by Kelly Oram
“Tony,” I said slowly.
I didn’t know what Ryan was trying to hide from me, but there was definitely something going on. He was putting every ounce of energy he had into keeping his real thoughts and emotions masked.
“He’s not really my boyfriend,” I said, searching for some kind of clue as to what was wrong. “I mean he was, sort of, I guess, but we broke up. It’s complicated.”
“We’re listening…” Tyson prompted.
I sighed. “Complicated, as in I was engaged to him before the amnesia, but afterward I just never fell in love with him again, and now he hates me for it.”
Tyson jerked back, and Ryan went positively rigid. He clenched his jaw and fisted his hands so tightly it hurt to look at them. His knuckles were completely white. When his whole body started to tremble, Tyson reached over me and flicked his arm. “Ryan,” he hissed, “keep it together. Let her explain.”
Ryan sucked in a breath. He didn’t look like he would be ready to speak anytime soon. “Ignore him,” Tyson said to me. “He’ll pull it together in a minute. Tell us more about this guy.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” a large black man suggested. He spoke with a thick African accent and was using a low, steady voice, as if trying to keep things calm. I still had no idea what was going on. The tension in the truck felt ignitable—like one wrong word, one spark, and we’d all go up in flames.
The man looked like he was the oldest of all the ACEs besides Major Wilks. He was most likely in his early forties, and as tall and big as a professional football player. He looked like the type of man people would cross the street to avoid, but when our eyes met his face softened, making him seem more like a giant teddy bear. “What happened after the explosion?” he asked. “What do you remember from before?”
Ryan was still on the verge of going completely insane, so I tried to do as Tyson suggested and ignored him. They would explain in a minute. “I don’t remember anything.” This part of the story, at least, I knew how to tell. “As far as I’m concerned, my life began six months ago when I woke up in the bottom of a crater in Las Vegas. There is absolutely nothing before that.”
Tyson’s eyes bulged, and he got this look on his face suggesting he was appalled by the thought. I pretty much agreed with him. “What’d you do?” he asked. “Wander around by yourself until the cops picked you up?”
I shook my head. “Tony found me almost immediately. He was another one of Visticorp’s subjects.”
“Another PAC?” one of the ACEs asked. They all shot each other excited glances.
I nodded. “He’d gotten out before the building exploded but hadn’t gotten far, and he came back to see what was left. I was it. Everything else had just been…vaporized. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Donovan probably would have found me. Or the police would have. We ran off just as the emergency vehicles started to show up.
“Tony had a place already set up for us that his friend had been helping him with. They’d been making plans to escape for a long time. Tony said the explosion was that escape attempt gone wrong, but it worked out okay, and we had this safe house out in the desert that—”
“Teddy?” Ryan asked suddenly. “You’ve been living with Teddy this entire time? And he told you that you were raised in the Visticorp labs together, and that you were engaged?”
For reasons unbeknownst to me, blind rage overtook Ryan. In desperate need of something to hit, he jumped up and threw his fist into the metal wall in the front of the truck. His knuckles had to be fractured, but he acted as if he didn’t feel any pain.
“Ryan, chill!” Tyson yelled as the truck pulled over and came to a stop. They must have heard the racket from the front of the truck.
As soon as the truck stopped, Ryan jumped out and went stomping off into the desert. The soldiers all exchanged worried looks, and Tyson went running off after Ryan. Major Wilks yelled after Ryan, but it was Tyson who answered him. “Sorry, Major; Ryan needs a minute to cool off. We’ll be right back.”
Mystified, I could do nothing but sit there. “What was that?” I asked no one in particular.
“You’ll have to forgive him, Angel,” the large, calm ACE said quietly. “This is very hard for him.”
“What is?” I asked. “What on earth is going on?”
The man struggled to come up with an answer and finally grimaced. “I think it would be best if Ryan explained…once he’s settled down a little.”
“A little?”
He cringed again.
I was just about to get out of the truck when I heard Tyson catch up to Ryan. “Ryan! Come on, mate, you’ve got to settle down. It’s not as bad as it could be.”
Ryan was still too out-of-his-mind-angry to think straight. “She was with Teddy this whole time! TEDDY!”
“At least she said she didn’t love him.”
“I’m going to kill him!”
“Look, we’ve got her back now. We’ll get it all straightened out.”
“That lying little jerk kidnapped her for six months and never told her who she was. She called him her boyfriend. She thinks they’re engaged!”
“Ryan!” Tyson shouted. “Get it together!”
“HE STOLE MY FIANCÉE!”
I gasped. I was Ryan’s fiancée? So many things fell into place. The strange looks and reactions from Ryan. Why he was so upset right now. Even a lot of Tony’s behavior over the last six months, and why I could never make myself love him again. I didn’t love him now, because I never had.
“She had no memory!” Ryan shouted. “He didn’t just lie to her; he took advantage of her.”
All the blood drained from my face, and my eyes started to burn as the horrible truth of what really happened settled over me. How could Tony do that to me? He claimed he loved me, but then he lied to me about everything. He manipulated me. He took advantage of my memory loss. The betrayal was so severe I didn’t even feel angry. I was too hurt to be mad.
“If he touched her…if they…if he laid a single finger on her, I’m going to…AGHHH!”
“Ryan, you have got to keep it together right now,” Tyson said again in a much calmer voice. “For Jamie’s sake.”
The stomping and crunching sounds stopped, as if Ryan had quit pacing and was at least standing still now.
“That girl back there has to be so confused, and when she learns how much she’s been lied to by the only person she knows, she’s going to freak. It’s messed up—majorly messed up—but you can’t fall apart. She’s going to need you. She’s going to need all of us, but you’re the one who knows her.”
“Angel?”
I jumped, startled by the voice so close to me, when I’d been concentrating on the conversation far away. Major Wilks was standing at the back of the truck, looking for answers, but it was the cute Hawaiian guy sitting across from me that had spoken. He was frowning in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I…” I realized I was shaking, and couldn’t make myself stop. “I—superhearing,” I whispered. “I know what Tony did.”
I stared at my lap, not wanting to see whatever looks of pity were on all of their faces. I heard my new friend’s soft “I’m sorry,” and my eyes finally brimmed over with tears. Everyone stayed silent after that. There was nothing but the sound of my occasional sniffles.
“Would someone care to explain what is going on?” Major Wilks asked.
A redheaded man cleared his throat and braved answering the annoyed major. “Sir, the Angel just informed us she’s been living with another Visticorp subject since the explosion—Teodoro Vivenzio. He’s been less than truthful with her about who she is, where she came from, and…” The soldier’s eyes flicked to me, and he gulped. “…who she was engaged to prior to the explosion.”
“Romeo didn’t take that news very well,” another soldier muttered.
They were all staring at me, but I couldn’t meet any of their gazes. I may as well have been sitting there naked in front of all
of them. I felt humiliated—violated—by what Tony had done. And what was worse, I couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. Now they were all witness to my insecurity, too.
“Angel,” Major Wilks began quietly.
I stopped him before he could say anything. “Don’t.”
Everyone stayed silent after that. When Ryan and Tyson reappeared a few minutes later, my heart stopped. They both took one look at me and froze. Ryan glanced over his shoulder out the back of the truck and turned a sickly green, realizing I’d heard every word. Tyson quickly came to the same conclusion, and cursed under his breath.
“Jamie, I’m so sorry,” Ryan said. “I didn’t want you to find out like that.”
He reached his hand out toward me, and I was so freaked out that I flinched away from him. As a result, I watched his heart break. He tried to bury his pain before I could see it, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. There was a second there where I saw everything he wouldn’t say written on his face.
Ryan loved me. This stranger who I’d only met maybe half an hour ago was in love with me—and not the kind of love Tony claimed to be in, either. With that one devastated look, I knew Ryan’s pain was a million times greater than anything Tony had ever expressed on the many occasions I’d rejected him over the last six months. Tony may have wanted me, he may have been infatuated with me, but Ryan was truly in love with me. Desperately, painfully, tragically in love.
I hadn’t felt more vulnerable since the moment my memory began. Seeing Ryan’s pain, and knowing that he knew so much about me, had a million memories of me that I didn’t have, felt things for me that I couldn’t reciprocate, and had expectations that I could never fill, was all too much. The walls started to close in on me. I was going to burst—explode the way I should have half a year ago.
“We can fix this,” Ryan whispered. “We’ll get it sorted out.”
He sat back down next to me and offered his hand, but I couldn’t take it. I shook my head. I had to stop him before he asked me to live the life Tony had asked me to live six months ago. Before he told me he loved me and asked me to give him a chance even though I couldn’t remember him. I couldn’t do that again. I couldn’t get into another relationship on such unequal footing. I couldn’t give a stranger that kind of power over me again. I wouldn’t.
“Please, don’t.” My voice quivered as I fought the urge to cry again. “I…I…”
I wanted to run. I wanted to get out of the truck and run back to my desert house, where I would never see him again. But he held the keys to my past, and I couldn’t walk away from that. I wiped my face again, frustrated and embarrassed that they were all watching me cry. Unfortunately, emotional is on my personality traits list. Actually, it’s on there twice. “Can we please just go?”
Everyone looked at Major Wilks. He stood there quietly for a moment, and then said, “Angel, we need to go get him. Do you know where he is now?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, yeah, I know where he is, but he’s not like me. He’ll never agree to come with you. Not in a million years. He’s beyond paranoid.”
The tension increased again, and I knew from the grim expression in Major Wilks’s eyes that I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. “We don’t want him to join us, Angel; we need to detain him.”
I hadn’t quite figured out what he was trying to tell me, but already denial was taking over. I may have been so angry at Tony, maybe even hated him for what he’d done to me, but he was still the person who’d helped me after the explosion. He’d taken care of me for six months, was the only person I knew—my family. “Detain him?” I shook my head. “No, that can’t be right. Why would you need to do that?”
“We need to question him.” Major Wilks sighed. “Your friend has been keeping a lot more than your identity from you, I’m afraid.”
“Teddy betrayed you, Jamie,” Ryan whispered. “He was the one who sent you to the Visticorp lab that day. It was a setup. He was working with Donovan to capture you.”
I hadn’t said a word since giving up the coordinates to the desert safe house. After telling Major Wilks how to get there, I climbed back in the truck and shut everyone out. I’d been through a lot in this one day, and I had a concussion migraine on top of it all.
The ACEs let me be; they were afraid of me. Whether it was because I was having a hard time controlling my powers or because I was acting like an emotional girl, I wasn’t sure, but none of them dared breathe a word the entire drive. They wouldn’t even look in my direction. Only Ryan would do that, and every time he did I’d accidentally stall the engine of the truck. We were lucky I didn’t fry us all.
I simply couldn’t deal. With the way Tony was so paranoid about Visticorp finding us, I didn’t understand how his betrayal could even be possible, but Ryan’s devastation was too sincere. He was telling the truth. Deep down in my gut, I knew it somehow. Tony had betrayed me. The explosion, my amnesia…it was his fault.
As much as I dreaded seeing Tony after everything I’d learned, I still nearly had a heart attack when we got there and realized something had gone terribly wrong in my absence. Sure, I’d damaged the front door when I’d slammed it on my way out, but now it had been torn off its hinges and the front window had been blown out. Our living room couch lay overturned in the front yard. While Tony was a bit dramatic, he wouldn’t have destroyed the house in some sort of temper tantrum after I left. “They’ve been here.” My heart began to beat in overdrive to match my spike in anxiety. “They got him.”
I stopped and listened for a minute. All was quiet. I took a deep breath, looking for any unfamiliar scents. Nothing. The place was empty. Tony was gone. When I started for the door, Major Wilks threw a hand out to block my path. “Careful, Angel. There could be supersoldiers inside.”
“I’ll do a sweep,” Tyson offered.
The major started to nod, but I shook my head. “If there were people inside, I’d hear them. I’m positive it’s empty.”
I walked in without waiting for permission, ignoring the major’s protests. It was my house, after all, and I wasn’t going to start letting the man think I obeyed his orders. Inside, the house looked as if a tornado had come through and ripped it apart. Windows were broken. Furniture was turned over. Our kitchen had vomited the contents of all its cupboards onto the floor. The place was trashed.
Judging from the mess, Tony had used his telekinesis to put up quite a fight. I hoped he managed to get to the basement bunker somehow, but the tranquilizer darts littered throughout the house gave me little faith.
As I headed toward my bedroom, Ryan fell into step beside me. He kept looking around as if he were trying to solve a very complicated puzzle. “It’s not usually such a mess,” I deadpanned.
Chuckling, Ryan shook his head. “I guess I just expected something more from the place you used to refer to as ‘The Lair.’”
It was such a simple statement, but it caused a flurry of emotion inside me. Right after the explosion I used to ask Tony all kinds of questions, but he never really had any good answers for me. He told me what life was like at the labs and how we lived there together, but his stories always felt hollow because he couldn’t flesh them out with the simple details—like how I would refer to the bunker as “The Lair.” I’d always assumed Tony’s stories felt that way because I didn’t remember them myself, but somehow I doubted Ryan’s memories would feel as empty.
My brain exploded with curiosity, and my heart pounded with excitement and hope. This guy held the keys to my past. There was so much I wanted to know, so much I wished I could ask him. Before I could ask anything, Major Wilks stepped up to us. “Let’s go. The house is clear. He’s not here. Let’s move, before Donovan’s supersoldiers decide to come back.”
Ryan nodded and started to head out.
“Wait. I have to check the office first. I doubt Tony made it, but I still have to check. The walls are thick enough that I can’t hear him when he’s down there.”
Both R
yan and Major Wilks glanced around the bedroom with a frown, looking for the office they’d never find without my help.
“Office?” Major Wilks asked.
“I’ve heard it’s been referred to as ‘The Lair.’”
I finally cracked a smile Ryan’s way. It was the first time I’d let my guard down with him since I’d learned we had a past, and it completely disarmed him. He paused mid-stride to stand there and smile at me like a lovesick fool. His whole face lit up, as if I’d just given him the greatest gift in the universe. His eyes freaking twinkled. And that smile… The reaction made my heart melt a little toward the stranger, and that terrified me. “Um.” Clearing my throat, I stepped around Major Wilks and led them to the closet. “It’s this way.”
I pushed aside a wall of clothes hanging on a rack. It looked like any other wall, but when I twisted the pole that the clothes hung on, the wall slid back to reveal a steel door that could only be opened by handprint scan. Ryan’s jaw hit the floor as I scanned my palm. “No. Way. That is awesome.”
“Dude!” Tyson echoed.
I was startled to see that most of the ACEs had followed us. “This used to be a bomb shelter,” I explained, feeling like a tour guide as we descended the secret stairs down into Teddy’s office. “The Lair” was actually the perfect name for it. It definitely could have been used as a base of operations for someone looking to take over the world—not that that had been Teddy’s intention. At least, I didn’t think it was, but I guess who really knew what he was doing down here? Obviously not searching databases for missing persons fitting my description, like he said he was doing. Stupid liar. I was going to save him if only so I could kill him.
The door clicked open, releasing a soft whoosh of air. The shelter was, of course, airtight with its own filtration system. It always felt a little stale to me, but I usually adjusted quickly. I shoved the door wide and waved everyone through. They all took a moment to gaze around the room. The shelter was about the same size as the house resting on the ground above it. There was one large main room with a bathroom attached and a storage room that held enough supplies to live on lockdown for years.
