Her fake mom kept speaking, like she was relieved to finally have the opportunity to get it all out. “A couple of officers were talking to you and you didn’t remember anything. But you were so scared and vulnerable. It seemed a godsend that you had lost your memory, with the help of a couple officials we adopted you. We knew we could give you a happier life with us. So when we claimed you, we changed your age and both transferred our jobs to Pennsylvania. It seemed safer to have you suddenly be 15, though it was hard to pass off. You were always pretty mature for your age.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Cassie. I always wanted to. But your father was terrified that if you knew you’d sink permanently into depression. While he was deteriorating from his sickness, he made me swear I wouldn’t ever tell you.”
“We looked out for your dad, but he never was caught. So we never knew when the danger would be passed. I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked a little.
“It’s okay, Mom. I know you did it for me. Besides, that’s not a past I would have wanted to remember when I was young.”
“You forgive me?” She asked, incredulous. “I’ve imagined this moment hundreds of times, but I can’t ever seem to picture it without you being furious.”
“I’m not mad, Mom. You wanted to protect me. I understand that. But now I have to go. I’ll explain everything later. For now, just know that I love you. And I loved Dad. You guys were as real to me as any parent I’d had before you. Thank you for everything.”
“I love you! It’s wonderful to have you know the truth. Thank you for understanding. Wherever you go now, be careful. And call me soon!”
“I will. I promise. Good bye, Mom.”
“Good bye, Cassie,” she said her voice full of tears and relief.
Chapter 18: Plans
“So that was…”’ Halle didn’t finish the thought. She sat in the backseat of the car again, leaning in to talk to them.
“Yeah,” Cassie said. It is true. It’s all true.
“I mean, we all figured you’d end up in foster care. But it was only supposed to be for a month or so, and it seemed like a really safe temporary solution. If you weren’t an adult yet, you wouldn’t have to fend for yourself,” Kyler explained anxiously. “We never meant to be gone for so long!”
“I know, Kyler,” Cassie reassured him, squeezing his hand “I’m not mad. I’ve had a good few years. And if you hadn’t left me, I never would have met either of my parents. They were amazing. Really.”
“See? I told you she wouldn’t be mad!” Halle said smugly. “I’m never wrong about Cassie.”
Kyler rolled his eyes at his sister.
“Where are we headed now?” Cassie asked as she buckled in.
“Back,” Halle said grimly.
“What? Shouldn’t we switch cars or something?” Cassie asked, freaking out a little.
“Not with us being able to use our influence. We will need a new one soon, but we left one three towns over from the base. We can use that to make our getaway,” Kyler said.
“What do people see when we pass?” Cass asked hesitantly.
“A semi,” Kyler grinned. “People give us a wide berth and our chances of an accident go down a lot when people maintain a buffer of twenty feet of empty space around us.”
“Kyler, the base hasn’t changed much,” Halle told him. “Except that they all communicate over the earpieces.”
“That presents interesting challenges. If we don’t know what they’re saying or when they’re saying it, it’ll be hard to change it,” Kyler reasoned.
“Do you think this will still work?” Cassie asked, holding hers up.
“I don’t know. If they know you left the base with it, probably not. But then again, we could just convince someone to give us theirs.”
They talked over possibilities on the drive back toward the base. Cassie mostly just listened; they thought in a completely different way from her. They stopped two towns over from the base and found a motel. As far as the motel host knew, a large middle-aged trucker rented one of their largest rooms for the night.
Cassie blinked in astonishment against the searing sun. She whirled around in a circle. She stood alone atop a towering hill. Around her was nothing but grassy prairie. She felt the sun beat down on her skin, the wind gently tousling her hair. The view was beautiful in its desolation, and she wouldn’t be troubled except for one problem: she couldn’t remember where she was or how she’d gotten there.
“Cassie?”
She jumped, clutching her chest, and spun again in a full circle, looking for the source of Kyler’s voice.
“Hello?” She asked, panicking.
“Cassie, it’s okay.” He spoke again and she felt pressure on her hand. She jumped back, away from the touch.
“What the—” She shrieked.
“Shh! Cass, it’s alright! Just try to remember where you were five minutes ago,” Kyler’s disembodied voice said, but he didn’t touch her again.
“I-I can’t,” She stammered.
“It’s okay; she’s giving it back to you,” He said encouragingly.
And, so vaguely she couldn’t catch it happening, she did remember.
“You’re doing this,” She said, terrified. What part is reality and what isn’t?
“Yes,” He said firmly. “Well, Halle is.”
Right. They were in a room together. All three of them. A dirty little motel room, wasn’t it?
“But it’s so real. It’s not just that the things I can see have changed, but everything I feel,” Cassie said, feeling her terror recede. Remembering where she actually was, made her feel more in control.
“Thank you,” Halle’s disembodied voice said smugly.
“I see clouds, and each blade of grass. And they all move in the wind as it hits me!” Cassie said, her mind fighting against her knowledge that it was false. “It seems incredibly real. I never would have guessed. I assumed it would feel like a dream, but it doesn’t.”
“I’m going to change everything. But I won’t stop you from seeing it happen,” Halle told her.
“Showing off?” Kyler asked.
“You did!” Halle reminded him. It was as if they were invisible next to Cassie, just as Halle had been in the base. “It’s harder to change your vision and make you believe it without changing your thoughts. But I need to be able to.”
And suddenly Cassie no longer cared to listen to them. Her world was morphing. The open air became dense and moist. The light faded into patches around her. She turned, watching trees and vines appear. Her hill sank. Or the ground below it rose to meet her. She couldn’t tell which. She heard noises rise from the ground and hang in the air. Monkeys, birds and insects moved all around her.
“It’s incredible,” She breathed. The detail couldn’t possibly have been any better had she truly been standing in the middle of the Amazon. With her intake of breath, she noticed several smells: wet earth, the perfume of exotic flowers, and that of several animals. “Oh my gosh,” She said quietly.
“Cassie, I’m going to try touching you, to see if Halle can block the feeling. Let me know if you feel anything anywhere,” Kyler said.
Almost immediately Cassie felt a light breeze against the back of one of her arms.
“Uh, there?” She asked pointing?
“Did you feel my hand?” Ky asked.
“No. Just the wind.” And the moist air, and the leaves around her feet. Suddenly Cassie felt as though there were lots of things touching her. But none of them felt like a person.
“Interesting. Good work, Hal. A distracting touch is perfect. This might work.”
“Thanks,” Halle’s strained voice said. “I’ve got to rest now.”
And the jungle disappeared much faster than it had surfaced. Cassie squinted at the bright motel lights.
“Can you do that to more than one person at a time?” Cass asked curiously. Halle was sitting on the bed panting. “And what if we need it to be longer?”
“I’m not s
ure. It’ll have to be done longer. But I think we need to keep it at one person at a time. Anything more encompassing will have to be you, Kyler. It’s just been so long since we’ve been able to use them, I’m out of practice,” She answered, her head in one hand cocked up to look at Cassie.
“Theoretically it shouldn’t be tiring at all. It’s all in the head. But you expect it to be, so you put physical effort into it. If you can just relax then it won’t happen like that,” Kyler said.
“I know!” Halle brushed him off impatiently. “I know. It’s just hard. I’ll get it. Let’s try again in a while.”
“The General said that your abilities were different. He said because your psyches were different, the serum acted on your brains a little differently. What does that mean, exactly?” Cassie asked, changing the subject.
“Basically, it means that Kyler is better than me,” Halle said, chagrined.
“That is not true, Hal. I can do more people, and a greater distance, but I don’t know the minds of the people I’m influencing like you do. You instinctively know what will work on someone, and what will seem real to them after you’re done. I have no idea. Everyone is exactly the same to me. You kind of get in people’s heads,” Kyler said.
“I guess.”
“I can’t change a single person’s vision with as much intimate detail as you can. I have never tried to change what someone physically feels, and I don’t know that I could,” Kyler told her.
Halle smiled, clearly pleased by his praise. “That’s true.”
“How can we capitalize on that? We need to plan exactly what we’re going to do.” Cassie brought them back to focus.
“It’ll be a delicate operation. We need to convince them to leave us alone forever, but in such a way that no one remembers being influenced. So we can only change images and basic feelings that they might attribute to instincts,” Kyler said.
“Except for Uncle George. He’s not going to be convinced no matter what we do,” Halle pointed out. “So we can do whatever we like to him.”
That night, Cassie couldn’t sleep. She climbed out of the bed she was sharing with Halle and went over to the window. It was late, so it should have been dark, but it was bright out. The stars were light pinpricks of sunlight, and the moon cast a white glow over the road and few buildings around them. There were a few scattered plants and Joshua trees, but not much else. Cassie sighed quietly. It was very different from her home.
“Hey,” Kyler’s voice said quietly from behind her. He stepped closer and she could feel him standing close now.
“Hi,” Cassie answered just as quietly.
“Is something wrong?” He asked, though his tone sounded like everything was wrong.
“No,” She answered automatically, but he could feel her tense. “Well, yes. Am I crazy? Everything is so unreal. I mean, how can any of this be? And yet,” She stopped.
“Yes?” He asked, moving slightly to stand beside her.
“Everything fits.” She shrugged. “General Ramford is clearly insane, but not in the way that I thought. My mom even agrees with your story. It’s just….”
“What?”
She turned to face him, eyes locking his in. “I’m twenty-seven! I thought I was only just allowed to drink alcohol!” She laughed in a self-deprecating way. “And you… I should know you. But I barely do. I always thought it was weird that I was so completely attracted to you without even knowing anything about you. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who you were when we met because I can’t remember. And I don’t know who you’ve been for the past five years because you’ve been gone.”
Her head fell and she shrugged again. He took a step forward and their bodies touched. He hugged her close, her face pressing into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Cassie. It should never have been this way.”
They stood like that for a while before she pulled away. “But it is, Kyler.”
“It doesn’t have to stay that way! We have another chance. And I can tell you everything now.” But the way he tripped over the word everything sent a different message.
She shook her head. “No. You can’t.”
“Yes, I can. Everything about me. I just don’t think I should tell you everything about you. If it were me, I’d rather remember myself on my own, rather than through someone else’s eyes.”
When she didn’t answer him, he continued speaking, hurrying as though he’d been longing to say it, “What I told you the second time we first met was true. I have only ever loved one girl. The whole time I was gone, I was terrified that when I came back I’d find you with someone else. Married, or just in love. Happy without me. And I was afraid that even if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t want me. The plan was never for me to be gone that long. Ideally, we would be back within a few weeks. The longest I imagined was a year. I tried to come back several times, but they were so close to us. I practically led them on top of you more than once.
“The only way I could keep you safe was to stay away. But I didn’t realize what it was doing to you. Because you haven’t been happy, Cassie. I talked to people, friends, even your mother. You’re consistently bordering on depression. And that is what scares me now. That you won’t be able to forgive me, and I will have ruined the woman I knew. Because to imagine the Cassie I met eight years ago being depressed is impossible. I have made you more like me, when all I wanted was to be like the woman you were. She was fearless and happy and…amazing. And I want that for you again. At this point the only way I can see that for you is to allow you to be free. Free from Ramford, free from me. Free with your memory of who you are. Because it’s not just me you can’t remember.”
Cassie didn’t encourage him during his quiet soliloquy. She didn’t move. And she still didn’t when he was done. He took her hand and gently squeezed it, then he quietly moved back to his bed. After a few minutes, Cassie followed. She sat down next to him and took his hand.
“For the longest time I thought all I wanted in life was to remember. I thought that I felt my memories had abandoned me. I became depressed, yes. But my father, and yes, I will always think of him as a father, he changed my perspective. He helped me see that what matters is not who I was, but who I am going to be. And so I moved forward. I still needed those memories more than anything, but I was able to function. Still, every once in a while, I would sink back, feeling as though half of me was missing.”
Kyler hung his head, and gently traced her fingers with his fingertips.
“And then I met you. I didn’t connect the dots for a while. In fact, I think Jenna was the one who noticed first. I began to change. I didn’t feel the loss of my memories as keenly. I still wanted to remember, but it was a want, not a need. I started to think of the future, and to forget the past. And now,” She sighed heavily.
“Now?”
“I don’t think I need them anymore to be happy. It wasn’t my past that was plaguing me. It was you. You were gone. And even though I didn’t remember you, I felt your loss. I need you, Kyler. Especially now that I’ve found you again. I don’t think I could go back to how I was.” She paused for a moment, looking in his face, waiting for him to look at her. “I’d love to remember. But I would rather my past stay forgotten than lose you again.”
He pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around him to hold him close, but he pulled back a little so he could kiss her.
“Do you think it will ever be easy again? Like it was?” He asked her. “I just want us to be happy like we were.”
Cassie laughed quietly. “I don’t know what it was like, so I don’t know. But I do think that things can only get better from here. Kidnapped, in hiding, with two wanted fugitives.” She smiled at him.
“Kidnapped?” Kyler protested.
“I believe they call this Stockholm syndrome,” Cassie teased.
“Right. How can it get any better than that?” He smiled.
“We’ll see, I guess. Good night, Kyler. Big day tomorrow.” She stood on her toes to give h
im another kiss, then she turned around and walked to the other side of Halle’s bed, to try to get some sleep.
“I can’t believe this.” And I really can’t. I’m in shock. But it makes sense, which is insane in and of itself! How could something so bizarre make sense?
Halle and Kyler sit across from me, with matching faces of concern.
“How much of this is real?” I ask. Suddenly a hundred little things fall into place. The times I’ve seen inexplicable things, or believed unbelievable explanations.
“It’s all real, Cassie,” Halle says, clearly not understanding.
“No. I don’t mean what I see. I mean him. Me and him. You and me. All of it. Did you make me…” I can’t bring myself to articulate my thoughts.
“Did I make you what, Cassie?” Kyler asks, angry now. No, he doesn’t get to be angry!
“No! You lied to me. About everything! How can I possibly know what is real? How can I know what I did because I wanted to, and what you made me do? How do I know if I actually even like you?” Halle’s eyes fill with tears. “Either of you!”
“Stop it, Cassie!” Kyler says. “You know us better than anyone in the world. And you have to know that we don’t go around influencing everyone!”
“Do I? Is that something that I know?” I know I sound belligerent, but I really do need an answer to that.
“Cassie. It’s wrong. We literally abandoned everything we knew so it wouldn’t be used. We do use it sometimes, yes. But only to ensure that we are safe!” Halle pleads with me.
“Besides, anything we change will change back. We can’t change your thoughts permanently. You might find yourself strangely liking me in my presence, but as soon as you leave, you’d get your own thoughts back,” Kyler says.
Forgotten Page 25
