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.