Chapter 6
Ellis
I woke up to the noise of Brody hurriedly getting dressed.
“Wha…?”
I was almost as groggy as when I woke up for the first time in the hospital, and when I tried to sit up, I was sore.
Very sore.
After so long with an empty head, I wasn’t used to being bombarded by memories upon waking. This time, moments after opening my eyes, images of the previous night flashed before my eyes.
Oh. So that’s why I was sore.
Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Brody? What’s going on?”
Brody froze with only one arm in his shirt and his pants hanging open on his hips.
“Ellis. Right… um...” It wasn’t often that Brody lost his words, and the sight of him hesitating now made me nervous.
“Something’s wrong.” Sitting all the way up, I barely noticed that I was naked as I moved to the edge of the bed. “What happened? Did you hear something about Creed?”
There was an unrecognizable expression on Brody’s face as he looked at me, almost like he was cringing in slow motion. I didn’t know what it meant or what he was thinking, but it made something in the pit of my stomach drop.
With a sigh, Brody finished getting dressed, then sat next to me on the bed.
“Nothing’s happened. Well, at least nothing that hasn’t already happened.” He held up the wooden box with the key inside that we’d found buried in the woods. “I just need to tell Magnus about this. I forgot about it earlier, and he needs to know.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. His distress had nothing to do with me. He and Magnus fought yesterday, so he must be worried about speaking with his friend. That was understandable.
“I’m sure Magnus isn’t still upset. You two are friends, right. He’ll talk to you.”
I realized I was making a lot of assumptions about a situation I didn’t understand.
I barely knew Magnus, after all. Maybe the man was the type to hold a grudge after a single fight.
Yet, I found that hard to believe. Brody considered Magnus a close friend, and anyone that Brody held in such high regard couldn’t be a bad person.
Luckily, it seemed I was right, because Brody immediately nodded his head and agreed with me. “Yeah. You’re right. Magnus burns hot, but he doesn’t burn for long. He’s probably already forgotten about last night.”
There was that strange slow cringe expression again.
Was he lying and actually still worrying about Magnus, or was that expression caused by something else?
I got my answer a moment later.
“Look, Ellis…” Brody placed a hand on my leg that felt like it was supposed to be comforting, but the moment he made contact with my skin he pulled his hand away. “About last night… I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
That didn’t sound good. Nothing happy ever started with an apology. I didn’t need my memories to know that much.
Brody couldn’t look directly at me and occupied himself by buttoning up his shirt. “Yeah. It… it was a mistake. I never should have taken advantage of you like that.”
“Advantage?” I tried to reach out to him, but he pulled away from me again, so I kept my hands to myself. “You didn’t take advantage. I kissed you first. Remember? I definitely told you, multiple times, that I wanted it.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with me again, but his tone of voice still managed to make such a positive word sound like a death sentence. “But we have no way of knowing if you’d still agree if you had your memories. That feels like taking advantage.”
“But I…” The words died on my tongue.
What could I even say?
I couldn’t deny what he said. The truth was, I didn’t know what the version of ‘me’ with memories would want. For all I knew, my non-amnesia self was a raging homophobe, and when I regained my memories, I would be horrified by what I’d done.
Still, that was my risk to take, and I was willing to take it. However, before I could argue, another thought occurred to me.
“You’re right. We don’t know who I really am. I might turn out to be a murderous thief on the run from the law. Not someone you’d want to get involved with.”
I’d almost forgotten, but the vague memory of burying someone still lurked in my brain. Now, with the discovery of the key that had apparently been stolen from the police, my true identity wasn’t looking very good.
Of course, Brody didn’t want to risk getting in bed with a criminal.
Brody patted me on the shoulder, making sure to only touch me over the blanket that I had draped around me like a cloak.
“I really don’t think you’re some villainous murderer.
” For the first time since waking up, he looked directly in my eyes, and his gaze still held the comfort I’d become familiar with.
“I’ve seen enough death, and enough hardened killers to know you’re not one of them.
There’s a… callousness to life that is so deeply engrained in the real villains of the world that even amnesia wouldn’t be able to get rid of.
You don’t have that. If you did bury someone, even if you killed them, you must have had a good reason. I’m certain about that.”
A ray of morning sunlight snuck through the window, highlighting the dust hanging in the air around us and giving everything a natural halo. It would have been a perfect morning to wake up next to a love, free of all worries.
Instead, I was twisting the edge of the blanket between my hands as more and more unpleasant thoughts piled on top of me.
“I’ll have to trust your opinion on it,” I said, trying to add in a laugh and failing. “I certainly don’t trust my own.”
His gaze didn’t stay on me as long as I would like. The moment I agreed with him, he looked away again.
“Good. So, um, I need to go talk to Magnus. Take your time getting dressed. My clothes are in the wardrobe there. Just take whatever you want for now. Hopefully, if there’s time, we can take you to the store to get some of your own, but for now mine should do.”
I kept looking down at my hands, even when he rose from the bed. Based on the sound of his footsteps, I tracked him as he moved around the room a bit more before leaving.
Then I was alone.
Even if I had my memories, I doubted I’d be able to describe what I was feeling. Part of me was happy that Brody was so certain I couldn’t have hurt anyone. It was a relief to know he thought so highly of me. If I had that same confidence in myself, nothing would ever bring me down again.
Yet, under that spark of joy, there was a tangled web of negative feelings. I enjoyed last night, and it hurt hearing Brody call it a mistake. He was right, of course. In the current situation, getting involved with anyone in such an intimate way was a bad idea.
My gaze turned to the wardrobe that Brody had given me free access to.
I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and three meals a day. None of which I was entitled to. Brody didn’t have to give me anything, but he provided for all my needs without complaint. He’d even protected me when armed gunmen attacked us. Asking for anything more was just selfish.
I couldn’t help wanting more, though. I’d been so happy last night. For the first time that I could remember, I felt like a real person and not just the shell of a person that my real self had left behind.
Was it really so bad to want more?
My stomach grumbled, interrupting my heavy train of thought.
I snapped back to reality, and realized I couldn’t hear Brody moving around anywhere in the house.
There was no telling how long I’d been sitting there, but early morning was no time for deep self-reflection.
I wasn’t awake enough to handle the size of the questions bouncing around my head.
I got dressed quickly, grabbing whatever looked like it would fit me best. Most of Brody’s clothes were the same “lumberjack chic” style.
It looked good on him, but it didn’t suit me.
Instead, I managed to find a plain green shirt at the back of his closet, and a pair of dark jeans that mostly fit.
He was a little taller than me, so I had to roll up the pants cuffs once to keep them from dragging on the ground, and his shoulders were a bit broader, so his shirt hung loosely on me, but otherwise it was close enough to be comfortable.
Plus, all his clothing smelled like him. When I pulled the shirt over my head, I pressed the collar to my nose for a moment, taking in the smell of cedar and bergamot. It was enough to chase the lingering tension from my shoulders and I left the bedroom with a thin shell of confidence.
As I suspected, Brody was no longer in the house. I found him outside, standing on the porch to Magnus’s house. The door was open, and the two men faced each other across the threshold like it was a battleline.
Neither said a word for several moments, and I hung back on Brody’s porch just a few yards away waiting to see what would happen.
“All right,” Magnus eventually said, holding his arms out wide. “Let’s get it over with.”
At first, it looked like they were going to hug. I couldn’t think of any other reason for a person to hold their arms out like that.
Then Brody cocked back his fist and punched Magnus hard in the shoulder.
“Fucking hell,” Magnus shouted as he staggered and clutched his shoulder. “You really didn’t hold back.”
“That’s what you get for being such a bastard.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Magnus muttered, though there was a smile on his face. “I was a jerk. I’m sorry. We good now?”
“We’re good.”
Trent came out of the house, fussing over Magnus’s shoulder, but the blond man just waved off his concern.
“All right. Now that that’s over with, what was so urgent that you needed to talk to me this early in the morning.
” As he spoke, something seemed to occur to him, and he perked up. “Did you hear about Creed?”
“No,” Brody shook his head. “It’s something else. I forgot to tell you before, but look what we found yesterday.”
He pulled out the wooden box and opened the lid. From this far away I couldn’t see inside, but I could easily picture the key it held.