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Walt
“Hittingsomeonewho’srecovering from a head injury won’t help the process,” Tucker announces as Whit glares at me, waiting for an answer. “With his memory loss, it took him four years to make this connection. Him remembering pretty much only your nickname says how much he loves you, no?”
Tucker walks away, moving through the crowd as Whit studies me. He walks behind me.
“Let me see your back,” he demands. I lift my shirt and he moves to my right. “Now, this side.” He studies the scar I have there, then steps in front of me so we’re eye to eye. “Don’t move.” He runs his hands through my hair until his fingers find the scar almost in the top center. His face breaks between disbelief and relief. “Walt?”
I nod. “My first name is the only thing I know for sure.” He pulls me into a hug I didn’t know I needed. Returning it, I close my eyes and pull peace from the moment. “We used to do this a lot?”
“Yeah.” he confirms and pulls back to look at me again. His eyes are glassy with unshed tears. “I can’t believe this. Sorry, I hit you.”
I laugh and shake my head. “It’s fine. I feel like we did that a lot as well.”
He steps back. “Only for fun. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
We make it through the crowd of people still taking photos and videos. Whit shields me the best he can until we get outside. Everest is there singing to her dog like it’s her therapist. We seem to have a habit of staring at each other. She’s pretty when she’s not freaking out, but she’s always freaking out. She breaks first, looks between us, and then retreats.
“Is she always like that?” Whit asks. She turns to find both of us looking at her, then squeaks like a chew toy before hopping in the SUV.
“Yeah, so far. This is my second encounter with her.” People are still following, so we jump into his SUV. Once inside, he pulls out his phone and makes a call.
“Rowe? Listen. Don’t look at anything on social media, texts, or take any calls. Come straight home, now.”
I study his profile as he pulls out. “Rowe.” I can feel familiarity tingling in my brain. “Is that my son?”
Whit gives me a surprised look. “Don’t refer to him as that just yet. Try to remember more first.”
“I know they say it’s not good to overwhelm people with too much information, but please give me the abbreviated version of that. Before I remembered your name. I had a dream that I was looking at and speaking to myself. Then I was holding a baby boy, and I felt like I loved him a lot, but in the dream, I handed him to you and I was okay with that, somehow.”
Whit pays attention to the road but sighs. “In high school, a girl seduced you in a dark room while dating me. She seduced me two weeks later. She got pregnant. You had a policy that you don’t marry for reasons like that. She knew that, so she came to the house and announced that it was mine. You felt she looked familiar but couldn’t place her. You figured it out thirteen years later. I found out a year after that. We fought and made up. We decided to tell him together. You died, or at least we thought you died a few days later. She tried to have me killed…”
His story progressively pissed me off until my fingers are digging into my thigh to keep me from reacting. I have moments where I’ll rage, which is why Tucker thought it was a good idea for me to spar and release that energy. I think it lessens as I remember more. There’s nothing worse than having memories I can’t touch or connect. It’s beyond frustrating.
“Anika Cambridge,” I growl, then take a deep breath.
We pull into the complex of the mansion, with Tucker and his men following. Whit glances at me. “You remembered her?”
I’m shaking my head while trying to calm my breathing. “No, I was watching the news last night, and her picture flashed. I had such a powerful reaction to her photo, I turned off the television and wrote her name down.”
“I guess the demon is powerful enough to work through lost memory.”
I chuckle but go back to the beginning. “So my... our son still doesn’t know?”
Whit parks and turns to look at me. “He hasn’t known for long. I told him after Anika tried to have me killed. With you gone, her secrets were supposed to die with me.”
I nod sadly. “Thank you. I hope I can start remembering stuff in case he has questions.” I rub my hand on my leg to dry it. My leg’s bouncing again. “I’m nervous. Coming back from the dead is hard.”
“Walt, look at me. I know things are still coming back to you, but we were very close. Now that we’ve found you, I’m here to help you. And once the shock wears off, so will everyone else.”
“Our parents?”
He smiles. “Still alive. They moved three hours away so Dad wouldn’t choke Anika to death.”
“I don’t have my entire memory, yet I understand.” I take in the mansion. Flashes of times I’ve been here. Brief flashes. Nothing I can hold long enough to have a memory, but I’m certain this is where I’d come willingly. “Home,” I whisper.
“Yeah, man.”
I look around once I’m inside. The space feels familiar yet. “Does it look different?”
