My heart leaps into my throat.
I ready myself to pounce. To take down the intruder by any means necessary. I don’t know who brought me here, I don’t know who bandaged my wounds, but if they stand in the way of me finding my necklace and getting back to Zen, then I will have no choice but to hurt them.
A foot enters the room first, housed in a shiny black shoe. A modern one. Not the smooth leather boot or buckled mule of the seventeenth century. I can tell by the size and style that it belongs to a man. My gaze ascends as his leg crosses the threshold next. It’s muscular and thick, cloaked in dark gray fabric. I cautiously move my eyes farther up as the rest of him appears around the corner of the door. An untucked, creaseless black cotton shirt with buttons and a collar, sheathing an impressively formed muscular chest. A long, sturdy neck. And then I finally land on his face. And that’s when all the sensation in my head and hands and feet and fingers and toes and lips simply evacuates my body.
I’m completely unable to move. Except to fall back onto the bed.
It’s by far the most exquisite face I’ve ever seen.
His skin is smooth and satiny and unblemished. The color of ripe wheat bathed in sunlight. His features—nose, chin, cheekbones—are angular and appear to be chiseled out of fine marble. His dark blond hair cascades in loose, glossy waves around his temples, tickling the tops of his ears. And his eyes are the most breathtaking shade of iridescent aquamarine.
He looks young. Possibly the same age as me. Maybe older. And he’s carrying a trayful of food.
I try to hide my reaction to his stunning features but I know immediately that I’ve failed. He, on the other hand, is perfectly composed. His expression is as bare and emotionless as these white walls.
He walks silently into the room and sets the tray down on the table at the foot of the bed. There’s something very stilted and unusual about his movements. As though his joints click into place, rather than rotate smoothly.
“You’re awake,” he states in a neutral tone, making it impossible to tell if he’s happy about this development or disappointed. All I know is that the sound of his voice sends a quiver up my newly healed legs. Even though it’s detached and somewhat cold, there’s a penetrating depth. A strange intimacy. As though he’s breathing the words right into my ear.
“Who are you?” I ask, surprised by the tremble in my voice. Am I afraid of him?
Of course I’m not, my mind answers instinctively. Without even giving itself a chance to contemplate the question.
If anything, I feel the opposite. Safe. Protected. Understood.
Like I know him. Like I’ve never not known him.
He stands at the foot of the bed, his arms tight and rigid at his sides. “My name is Kaelen,” he says, the syllables flat. Like he’s a stone reciting definitions to another stone.
And yet a swell of emotion undulates through me, ricocheting off every surface in this room.
Kaelen.
I don’t know this name but I want to. More than anything. I want to repeat it over and over again in my mind. I want to use it in place of every other word in the English language. Even if it means I will no longer speak sense.
“What are you doing here?” I bring myself to ask. I want to sound accusing. Harsh. I want to warn this stranger that I have a mission and I’m not going to let anyone stand in the way of it.
But none of that is conveyed.
And in this moment, staring into his endless blue-green eyes, I can’t even remember what my mission is.
A small, almost sinister smile dances across his lips.
“Sera.” Even through his dispassionate tone, I hear an air of condescendence when he says my name. As if the explanation he’s about to give is pointless. Wasted breath. Wasted energy. “I’m here because of you.”
A shudder ripples through me as I finally comprehend everything.
The figure I saw through the rising smoke. The movement just before I passed out. My missing necklace.
The truth of my realization is like ice in my veins. Fog in my head. Wood splinters in my muscles.
I knew they would never let me burn.
As the paralyzing words tumble out of my lips, I know I can’t take them back. I can’t take anything back anymore. The chase is over. “Diotech sent you.”
18
AMBASSADOR
I’m amazed at how calm I feel as the words slide off my tongue. I’ve been restlessly dreaming of this moment for so long—fearing it, dreading it, waking up in a cold sweat—I guess I always assumed I would feel differently. That the rage and terror and determination to escape Diotech would all combine and coil up in my limbs, readying me to spring into action. To fight. To run.
But where am I going to go?
This man—this boy—clearly has my necklace. My freedom. My only way to Zen.
He nods, confirming that he is, in fact, who I think he is, and continues to stand eerily still at the foot of the bed.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “If Diotech sent you, then why am I not…” I glance around the large empty room, another horrifying realization settling in. “Wait. Am I here? Am I back? Is this the compound?”
“No.” His response is unfeeling. Almost mechanical.
I’m besieged with confusion. All this time, I assumed they were hunting me to bring me back. That’s what Alixter said in the cave. I was their trillion-dollar investment. I had to be returned. I couldn’t be allowed to just run loose through time.
“But I thought…” I protest.
“My orders were not to bring you back,” Kaelen explains stiffly.
“Then what are your orders?”
“You have information that we need. I have been assigned to acquire it.”
Information?
Despite everything—despite the fact that I’m standing in the middle of my worst nightmare—I have to laugh. Although it’s more like a nervous titter. “I’m sorry you went through the trouble but I think you were misinformed. I don’t have any information. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
He appears undeterred by this news. “It’s not something you know,” he states in a measured tone. “It’s something you remember.”
I chuckle again, feeling satisfied that I’ve somehow managed to outsmart them without even trying. “Well, obviously someone lied to you because I don’t remember anything. My memories are gone. Wiped clean. There’s nothing left.”
He shakes his head. The movement is so small it’s almost imperceptible. “I was not misinformed. I know with certainty that the memories we need remain intact.”
“If you’re so convinced that I have them, why don’t you simply put on some receptors and dig them out yourself?”
He crosses his arms, causing his black button-down shirt to crease around the chest. I can’t help but be drawn to those arms. They really are quite remarkable. Muscular and yet somehow soft and inviting at the same time. I would imagine Alixter only recruits the toughest, strongest people to be his agents. And Kaelen appears to be no exception.
But I’m not worried. I managed to outrun and outmaneuver the last two agents he sent after me; I have no doubt I can take on this one as well. Especially after all the practice sessions I’ve had with Zen in the forest.
The thought of Zen almost manages to double me over again but I fight hard to keep my composure. I can’t let this guy see any weakness. I’m just buying time, listening to his pointless story until I can figure out where my necklace is, and then I can stealthily make my move. When he least expects it.
“It’s more complicated than that,” he replies. “These aren’t memories that you have now. They’re memories that you will have. Eventually.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“They’re called TDRs. Time-delayed recalls. Memories installed in your brain that are programmed to activate after a certain amount of time, or when introduced to a specific trigger. Similar to a series of bombs set to detonate.”
Bombs? In my brain?
“How do you even know I have these?”
“The TDRs are visible in a scan. But they’re encrypted files. And they can’t be decrypted unless the predetermined time period has passed or the programmed trigger is set off. We can’t access the actual memories until they’re activated.”
“So you scanned my brain,” I say with an unsettling realization. “You looked at my memories.”
I suddenly feel ill. And violated.
He obviously doesn’t see this as a problem. “It was a necessary step in the successful completion of the mission.”
I want to scream but I know it won’t do any good. I suppose I shouldn’t even be surprised. Since when has Diotech ever respected the privacy of my mind?
I run my fingers along the soft cotton sheets of the bed, wondering how long I was lying there, completely vulnerable and helpless. Long enough for my legs to heal, I know that much. But what other things did he do to me in that time? What other memories did he see?
“How long have I been here?” I ask.
He stands completely still but I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I see one finger on his left hand twitch. “Two days,” he tells me.
“And how did you keep me unconscious?”
He reaches into his pocket and slowly withdraws the familiar black device with the dial on the side and the two metal prongs protruding from the top.
I should have known.
A Modifier.
Diotech’s weapon of choice. I remember when Rio used one on me in the abandoned barn in 2013. And Maxxer in the car on the way to her storage unit. Momentarily deactivating my brain. Forcing me into an involuntary sleep. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. And then I remember Alixter using one on Rio. In that cave. Cranking the dial until it could go no farther. Deactivating his brain for good.
I quickly shake the thought from my mind before it has a chance to debilitate me.
“And these memories,” I continue in a wobbly voice, “you know for sure that they will be triggered. That I will be able to see them?”
Kaelen nods. “One of them has already been activated.”
I suddenly flash back to the woman’s voice I heard in the woods. And the scene that played out in my head while I was lying on the floor of my prison cell. That seemed to come out of nowhere. It pounded inside my brain like an explosion of colors and sights and sounds.
The swarm of people.
The strange symbols carved into the sky.
The ferocious beast with eyes of black and gold.
The old man beckoning me inside his dirty blue door.
“I help you…”
Is that what that was? A time-delayed recall whose clock just happened to run out? But that still doesn’t explain what the memory means. Why the man was trying to help me.
And why did the woman’s voice tell me to find her?
“Who put these in my brain?” I ask in a brusque, demanding tone.
Like always, his response is blank. Distant. “I cannot divulge that information.”
I grunt. “What exactly are you hoping to find in these memories once they’re triggered?”
He seems to hesitate as he deposits the Modifier back into the pocket of his pants before resting his arms dutifully at his sides again. But as he does, his hand inadvertently snags the fabric of his shirt, causing it to shift and the collar to tug down an inch.
But an inch is enough.
I see the flash of silver peeking out from underneath before he reaches up and straightens the lapels.
Instantly my stomach clenches.
My locket. He’s wearing it. He must have mended the chain while I was unconscious. It makes sense for him to keep it on him. He must think that’s the safest place for it.
He’s wrong.
I’m already formulating my best plan of attack, calculating the perfect time to pounce. It has to be when he least expects it. When he’s, perhaps, momentarily distracted. I’ll ambush him at full speed, faster than he can comprehend, and rip the chain from his neck. Then I’ll stun him with a jab to the throat and a kick to the groin, giving me time to get away, open the locket, and transesse out of here. Wherever here is.
All I need is the right distraction.
Patience, I tell myself, even though my heart is pounding at the anticipation of my escape and the thought of seeing Zen again. Soon I’ll be back at his side. Soon I’ll be able to save him.
Kaelen is still answering my question, seemingly oblivious to the abrupt change in the balance of power.
“Although we don’t quite know for sure what the memories reference, our intelligence suggests that they contain a map.”
My attention is instantly diverted. Did he just say a map?
“To what?” I can’t help asking, even though it doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone in less than a few minutes.
“I cannot divulge that information either,” he says in the same robotic drone that’s really starting to annoy me.
I attempt to bring back the memory. The old man inviting me into his blue door. Into his world.
I can’t imagine how that could possibly be construed as a map.
Unless the map is somehow inside the door.
Well, whatever it is, I’m not waiting around here to find out. I eye the tray that Kaelen placed down on the table at the foot of the bed. “Is that for me?” I ask.
He nods. “I thought you might be hungry. There is much to do and you need your strength.”
I almost laugh at the irony of his statement. I have all the strength I need to take him down right here. Right now.
“Thanks,” I say, attempting to sound grateful. “I’m starving.”
He nods again, a cold, perfunctory motion, and bends down to pick up the tray. This is it. My one and only chance. While his eyes are diverted and his hands are occupied.
NOW!
In less than a second, I’m behind him, one arm wrapped around his neck. I grab a fistful of his hair in my other hand and yank his head back, forcing him into a vulnerable position.
The tray goes clattering to the floor, spilling a bowl of hot soup across the pristine carpet, leaving an unsightly yellowish-brown stain.
I let go of his hair long enough to make a grab for the necklace. My fingers make contact with the chain. I close them tightly and begin to pull. But before I can break it free, I’m suddenly lifted off the ground, my feet uselessly paddling the air, gaining no purchase. In one graceful, effortless motion, I’m thrown over his shoulder, flying and flipping and rotating bottom over top until I land hard on my stomach.
He’s stronger than the agents who came before him. That much I can see now. Alixter must have taken inventory of his failures and recruited a better crop of soldiers this time around.
Still, he should be no match for my speed. My maneuverability. My reaction time.
Not to mention the countless hours of training, preparing for this very scenario.
I leap to my feet and charge toward him, planting a powerful high kick to his rib cage, then follow it up with a solid left hook to his cheek. I’m about to continue the assault with a devastating strike to his kneecaps but I’m momentarily caught off guard by his reaction. Or rather his lack of reaction.
I should hear cracking. I should hear tearing. Bones breaking. Skin splitting. Blood dripping. And moaning. Lots and lots of moaning. These are painful blows I’m delivering.
And yet he barely moves.
His expression hardly changes. He doesn’t look injured, or even faintly uncomfortable. He simply stands there, straight and tall and impervious as ever, staring at me with an almost impatient look on his face. As if to say, Are you finished yet?
And his cheek—which just sustained a very unfriendly encounter with my fist—doesn’t show any signs of affliction. There’s only a dim patch of red that is already fading. I may as well have smacked him with a sparrow feather.
Irritated, I come at him again, but apparently he’s had enough becau
se this time, he fights back. Every punch I throw is blocked. Every kick I cast is ducked. Until eventually, he bestows one of his own. A mighty strike of his hand that smacks my head, sending the room into a dizzying spin, my vision into a disconcerting sputter, and me soaring high through the air, across the room, smashing into the sole lamp in the corner, and landing, this time, on my back with a clangorous thud.
A flicker of a nanosecond passes before he’s on top of me, using the weight of his dense, powerful body to crush me and render me immobile. He pushes against me, constricting my chest, thrusting the air out of me.
It takes me a moment to register how fast he just moved. Faster than he should. Faster than anyone should. But my thoughts are suddenly snagged by the intense surge of electricity that seems to be blasting through me. A hot white glow that explodes out of me like a superior sun. Ripping me apart. Rupturing me from the inside.
Everything is instantly on fire again—my skin, my hair, my bones, my muscles, my cells. Even the air around me is ablaze.
But this fire is different. It doesn’t burn. It doesn’t scald. It only awakens. Enlivens. Blooms luminous radiance from within.
I think he must feel it, too, because for the first time since he walked into this room, I see his face shift. I see something register. I see a reaction.
And it can only be described as surprise.
Pure, unexpected, unanticipated, unwelcomed surprise.
His gaze drifts slowly toward mine. It’s tentative. Almost afraid. As though he knows he shouldn’t—as though he’s fighting it every inch of the way—but eventually the choice is no longer his.
As soon as our eyes collide, it’s like I’m transported. Everything else seems to vanish. The room, the bed, my thundering, jagged breaths. It’s just me, pinned beneath him. But the weight of his crushing frame is gone. Like his body has lost gravity somehow.
I hear his heart pounding, reverberating through his chest cavity. The sound waves penetrate my skin, weave through my rib cage, find the hum of my own thudding pulse, and for a moment the entire world is nothing more than a harmonized
BA-BUMP
BA-BUMP
BA-BUMP
My brain is buzzing. I can’t make sense of what is happening.
Unforgotten Page 10