She was greeted blissfully by the darkness with open arms, and she knew no more.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emory
“Miss? Hello?” a woman asked.
“Do you think she is dead?” a man responded.
“Will you shut up Aideon and call 911?”
The two voices bantered around her. There was a pause, and then a series of clicking as the male voice, Aideon, spoke smoothly, “Yes, hello. My wife and I are pulled over on Gore Road, just outside the city, where a young woman looks to have been beaten and is unconscious.”
Another pause.
“Yes, visible wounds, dried blood, bruises. Okay, thank you, and yes, I will stay on the line.”
The padding of soft feet sounded further and further away.
She felt the cool tickling of grass underneath her, a soft wind brushing across her face. Unfamiliar sounds whirled around her, all too sharp, too fast, and too much. Groaning, her eyes fluttered, catching snippets of the scene around her. A piercing blue sky and downy clouds. The woman beside her, her blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders, her features pinching with worry. A strange shaped box was behind them, pulled off to the side from the winding paved pathway, crawling with more people and some form of...carriage?
Coughing, she shut her eyes again, feeling dizzy.
The woman’s voice was gentle when she said, “Hold on, sweetie. It won’t be long now. Everything is going to be okay.”
She didn’t know what she meant, but she was happy to lay here while her body radiated pain. Emory drifted on the sea of sounds and smells circulating around her. Concentrating on breathing in and out, she was comforted by the rattling wet sounds of her lungs dragging for breath. She winced, her eyes flying open when a piercing, wailing noise sliced through the air.
The man, Aideon, stated, “There’s the ambulance and the police. Is she awake?”
Her heart clawed faster at the strange words. Ambulance? Police? Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, burning as they trickled down her cheeks.
There was an intense squealing and then chaos erupted. Overlapping voices collided around her, questions being shot every direction.
Flinching, Emory tried to get away as another man and woman came into her view.
“Can you tell us your name and how you got here?”
Squinting, Emory took in the big white box with red flashing lights blinking on it. They carried a strange bag; the man took out several tools, and she bared her teeth in a feral way. Heart pounding as they came closer, panic immobilized her.
My name.
The world spun.
What is my name?
A spark bloomed in her chest, becoming an inferno.
“Emory Fae. Emory Reia Fae.” Her voice sounded a thousand miles away.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
Trying to sit up, they responded, coming too close to her, too fast.
“Get away from me!” Emory said roughly. Her mind churned, pulling and tugging at strings with empty endings. What had happened? She was met with a brick wall. Who was she? Another wall. Where was her home? Her family?
Strong hands and a soothing voice pinned her, “You are going to be okay.”
Her screams grew louder, her nails biting into flesh helped to ground her. She was feral, trying to bite, snap, do anything. There was a sharp prick on her arm, and in an instant, the world fell away in blanketed nothingness.
***
She dreamt of the woods. Towering trees, weaving a canopy of brilliant leaves. The green leaves were starting to turn color, the tips curling, golden hues and fiery reds and oranges changing the summer into the comforting blanket and refreshing air of fall.
She stood, looking up, breathing in musky tones. The dappled light danced across her features, and the corner of her mouth pulled up. Looking down, her feet carried her into the unknown. And that was the biggest adventure.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
The leaves crinkled beneath her, and her simple black pants and deep green shirt flowed in the gentle currents of the wind. As she traveled deeper, the leaves and the light casted her in a golden haven, the vibrancy taking her breath away.
Golden, like a burning sunset. Golden like his eyes.
She scrunched up her nose, her mind bending and falling with the thoughts, her heart picking up its beat. The world around her flashed, the leaves dropping off the trees, ice racing along the trunks and branches.
In the distance, screams and howls mixed into a haunting melody, and she was frozen. Golden, like his smile. Swallowing hard, unable to catch her breath, the smell of smoke filled her senses. Like his heart. The wind howled, blustering around her, sounding like a pack of wolves baying at the moon. Her hair stood on end, but she wasn’t afraid.
“Em.”
It was that voice, familiar yet unknown. Smooth and entrancing. Dark and enchanting. Slowly looking over her shoulder, at the icy landscape encasing around her, a figure stood in the shadows, his features blurry, but the sword glinted in his hand, and behind him, smoke oozed around him like gas, dancing toward her.
“You will come for me.”
She couldn’t react, couldn’t move, as that darkness rushed toward her. A pulsing green light cut through the shadows, the man watching as it overtook her.
His dark voice commanded, “And you will be mine.”
Emory bowed to it, to him, as her world became nothing more than the shadows and his voice luring her into that void.
***
Emory woke up, screaming. Blood curdling, heart wrenching screaming. Strange tubes were in her nostrils, draping down her body and taped to her arm, and a persistent beeping sounded beside her. The room was small, drapes cornering her in on the bed, shielding her from the world—or the world from her. Sweat clung to her aching body, as the dream quickly faded from her mind.
She tried to hold on, to remember, but as the room came into focus around her, the dream left, leaving her breathless.
“Oh, good. You’re awake. Sweetie, how do you feel?”
A woman appeared, holding papers on a board, looking at the instruments around her, her analyzing eyes roaming over Emory as she took notes.
Emory tilted her head, taking in her loose brown hair and kind eyes, her white shirt and plain blue pants, giving no indication of where she was. “I feel...sleepy,” her voice rasped in a gravelly tone.
“That would be the sedation wearing off.” She flipped the page of the board she held. “Emory Reia Fae, is it? That’s a beautiful name. Can you tell me your age? Or where your home is?”
Swallowing, her throat constricted. “Thank you. And, um...” She closed her eyes, trying to fight off the burning panic rising in her. “I’m fifteen years old. Turning sixteen.”
The woman nodding, smiling softly.
“I don’t know where my home is. I don’t...remember anything else.”
The corner of the woman’s mouth turned down. “That’s okay, sweetie. Emory, you’re lucky to be alive. You have been in the hospital for a week and were in a coma. It’s not abnormal when your body has gone through...well, extreme circumstances, and your MRI was showing a lot of stress to your brain. It’s not abnormal to experience amnesia. Or memory loss.”
She blinked, the words falling around her, not making any sense.
The woman continued, “I’m your nurse, but we need to take it slow. The police have released a report with your information, so your family will know where you are. Let’s just get you feeling better, okay?”
Tears slipped from Emory’s eyes, and all she could do was stare at the nurse, her mind scrambling.
“What are these things around me? What’s a hospital?”
The nurse tensed, tilting her head. “Darling, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know what these things are! A nurse, a hospital! Where am I?” Her voice climbed several octaves, and she succumbed to the panic. The nurse pressed a button, and coolness spread through her veins.
The world tilted once more.
“Emory, breathe. You are going to be okay. Everything will be okay.”
The nurse and room started to dissolve and bleed away, becoming blurry. It was her fading whispers that filled her. “I don’t know where I am... I don’t know...”
Her words carried her to a place where nothing was focused, and she drifted, lost amongst the current.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Emory
Two Months Later
“Emory, you will need to talk to us for this to work.”
Emory stared down at her hands, memorizing each detailed line and crinkle of her skin, not wanting to look up at the woman posted across the desk from her. Her hair was tightly bound in a perfect bun, her black wardrobe too stuffy and too perfect. The folder lay open on the table, the sheets rustling against one another with each turn of the fan.
Two months had passed since she had been found. Each day, Emory felt her conviction to find out the truth of her past dissolve until it was nothing more than a whisper in her heart. She had learned the hard way that people scoffed at talk of other worlds and cryptic dreams, shrugging it off as trauma or escapism from the “accident”.
Nurses. Social workers. Therapists.
They all looked at her like she either had two heads, or with such a dark pity, it made her want to throw up. Or punch something. And the more Emory learned about this world, she dreamt that she had lived a fantasy, that maybe, just maybe, she was destined not to fit in here. Any notion that didn’t fit the mold was discredited without a moment’s breath.
“Emory?”
Exhaling hard, she wrenched her gaze up to meet her imploring eyes as she wearily said, “I already told you everything. Repeatedly.”
“Honey, it’s okay to be scared to tell the truth.”
She swallowed her retort and went back to staring at her hands. The woman sighed. Emory set her resolve, and her silence was unrelenting. The seconds turned into minutes. The minutes into hours.
Finally, the social worker grabbed the papers, her voice soft when she said, “I will leave you with this question. How does thinking of your family make you feel?”
Snapping her eyes up, she looked at her hawk ridged nose and her sharp eyes. Emory’s nails dug into her skin. “I don’t know.”
The woman’s face crumpled, and Emory watched as the worker collected her papers. “You know you can call me anytime you need.”
Emory watched as she left, leaving her card behind on the table. The door clicked, and she loosened a shaky exhale, holding her head in her hands.
Sweat collected at the base of her neck, slowly trickling down her skin. The walls seemed too close; the air too hot. It had been sixty days. Sixty days of confusion, of frustration. Tears burned, brimming in her eyes as she shut them, gnashing her teeth together. She had danced along the edges of her mind, diving into that empty carved out hole in her heart.
It wasn’t that she didn’t give them an answer.
It just wasn’t the answer they wanted.
And with the truth screaming at them in their faces, she was turned away, deemed unfit, labeled and tossed to the side for examination. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and she wiped angrily at her eyes, composing herself as the door swung open and revealing a grumpy looking Lourie.
“Well, are you ready?”
Her chair screeched back, as Emory stood, nodding stiffly.
They left the social worker’s behind, coming into a poorly lit hallway. Continuing in silence, Emory followed her, her heart dropping with every second. There had been no trace of who she was, no trace of anything.
Naturally, she was put into what she learned was foster care, and Lourie had come into her life. As her foster mother, she was thrown into a repetitive schedule of daily scowls and the dullest life possibly imaginable, waiting as she was dragged through therapy and different medication line ups.
Lourie threw open the door, and the crisp wind hit them like a wall. The tinges of fall peeked through the world, painting the horizon in golden and fiery hues. Lourie’s car was parked at the curb, and Emory faltered, breathing in the heady scent of change flickering through the air.
The city was a kingdom of grey and, at the heart of it, a labyrinth of cement. But on the outskirts, a wildness bred, gatherings of looming trees, the bulk of dark woods. The leaves crinkled in the breeze, their blazing colors flashing as they were ripped from their branches. Her pulse thrummed, and she stared, that thread in her gut pulling her into its hold.
In her dreams, the woods were a place born from fire and ash, of ice and secrets. Of shadows that chased her, called to her.
Not only did Emory feel peace but a deep longing in the forest, and she allowed herself to dream another world waited for her, called to her. It was there that reality fell away and so did every other barrier, and she felt a lingering hope that she had belonged somewhere else. A place that she had a family, that she had called home.
But always when reality crashed into her, she awoke to blurring images, to the taste in her mouth of longing. But nothing more.
“Are you coming?”
She honed her gaze with narrowed eyes at an eye rolling Lourie. Heat flared through her, and taking one deep breath, she took a step forward. And then another. Closer and closer to the car, her fate sealed with an iron hold.
But her heart soared, settling into the darkness of the wilderness, of the unknown, and she knew that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t lost at all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emory
Six years later
The lights in the movie theater dimmed, and Emory shivered, pulling her button-down jacket tighter around her. Grabbing her pop absentmindedly, she took a big gulp, the mixture of overly sweet and fizzing sugar, calming her nerves.
The previews jumped to life in front of her as his warm voice tickled her ear, “This one looks good!”
Internally groaning, she wanted to roll her eyes at her well-groomed date, Kane. From his sweeping dark hair, to his deep eyes and really, really, good sense of humor, she should have been in heaven.
Moore, her co-worker’s voice, sliced through her mind, “Give him a chance, Em! What’s not to like, super-hot and he reads?!”
Internally, she cursed her best friend for convincing her to step away from her well-loved reading chair and, more importantly, her routine. First, she would make a cup of tea, put on her worn sweatpants, and reality bled away as she lost herself in realms of fantasy.
The movie had started rolling, and settling in, she chased Moore’s voice out of her mind, reassuring herself that she should be happy. Her dating life had been hit-and-miss, mostly meaning, she wasn’t interested. But Kane was nice, a decent guy, and if she was being honest with herself was not that hard on the eyes.
She dug into the popcorn, the salty, buttery masterpiece filling her senses, and she pushed every thought from her mind.
The dark tones of the instruments sprung to life, setting up the perfect tone for the horror movie she had chosen to see. Settling in, she was transported as the movie pulled her in, and she was lost.
A half hour later, she was chewing on her nails as the two main characters booked their weekend away, lost in the mountains. Kane leaned closer as her heart raced, and every instinct screamed in her that this movie was terrible, that the characters were one hundred percent going to die.
She loved it anyways.
She felt him lean in, his breath tickling her neck, and she tensed. He stalled, awkwardly staying half leaned in, as they watched the carnage unfold. She stuffed her face with another handful of popcorn, wishing that she hadn’t listen to Moore, and her guidance to look put together for tonight.
His hand slowly and gently brushed her knee, and she almost choked. Taking this as an encouragement, Kane leaned in, searching for her neck, her cheek, her lips.
“Kane, can we just watch the movie, please?” Her voice was smooth and clipped, coming off cold. In the semi-darkness,
she saw his brows furrow, but his voice was gentle, “Yeah, absolutely.”
He settled back into his seat, and the tension in her chest uncoiled. She took in a shaky breath. Not a lot made her nervous, not a lot set her on edge, yet when it came to dating, it completely unraveled her, but it wasn’t because she wasn’t interested or that she didn’t want a companion.
Her eyes flicked briefly over to Kane, immersed in the movie as the music climbed, building the perfect tension just before the chaos. She chewed her lower lip as she brought her attention back, her heart pounding against her chest. She just hadn’t found the person that she thought would be worth taking the chance on.
The movie passed in a blur of blood and dark twists, and when the lights brought the theater back into life, she stretched happily. “Well, that was what I needed in my life.”
Kane raised his dark brows in question and got up silently. Her heart sank, as she followed, putting on her knee length jacket, her ebony hair braided back, her leather boots buckled against her jeans. They left the theater, and she caught glimpses of herself in the stainless-steel patches against the wall, her golden eyeshadow bringing her emerald green eyes to life, her blood-stained lips flawless against her pale skin. She internally swore at Moore and her makeup skills.
Kane turned around before they exited to the parking lot. “Look, Em.”
He nervously ran his hands through his hair, and she cut in before he could continue, “Thank you for tonight, Kane, really. I’ll text you later?”
Before he could gather his thoughts, she quickly hugged him and then turned her back, walking toward her car. She pushed through the doors, the cool summer air licking against her face. She nearly always dressed like she lived in a constant state of fall, even though during the day, humidity clung heavy in the air, slicking everything with condensation. She shifted through her shoulder bag, found her jingling keys, and the light beep of her car sounded to her left.
Her mind was on autopilot as she looked up to the clear night sky, searching for her answers. Any answers.
Heir of Lies (Black Dawn Series Book 1) Page 23
