Remembered

by Krista Street

  Father’s face tightened. “Bring her up to the study. My supplies and equipment are there. I need to check a few more things. Hurry.”

  Flint lifted me and hurried behind Father and Di. Everyone parted when he carried me out the door. Jacinda whimpered, and from what I could see, Mica’s brown eyes were red. She stood numbly. It looked like she’d been crying.

  The twins stood with their arms at their sides. Both looked like they tried to smile but only ended up grimacing when I passed. Only Amber was missing.

  Flint followed Di and Father up the stairs and down the hall.

  Father waved at a chaise lounge in the office. “Set her there please.”

  Flint gently lowered me. My head touching the chaise made me cringe.

  “How quickly has the pain grown?” Father pulled something from a bag.

  I tried to watch but my lids kept closing. With every passing second, I grew more tired.

  Father placed something around my arm. “Diamond, count her respirations for me.”

  A pumping sounded. Whatever was on my arm constricted. A hiss followed as the constriction eased. I opened my eyes. Father was taking my blood pressure.

  Father whipped the cuff off my arm. “Her systolic pressure is two-hundred and twenty.”

  “Respirations are twenty-two. She’s tachycardic, her pulse is now one hundred and forty.”

  Di stood and joined Father. I vaguely became aware that everyone else had moved to the doorway again. Flint still hunkered by my side, his eyes rimmed with worry.

  “She’ll be okay, right?” Flint’s voice grew hoarse. “Right? Di?”

  I wanted to reach for him, to comfort him but I felt so tired.

  Father pulled more supplies from his bag. “Her blood pressure is dangerously high. I believe she’s suffering a side effect from the drug.”

  “What side effect?” Fear coated Flint’s words.

  “Cerebral over perfusion. Abnormal blood flow can result in the presence of severe hypertension. She’s at risk of ischemia and encephalopathy right now.”

  “I thought this drug was safe!” Flint roared.

  Father plunged a syringe into a vial. “No drug is completely safe. This is a very rare side effect. We need to get her blood pressure under control. Then we’ll deal with everything else.”

  “Everything else?” Energy poured off Flint.

  My headache worsened. I moaned and cradled my head again.

  “Diamond?” Father said. “Please take Flint from the room. The rest of you,” he glanced at the doorway, “please wait in the living room. I need to work quickly and must concentrate.”

  Di had to pull Flint from my side. My vision kept swimming in and out of focus. Everything went fuzzy so I couldn’t be sure how she made him leave.

  “Galena? Are you still with me?”

  I mumbled a response. My head pounded.

  “Diamond, draw up the beta blocker. I’ll start the IV.”

  Father grabbed a long thick rubber band. He tied it around my arm. “Stay with me, Galena.” He flicked a vein in my arm. “Please my child, stay with me.”

  THE NEXT HOURS or days were a blurred, pain filled haze. Di and Father stayed at my side. Sometimes when I opened my eyes, Flint was there too. The dark circles lining his eyes had grown black. I tried to squeeze him as he clutched my hand in his large palms, but my lids would grow heavy again and I’d drift off.

  Voices occasionally permeated the fog, like whispered dreams that faded in and out of focus. At times, I didn’t feel connected to my body. At one point, I thought I saw myself below, like I was hovering above everything, my eyes gazing down from the ceiling. It was like watching TV. I could see the room, the details and hear the sounds. During that strange dream, Di and Father had been frantically shouting to one another as they hurriedly raced from me to various supplies and back. I watched, feeling as light as air as they pumped drugs into my veins while doing compressions on my chest and hooking me up to a strange machine.

  Flint had been in the corner of the room. He’d gripped his hair and sunk to the floor. His face was white as tears streamed down his cheeks. I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn’t move.

  Then, a strange mechanical voice sounded from the machine. Di and Father stepped back before Father pushed a button. My body jumped, my back arching. And then in the next second, I slammed down from above toward my body as if a giant anvil had crashed upon me.

  It could have been hours, days or weeks before I opened my eyes to see sunlight shining through the window.

  Flint’s soft snores and the light bleeding through the bedroom’s large window made me think I had been dreaming. That all of it wasn’t real. That I was still at Hideaway Hills. That everything we’d discovered at the cabin hadn’t happened. That we were still trying to figure out who we were and what happened to us.

  Except Di was in the bedroom too. She lay asleep on the couch. Medical supplies littered the coffee table. And we weren’t in the cabin at the ranch. Colorful, expensive looking artwork hung on the walls.

  Something stuck out from my arm. I groaned when I recognized it.

  An IV cannula.

  The last time I saw that had been after Aaron attacked me. It seemed something bad had happened again.

  It took a few minutes before the memories returned. Most things felt fuzzy but then a sharp image appeared. It was of Flint and me messing around on the bed while my head pounded. That had been right after Father gave us the memory drug.

  The memory drug!

  I nudged Flint. “Hey, wake up.”

  In a flash, his eyes were open and he was leaning over me. “Lena!” His dark gaze frantically searched mine. “You’re awake! Di! Di! Wake up, Lena’s awake!”

  Di mumbled something before sitting up. Her dark hair fell in messy strands around her face. It looked like she hadn’t washed it in days.

  “Lena?” Her eyes widened. “You’re awake!”

  She rushed from the couch to my side. “How’s your head? How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?”

  “Get Conroy!” Flint said.

  Di’s hands shook. “Of course. Keep her awake.”

  Di rushed from the room. I looked at Flint to explain. Tears streamed down his face. “Lena! Lena!” He cupped my cheeks. Energy poured out of him in rivers. “Lena!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes widened. “You almost died. This is the first time you’ve been truly awake in days.” He pulled me to him, holding me gently as if afraid I’d break.

  “What do you mean I almost died?”

  He went on to explain what had happened during the past four days.

  “Four days? I’ve been in and out of consciousness for four days?”

  Flint nodded. “We almost took you to the hospital after your heart stopped, but then Conroy and Di got you stabilized. Conroy said he had the same drugs as the hospital, and that now it was just a matter of waiting to see when you’d wake up. If Conroy hadn’t had an AED in the house, you’d be dead.”

  “An AED? Isn’t that used to restart someone’s heart?”

  He nodded.

  Father appeared in the doorway as Flint continued to hold me. Stubble covered Father’s face. His cheeks appeared sunken. It looked like he’d lost weight, and I wondered if he’d eaten or slept since giving us the memory drug.

  “Galena,” he said hoarsely.

  He approached the bedside before his legs gave out. Kneeling, he pulled me into a hug, a sob escaping him. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when he pulled back.

  “We almost lost you.” He smoothed the hair back from my face.

  “That’s what Flint said.”

  “Oh, my little, Galena.”

  He pulled me back to him as everyone’s energy in the room washed over me. It was filled with love, pain and relief.

  I knew in that moment how grave my situation had been. I breathed a sigh of thankfulness that I was okay.

  FATHER INSISTED ON takin
g me to the nearest hospital for a CT and MRI. I knew things were serious when he said that. He wouldn’t risk this trip if he didn’t think it was necessary.

  “What about the no hospital rule?” Because of my unique ability, I knew that areas of my brain would be active that were dormant in a normal person. Father had explained all of this to me when I’d been younger. It was the reason we’d never ventured to hospitals growing up.

  “I know, but I want to make sure you don’t have permanent damage. I’m making an exception, but we still need to be careful. Follow my lead in public, keep your face hidden and don’t talk to anyone at the hospital unless necessary.”

  Since the CT and MRI were both outpatient procedures, it didn’t require interacting with more than a few technicians. Father insisted on taking my medical records with him when they were done. He’d review them himself. He wouldn’t leave until the hospital wiped any trace of my having been there. The technicians eyed each other, curious looks in their eyes, but they did as Father asked.

  Back at the indestructible home, Father reviewed the scans on his computer. I sat on a chair by the gas fire and waited for him to finish. Flint paced the room.

  Father smiled when he reviewed the last image on his computer. “No permanent damage.”

  I merely blew an annoying curl out of my face as afternoon sun washed into the study. “I could have told you that. I feel fine.”

  Flint grumbled at that statement and placed his hands on his hips. “Next time Conroy asks you how you’re feeling, you better tell him the truth.”

  Unfortunately, Flint hadn’t forgotten that I initially downplayed my headache, but he was right. I’d learned my lesson.

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Pulling me up from the chair, Flint held me close. Father discreetly left the study, patting me on the shoulder as he walked by before closing the door behind him.

  “That’s twice that I’ve almost lost you.” Flint’s large fingers threaded through my hair.

  “Perhaps I’m part cat. Maybe I have nine lives.”

  He smiled grimly. “I can’t lose you.”

  My joking vanished. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll be honest with how I’m feeling from now on.”

  “You better keep that promise,” he growled before tilting my face up for a kiss.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I spent the next two days resting in my bedroom per Father’s orders. While the headaches had disappeared, the tiredness hadn’t. It was crazy how the entire ordeal made me so groggy. However, the reprieve gave me plenty of time to reminisce over everything I remembered.

  Thankfully, despite the dire side effect, that Father said only affected one in a million, I still remembered…everything.

  My life.

  My childhood.

  That horrible place Father had taken us from.

  The first time Flint and I made love.

  All of it was real. Father had given us back our memories – side effects be damned.

  Morning sunlight peeked through the curtains. It was the third day following my near-death. Flint lay asleep on the bed. The dark circles under his eyes had faded, but they were still there. I didn’t disturb him. He needed to sleep.

  Sitting up, I was surprised to find that my head felt fine today. Clear with no grogginess. And it was also the first morning since my ordeal that I also felt energetic. Pushing the covers back, I stood with a spring in my step.

  Wild, dark red snarls flew around my face when I tiptoed into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I kept remembering things as I brushed my teeth, things Flint and I had done, experiences we’d had. A smile played on my lips. It was only as I rinsed my mouth that I remembered my sudden theory before Father administered the memory antidote. A theory that, I hadn’t realized, Father and I had actually come up with together years ago following my Seattle trip.

  With wide eyes, I switched my vision. It happened immediately. Nothing cracked or hurt, not like it had the first night following the drug. I felt normal. My ability had returned full force.

  My cloud appeared.

  Except for this time, it was different.

  I stared in awe at the new, third color. Pale green shimmered among the blue and bright green. It was the same pale green that Father had in his cloud. My cloud was turning into a rainbow, like Father’s. The gears shifted in my mind. Our theory had most likely been correct.

  Keeping my vision altered, I walked back into the bedroom. Flint was still asleep, but his cloud billowed around his sleeping form. The same pale green I had in my cloud also intermixed with his blue and orange. I’d bet money all of the others now had pale green in their clouds too.

  I sat on the bed, letting my vision switch back to normal. I knew where the colors came from.

  The drugs.

  Each drug Father had administered to us showed up in our clouds. It was exactly what Father and I had hypothesized all those years ago, after my Seattle trip, when we first talked about what I saw around people there. The drugs changed our brains like they changed our clouds.

  My bright green was obviously unique to me. It was the drug that allowed me to see a person’s aura, and the blue was the drug Father administered to us in April, the drug that made us forget. And now, the pale green was from the drug that made us remember.

  Father had said that he’d taken all of our ability creating drugs, the first generation versions, plus a dozen more drugs that had never panned out. I thought about how Father’s cloud colors were fainter, not as vibrant as ours. I guessed that was because the first generation drugs weren’t as potent. That since they hadn’t resulted in complete transformations, just partial, his brain wasn’t altered as much. But the blue and pale green in his cloud appeared identical to mine. Those had to be from the memory drugs.

  Father hadn’t been lying. He really had taken all of the drugs. His cloud couldn’t lie.

  I briefly contemplated the twin’s clouds. Jasper had yellow, yet Jet had red. Father had hypothesized it was because the twins metabolized their telepathy drug differently. However, since they both had the same blue as the rest of us, they’d obviously metabolized that one the same.

  My gaze inched to the door. I really needed to talk to Father. It appeared our theory was correct.

  Flint turned in bed. A soft snore filled the room. The clock read just past six. I cocked my head. I didn’t hear anybody moving upstairs.

  I still itched to pull the door open, but with a sigh, I sat back down on the bed. If there was one thing I was really good at, it was being impulsive, and if there was one thing I was really bad at, it was controlling my impulsive desires. If I burst upstairs right now, I’d probably wake the entire house.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my excitement. My conversation with Father could wait another hour. He, Di and Flint had gone too many days without sleep. I slipped under the warm covers and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the rainbow of colors in Father’s cloud.

  He really had tried everything on himself first. Our safety had been that important to him.

  FLINT ROUSED ABOUT an hour later. As soon as he did, he pulled me tightly to him. During the past two days, he’d barely left our bedroom. It was like he thought I’d keel over and die any second.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  His eyes cracked open. He yawned and pushed up onto an elbow. For a moment, he studied me, his eyes still hooded from sleep. “You look like you’ve been up for a while.”

  “Over an hour.”

  He pushed to sitting, his brow furrowing. “Are you okay? Do you have another headache?”

  “No, nothing like that.” I shook my head. “It’s something else. My cloud’s different now and yours is too.”

  I told him about the new color.

  “So the reason we all have colors is because of the drugs.” Flint also knew about Father’s and my theory. I’d told him years ago.

  “I think so, and that’s why Conroy’s cloud is so colorful because
he did take all of the drugs first. He wanted to make sure they were safe.”

  Flint frowned.

  I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. My brush with death only solidified in Flint’s mind that Father’s drugs were a menace, and we were better off never taking any of them again. However, if Father really had taken all of our drugs first, even the dangerous ones that resulted in our abilities, then he couldn’t be evil like Flint claimed he was.

  “He cares about our safety. You have to at least agree with that.”

  “You almost died, Lena.”

  “And I knew the memory drug didn’t come without risks. I chose to take that risk.”

  “You should have never had to risk anything in the first place!” Hot energy poured off him. He raked a hand harshly through his hair. “We should have never been administered any of those drugs, ever.”

  I sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. You have a point.” Movement sounded above. A creak in the floor. I glanced at the ceiling. “Everyone’s getting up.”

  “So I hear.” Flint stood. A second later, I heard the bathroom faucet running. Flint was gone. I sighed. He’d moved at his speed into the bathroom. In other words, he’d disappeared.

  I sighed again as a deep sadness engulfed me. Maybe sooner or later, Flint would come around about Father. However, I knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Flint had spent the last twenty-some years thinking Father was the bad guy, and my reaction to the antidote had only made it worse.

  I JOINED THE others upstairs while Flint showered. As soon as I stepped into the living room, I knew something was off. A tense energy hung in the air. Jacinda sat on a couch, drinking a cup of coffee. The delicious scent wafted my way. Loud arguing voices came from the kitchen. It sounded like Jasper and Mica.

  Jacinda grinned when she saw me. “How are you feeling?”

  It seemed to be the question everyone asked me these days. “Fine.” I sat beside her. “What’s going on?”

  “Mica’s letting Jasper have it. She’s pretty upset that he hooked up with Amber.”

  Right. Of course. Funny how almost dying made me forget the other dramas going on.