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For a second it feels like I can’t breathe, his words are filled with emotion—emotion I can hear and feel. It makes me sad that I can’t remember anything. If he can affect me so much now, our love must have been spectacular. How could I have forgotten that? How?
“Our deal?” I stumble over the words, trying to get my bearings.
“The past is gone for now. We start fresh. We start anew.”
“I… I’ve been meaning to ask about that. I mean, I’m here in your home, and… Well, I don’t understand any of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do so many of you live here? Are you in the military or something? Is it okay that I’m here?”
“Woah, slow down. You live here too, remember?”
“I guess. It’s just I don’t recall it.”
“It’s fine that you’re here, Grace. It’s more than fine. I wouldn’t want it any other way and neither would any of my brothers. You’re part of our family now.”
“Brothers? You’re all…family?” I ask, surprised. I’ve only met Sean and Leo, but they’re nothing alike.
“We are, although maybe not in the practical sense.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, somehow even more confused.
“We grew up in the same facility,” he replies, cautiously.
“Foster care?” I ask, sad that he had to grow up without loving parents. Then, I wonder…
“Something like that. I didn’t—”
“Oh God, Stark, do I have parents? Do they know I’m okay? Do I—”
“Slow down, Grace. Your parents aren’t a part of your life.”
“They aren’t? Are they dead?”
“I…I don’t know, beautiful. You never talked about your parents with me, and you didn’t with your roommates either. I’m having Sean check into it, but as far as we can tell, you’ve haven’t had contact with them for years.”
“Roommates?”
“The people you lived with before you moved in with me. You weren’t close, but they never saw your parents in the time you stayed there.”
“Sean is going to help you find them?”
“If that’s what you want, yes.”
“I don’t really know what I want,” I confess.
“How about I have Sean find out who and where they are and we figure it out then, Grace? Who knows? Maybe by then you will have your memory back.”
“Dr. Jones said that I might never get my memory back,” I remind him.
“He also said that most of these cases work themselves out and your memory will come back in time,” he counters, giving me a small smile.
“One day at a time,” I exhale, repeating the words that Stark told me right after the doctor gave us my diagnosis.
“Exactly,” he agrees. Then he leans up, applying pressure gently on the back of my neck to bring my head down to him. He kisses my forehead. I close my eyes, savoring the feeling that Stark seems to care for me, despite the fact that I can’t remember him. Since I woke up in the hospital, Stark has given me several moments like this, and they give me hope.
At the very least, they remind me that I’m not alone. I may not remember anything, but I have Stark and he helps me not to feel so hopeless.
12
#5
(SCAR)
My nose curls from the smell that assaults me. The thing about connections made by blood, you breathe in the same air when you’re forging into their mind. You experience what they feel. You hear them. If the connection is strong enough, you can hear the thoughts they have that they don’t want you to be aware of—not just what they telegraph.
Case in point?
Eight’s brain. It’s ridiculously easy to go into without him even detecting me. That, however, doesn’t make up for the displeasure involved. Immediately, I smell wet fur, pine trees, fish, and lake water. It’s disgusting.
It’s almost enough to make me want to set myself on fire, it’s so bad. Christ, how do these creatures live? I would much prefer to dive into that simpleton’s head—Ten or even Seven. I refuse to call these idiots by made up names invented by Draven’s whelp. However, the blood bond with them is almost useless now. It was weakened anyway. I drank Draven’s blood, but since he was dead at the time, the power in it was nearly gone. Of course, I did slip some of my blood into the others when I lived at the compound but not enough to forge the connection I needed.
The pups have made things much easier. One of the newcomers they’ve accepted into their so-called pack is a doctor. He opened a clinic on their property. They keep all their blood supply there. It was ridiculously easy to break in and replace the bags with my own blood. Of course, I had to feed often to keep the supply steady. One of the best things about Montana, however, is that people go missing everyday hiking in the mountains. Dead bodies aren’t as alarming to find—or as heavily investigated. You just tear out the neck so that it looks like an animal attack. I always keep the bags of blood from the clinic that I replaced with my own. I cover the bodies with a couple of those, and, finally, roll the body over a huge cliff. Humans are ridiculously easy to confuse. There’s a reason that their only use is basically being a blood doll. Not that these wolves are much better.
