now midway and the end is not actually ever going to come into  sight? The fear that I will be on the dance floor for the rest of my  life, dancing the same dance and twirling in the arms of these partners,  is a very real fear.

I look up at the massive building, preparing for it to be the asylum  they use to erase my mind. Or worse. Maybe it's the prison I have to  stay in while they wait for my scenario training to start next time.  Maybe they will just put me into my coma here. Maybe this is it. My  heart starts to beat, echoing around in my empty body.

Derek drags me to the front door. It's politely done, but it's forceful enough for me to know I have to cooperate.

His side is bleeding still, but his grip is tight nonetheless. The huge  wooden door opens as we draw near, revealing a wrinkled old man in a  butler's suit and tie. He nods his head. "Doctor, ma'am, how lovely to  see you both again."

Again?

His accent is English, not French. How odd. He closes the door after us.  I pause, taking in the splendor and grandeur of the room. Everything is  so large I don't really have anything to compare it to, to justify the  size. It is just bigger than any room I have ever been in inside a home,  which this clearly is. The ostentatious art, the arched doorways, the  sweeping stairs, even the dog is huge. The giant hound-a wolfhound, I  think-walks to me. He runs his face over my hands. I think we might know  each other, and I don't want to offend him, so I scratch the places I  think he might like-behind the ears and between the eyes.

The butler leads the way, directing us through the halls of the home  that seems less and less likely to be an asylum. I can't deny that makes  me feel better.

Derek's grip on my hand becomes part of my body. I don't feel like I am  being held or protected or dragged. His hand and mine are meant to be.

I feel that in my heart, separate from everything else, we are meant to be.

The butler stops outside of a room with a tremendous amount of light  flooding it. There is a wall of glass and many skylights in the ceiling.  A sunroom, perhaps. A woman with gray hair and a wrinkled face to match  the butler's awaits us. I know she expects us, because when her  bright-blue eyes flicker to my face, they light up with recognition.

"Sam, how are you?" She is also English. She doesn't stand, but holds  her hands out for me. "I was your friend once, Samantha Barnes." Her  eyes are not the same shade-they are light blue and dark blue, like  mine.

I don't release Derek's hand or run to her; I wait for it but it doesn't come. I do not know her face.

She swallows hard, wincing. "It's all right, my love."

I suck my air. I know those words. She called me those words, those  names. My love. They make more sense in my head now, the accent. My skin  crawls with shivers.

"Do you know me at all?"         

     



 

I shake my head. "But you shouldn't be insulted-I remember almost  nothing and everything, and the stories don't match in my head or on  paper."

She laughs at that. "I have missed you, my love."

"Who are you?"

Her eyes sparkle. "Your grandmother, Emily Starling. I was your mother's mother, before the accident."

Of course, my real parents were killed in a car accident. And they were  English. I recall that detail. I was alone in the world; apparently not  as alone as Derek must have assumed. Unless he too has known my only  living relative all this time.