Chapter 18
After I unlock the front door to Lennon’s house, I make my way to the stairs and start to climb them. I know exactly what I’m searching for. The notes.
I never showed them to Dash the night I told him about them. I’m not sure what all he told Jimmy, but I know he was trying to hold him off from digging into everything until I was ready to get the police involved.
Once I’m in the closet, I pull out the locked box I found them in. As I’m about to take the box with me, something catches my eye from under where the box was. I don’t remember anything being under it.
The hair stands on the back of my neck as I see the new note.
Be careful. I’ll know if you start to remember me. One of you figured it out a moment too late. Was it you or her? This game just gets better and better.
I swallow hard. I’ll be damned if this lunatic is going to stop me from getting my life back. I won’t hide. If it’s my destiny to go down, it won’t be doing it without a fight. I’ll do everything I can to take him down with me.
I’m sure he’ll think I’m going to cower out of fear. But he’s sorely underestimated me. You can’t scare someone who has nothing left to lose. And I’ve already lost everything.
I take the box to the bed and unlock it with the key I found in the drawer.
I pull each note out and take a picture of it before adding the latest one to the collection.
I almost feel like I’ve taken this action before.
I wish I knew where our phones were to prove me right, but I’m sure the mystery murderer has them.
My intention was to show all of this to Dash and then take them to Jimmy.
Now, as I close and lock the box, I stand firm in my decision to keep what I remember hidden. This guy can’t be tipped off. Paranoia may be a side effect of my amnesia, but if I’m being watched, telling anyone what I remember may be a death sentence for them.
Somehow, he knew I found the notes. Which means there are likely cameras in here somewhere. Either that, or he took a gamble and knew I’d start searching for answers.
I walk into the bathroom and stare at my reflection. My jaw is set and the bruises on my face are hardly noticeable now. The scar above my brow isn’t blending in quite as well.
I start pulling the drawers out searching for a way to cover the new scar that serves as a reminder of all the things I’ve lost at the hands of a madman.
I stop when I find a pair of scissors. My fingers slide over the cold metal before I pull them out. I study my dark hair for a few moments and then pull some of my hair in front of my face before snipping it off.
I keep cutting until I have some sort of semblance to curtain bangs. I may always bear this scar from now until I die, but I’ll be damned if I have to stare at it unless I want to.
I set the scissors on the counter beside where locks of my hair fell, then glance at my watch.
I’ve gotta go or else Dash will start looking for me. I cast one more glance at my reflection and smile. For the first time since this nightmare began, I feel like I’ve taken something back for myself. Something to set me apart from my memories and my sister.
Once I’m back in the car, I’m just about to start it when my phone buzzes. I pull it out and see a text from the unknown number. I try to brace myself, but it’s no use.
Unknown number: Love the bangs.
I look up and search all around the outside of my car until my gaze lands on a hooded figure in the shadows behind the house. I open the door and get out, but when I reach the back of the house, they’ve disappeared.
“Hey, are you okay?” Dash asks the moment he opens his front door.
“Sure. Why?” I ask.
He points to my new bangs.
“Oh, yeah. I just had the crazy urge to cut my bangs. This scar isn’t the most beautiful thing in the world,” I explain, not divulging any more.
“Everything about you is beautiful, Valkyrie. Don’t doubt it for a second,” he says as he winks at me.
“What all have you told your cop friend?” I blurt out.
His brows furrow, clearly caught off guard by my question.
“I told him we found proof you were being threatened. And he was in your house,” he says.
I nod. “So you didn’t tell him about the notes or the texts?”
“Not exactly in those terms. Why?” he asks.
“I’m not sure the cops can help me. If they make a lot of noise about an investigation, we may never find this guy. He might stay hidden.”
Dash shoves his hands in his pockets. “Okay. And what exactly are you proposing we do?”
“I’m proposing that I lure him out. Let him get comfortable so he’ll slip up.”
Dash walks closer. “That’s dangerous. A stalker will stop at nothing to obtain the object of their obsession.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Damn right I don’t. I’ll never understand you willingly placing yourself in danger. News flash, any man in love with a woman would back me up. It’s my job to protect you and keep you safe.”
“No. Your job is to race and happily live your life, Dash. It’s what you’re meant to do.
It’s not to be pulled six feet under with me.
You need to face the fact that I may not be meant to get out of this situation alive.
You don’t need to be around to see that if the ending is less than happy,” I tell him firmly.
He grips my hair and tugs gently until my face is turned up toward his.
“Listen to me. Racing is nothing without you, neither is living. I’m meant to love you, Lennon Tyler.
Don’t try to correct me and say you might not be her because I know in the very depths of my soul that you are even if you can’t admit you know it too.
I’m beside you now like I always have been and always will be. ”
Tears spring to my eyes and leak from the corners. “He’s watching me, Dash.”
He releases me. “How do you know that?”
“Because I saw him again tonight. He knows my every move. He knows who I am while the rest of us are just guessing.”
Dash’s brows shoot up and his nostrils flare.
“I know what you believe but sometimes we can believe in things that aren’t really true.”
He shakes his head and steps back.
“What are you saying, Valkyrie?”
“I think this is one battle I’ll have to fight alone. It’s going to come down to him and me. Like you said, I’m the object of his obsession. Whether it was originally just one of us or my sister and I both. I’m the only one left.”
“You’re not alone. You’ve got me. I can only imagine how empty you must feel without your sister whether you fully remember her or not. But draw strength from me. Let me try to fill that part of you the best I can.”
He glances at his phone and smiles before holding his hand out to me.
“Come somewhere with me.”
“Where?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
I take his hand and follow him to his garage. The fluorescent lights overhead shine on a sleek black Shelby Mustang GT500. She’s beautiful.
I catch myself reaching for the necklace I know should be around my neck but is missing, much like my memories. They exist somewhere, just out of reach. But this car…this garage…it’s familiar.
I walk to the front of the car, but before I can really study it, something pulls my gaze from the hood up to the ceiling.
As I do, Dash moves close and kisses my neck before sliding my jacket off and unbuttoning my jeans almost simultaneously.
I should stop him, but my body surrenders to him the way my heart does.
Once he’s stripped me bare, he lays me across the hood of his car.
His hands are feeling every curve and every inch of skin as his lips and tongue burn a trail to my center.
It isn’t until the first wave of pleasure explodes through my body that visions of the bright lights show me the past. A past moment which seems to overlap with this one. I’ve been here and done this before.
The sound of a zipper being pulled down echoes through my mind as he slides between my legs, catching my cry of pleasure and relief with his kiss. My thighs cradle his hips as he makes love to me and little does he know he just gave me a piece of myself back.
I feel my pleasure building again until I can’t hold back, and he releases with me this time.
But he can’t know what just happened. I may have remembered having sex with Dash on this car and in this garage, but I still don’t remember everything. Certainly nowhere near enough to help us.
As the world comes back into focus, Dash stands up to look at me, but the look of love turns to one of concern.
“Your nose is bleeding. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he asks with furrowed brows as he helps me sit up.
I rub under my nose and glance at the blood on my finger. My vision blurs as I visualize my hand covered in blood after the accident. It isn’t until I blink a few times that everything around me becomes clear again and the whispers of the past retreat to a deafening silence once more.
“No. I’m fine. Promise. Were we going somewhere, or did you just want to seduce me with your car as your wingman?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
He hands me my clothes and watches as I dress. A small smirk tips up one side of his lips.
“Why do you always try to make me laugh when something serious is happening?” he asks.
“It must be one of my Valkyrie superpowers,” I say but regret it once it leaves my lips. It’s something I think I’ve said before.
The smile fades and his pupils get a bit bigger.
“You have all the power over me, Lennon. You always have.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying and falling apart in his arms.
I really am Lennon. Lennon Shay Tyler. At least I think I am. Unless my twin sister and I did something unthinkable and fooled our boyfriends by switching places on them. Is that why I know I’m in love with Dash, yet my body seems to respond to Hendrix too?
I feel sick at my stomach and pray I’m reaching and being paranoid. There’s no way we’d do that to them or each other. Hendrix is just connecting with the part of me which is connected to London.
I refuse to believe anything else. What I remembered is Lennon’s memory with Dash.
No one else. But it still doesn’t explain how I’d end up in the driver’s seat when anyone who saw us that night and knew what was going on said London was driving while wearing the very same clothes I was wearing.
What happened that night? Why haven’t I remembered by now?
My head is starting to pound, and I know it’s because I’ve got to be getting closer to unlocking every memory and secret my heart has kept.
From this moment on, I know the world will start to come into a bittersweet, heartbreaking focus.