Chapter Twenty-Four
Baz
Something that I am almost one hundred percent sure of though is that the Elders are frauds.
I can’t pinpoint how I know that or if I have specific knowledge buried somewhere in my subconsciousness, but I do know that I don’t trust them and I don’t like them. There’s something else that’s niggling at me about them, but of course I don’t know what the fuck it is.
Even though my instincts have been thrown off by my memory loss, I still trust them implicitly. So if they say that the Elders are not to be trusted, then I must have some sort of knowledge about them somewhere, and they aren’t to be fucking trusted.
Fortunately, I don’t have to explain the fucked up and complicated way that my mind works to the others because they already don’t trust them and they don’t need me to try to convince them of it.
Something else that I am sure of is that I’m supposed to be here with Neith and the others. They feel like family. They’re far easier to be around than anyone else has been, from what I can remember anyway, and Neith, well, she’s just fucking everything to me.
It’s because of how much Neith already means to me that I had to go back for Joe last night. I am extremely protective of those I care about, and the way that I care about Neith is unlike anything I have ever felt before.
That I know as well. The feelings feel new and unfamiliar, not like something that I have felt before.
If I were in any other supernatural realm, then I could have just taken his head for touching her.
It’s ridiculous.
Although I do think that what Dimitri and I did to him was more than fitting. It will certainly leave a lasting impression on his soul.
The nightmare I left playing around in his mind will not only haunt him when he’s asleep but when he’s awake too.
I had the best night’s sleep that I have had in a long time after our visit to Joe.
Joe’s nightmares, however, will never leave him. It will pop up at the most inconvenient times and leave him a blubbering mess, reliving the pain of losing his fingers, which I may or may not have amplified to be even more painful.
He will also relive seeing Dimitri’s other form.
It’s literally the least that I can fucking do.
I am glad that it meant that I got to know Dimitri better.
That was a bonus that I hadn’t been expecting when I set out for justice last night.
Now that I’m not in that violent haze, I am curious to know how he knew that I was going to pay Joe a visit.
Whether he knew it was me who was going to do it, or whether he just knew that one of us was going to do it.
I didn’t end up showing as much of my magic to Dimitri as I thought I was going to.
A part of me wonders if he already knows what I am though.
He seems to know far more than he should, and neither Coen nor Neith has mentioned that he has any sort of precog, although they didn’t know about his illusion ability or that he could teleport himself like he can, so it’s highly possible that they don’t know and he does.
Also, how the fuck does he do that? How does he leave the prison so easily? I’ve been there, I’ve felt the heavy suppressive magic, he shouldn’t be able to get out.
It’s a mystery, and it’s fucking intriguing.
Meeting him has also made me curious about whether Neith realizes the true lengths that he will go to defend her and keep her safe.
Dimitri is a surprise.
I can’t remember the last time that I encountered a hellhound. They are legends, and he shouldn’t exist. The knowledge that I assume I was taught because I definitely know it, is more speculation than actual knowledge.
Although now the knowledge of his multiple forms is confirmed, I guess.
I’m surprised that he so readily showed me that he is a hellhound. That definitely wouldn’t be something that I would be sharing with someone who I have met briefly only a handful of times.
Hell, I still haven’t told the others what kind of supernatural creature I am, and I’ve said several times that I consider them family already.
The thing is, I am in a similar situation to him.
He is most likely the last of his kind, at least as far as I am aware, and I am ninety-eight percent sure that I am the very last of my kind.
There is always a chance that I have been made to forget something important.
Actually, scratch that, I know I have been made to forget important things, a lot of important things.
What I mean is that I may have forgotten important knowledge, and not just have forgotten who I am and anything that could give me a hint as to who I am.
“Are you alright, man?” River asks me quietly as the others carry on their conversation, and Neith grumbles about it being cold.
I smile and answer honestly, “Better than I have been for a long time. The only thing that could make it perfect would be if I could remember everything or hell, anything.”
River nods, “Yeah, I can’t even begin to imagine how fucking annoying it must be not to remember things. Let alone to know that you know the information, but not be able to access it.”
“I’ve been thinking about ways that we can help you access your memories,” Raiden says as he moves back to walk with River and me.
“You have?” I ask, unable to hide the surprise in my tone. The kindness and acceptance of these men is always surprising me, and Neith, well, almost everything she does is unexpected to me.
Raiden smiles, “Of course I have. It’s bothering you, so I want to try and fix it. Although, to be fair, I would probably want to try and fix it regardless of whether or not it was bothering you, since it’s a pretty unique problem. I really love figuring out unique problems.”
“It’s dangerous too, isn’t it?” River asks with a heavy frown, “Messing around with people’s minds.”
I nod, “Yes, it’s extremely dangerous. More so to fix rather than to take memories in the first place because the mind has already been messed with once, which is risky enough, so to go in again increases the risks tenfold.”
Raiden nods in agreement, “Exactly, and don’t worry, I’m not suggesting that we do anything that would be that invasive.”
“I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to that,” I reply.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Neith calls back over her shoulder and then carries on her conversation with Reed and Coen as if she hadn’t said anything at all.
Van looks back at me and smirks, “What she said.”
I raise my eyebrows.
Raiden grins, “We don’t put our lives at risk, or Neith will resurrect us, and we will be in a whole heap of trouble.”
Something inside me stirs.
I shiver, “I don’t think I’ll risk that.”
“Smart man,” Neith calls back, a smirk playing around the edges of her lips as her eyes connect with mine.
Fucking hell, she’s going to be my undoing.
River and Raiden chuckle, and I try to school my features so I don’t look quite so much like a lost puppy. I’m reasonably certain that I fail when their smiles just widen and amusement dances across their expressions.
Clearing my throat, I ask, “So what was your idea?”
Raiden’s smile widens even more, but he lets it go as he replies, “Meditation. There are some techniques that I’ve been looking at for a while that are especially designed to help supernaturals.”
“I’ve heard of that,” River surprises me by saying.
“I’ve never tried it. Well, that’s a lie.
I tried to do it once, but I don’t think I even lasted a minute.
You’ve got to sit still and clear your mind and stuff.
My mind is never clear, and there’s usually more than one thing going on at the same time.
Trying to make it be quiet was impossible, and trying to stay still was even worse.
” He shudders like it’s an experience that still haunts him, and I try not to smile.
He continues, “But if you can sit still and make your mind stop talking at you, then you should be good. I’ve read about quite a few people who have had some success with it, although I don’t think any of them were trying to recover memories. ”
Raiden shakes his head, “It fascinates me that when we’re hunting something, you can be so laser focused that you don’t move a muscle and yet you can’t sit still at any other time.”
River shrugs, “That’s different.”
Raiden nods and then turns to look at me, “So what do you think?”
“I’m willing to give anything a go,” I reply. “If you think that it could help, then I’ll try it.”
“Awesome,” Raiden grins. “We’ll have to put some precautionary measures in place so that you don’t end up having a seizure again, and so that you don’t push it too far by accident in the first place.”
I nod, “Yeah, that sounds good to me.”
“Okay, well, we can give it a go when we get back to House if you would like?”
“Yeah, that would be great, the sooner the better,” I agree.
It has been a long time since I have had any hope that there may be a way for me to find my memories again, and Raiden has made that hope come back with a vengeance.
“I have to warn you, because I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much.
It’s not a quick process, it will take a while, and we may end up finding out how your memories have been blocked rather than what they are.
From everything that you’ve said, I’m convinced that they have been blocked and aren’t simply gone, which is a good thing because it means that they’re still in there somewhere and that we should be able to recover them.
However, it also means that there is a chance that someone could have put the block in place, and there is very rarely a good reason for someone to do that. ”
I nod, “It has occurred to me that could be the reason, especially since my amnesia doesn’t behave typically.”
“But?” River asks, correctly assuming that there is a ‘but’.
“But I think that it’s probably more likely that it’s trauma-induced from whatever I went through before I ended up in the hands of the Hunt. I should have been dead, several times over, and it took me far longer than it should have for me to heal,” I explain.
The memories of that pain and that experience with the Hunt try to push forward, and I vehemently push them back.
No, I’m not doing that.
It’s in the past, and that’s where it will fucking stay.
Raiden nods, “Fair enough.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t ask me any more questions and simply starts to explain the different kinds of meditation that we can do to see if it can pull any memories forward.
At this point, I would be happy if I knew my real fucking name, that would be awesome.
However, I suppose that you can find out a lot about a person from their name, so chances are that if this works, that isn’t the first thing that I will remember, it will probably be something ridiculous like my favorite flower or something, although I don’t imagine that has changed.
I mentally chastise myself for getting so far off track again and then tune back into what Raiden is saying.
Griff
I’m nervous.
I don’t want to let on that I’m nervous because I know that Neith is already feeling nervous, and if I tell her that I am too, then it’s most likely going to make her feel even more nervous, and I don’t want that.
It would have been far more helpful if Michael could have given me more information.
Any more information at all would have been helpful.
He literally gave us the bare minimum and what’s even more frustrating is that I don’t know whether he did it because he doesn’t have the information himself or because he has a lot more information than he was letting on and not telling us is somehow a part of the whole testing process just like this whole ‘I’ll know where to go when I get there,’ thing, which is also entirely unhelpful, extremely frustrating and is not helping with the whole nerves thing either.
Just once, I would like someone to say to us, ‘What you are looking for is in this location, arrive at this time, and you will get all of the answers that you need.’ Or better yet, ‘I’ll tell you the answers that you want right now with no running around, or riddles or hoops you have to jump through. ’
That would be amazing.
That is also very unlikely to ever happen.
Things just don’t work like that. I actually think that I would be really suspicious if someone did just give us the answer without us having to jump through hoops, since it has never happened before.
“Oh, since we’re just wandering in a somewhat aimless manner, I wanted to tell you guys that I really don’t think that the woman who spoke to me in my vision was warning me about the water.
I think she was telling me something about the water, but because of the circumstances and the fact that I was struggling to hear, plus my life and the fact that everything is usually a threat, that’s what I assumed that it was, when in actuality, it was just that she was shouting so that I could hear her,” Neith rambles.