Chapter 41 Fractured Memories #2
“Or his lies,” Anika mumbled under her breath. Her parents heard, their faces different with their reactions. Her father grinned and her mother gave her a pointed look.
“The two of you aren’t even giving the man a chance to explain himself. What if he’s actually a great business partner?”
“What he’s proposing isn’t a partnership, jaanu, it’s a transaction.”
“I don’t know—”
“Give me the phone, I’ll call him, tell him we changed our mi—”
Ding!
The telltale sound of the door bell resonated through the house, halting everyone’s words.
“That’s probably him,” her mom finally said, untying her apron and heading toward the entry of their home.
Anika and her father shared a knowing look, one that said, “humor your mom, but fall for nothing.”
Nodding, they took their seats, waiting as Alek walked closer, her mom chattering with him innocently.
She’s too good for this world, Anika thought as she placed her hands in her lap as they reappeared.
And Alek was as she remembered—warm with his words and smiles and gestures, but so, so cold with his eyes.
This was going to be the longest dinner of her life.
SOMETHING WOKE HER later that night, the blanket of darkness thick and stifling, but Anika’s eyes opened regardless, sleep erased by something.
Turning over in her bed, she noticed the time was a little past midnight, but despite the late hour, she heard the whispered voices of her parents.
The words were unintelligible, fragments of a private conversation, but a sense of dread filled her gut.
It’s cool clutch urging her to slip from the safety of her warm sheets.
Softly, her bare feet touched the carpet in her room, dampening her approach toward her cracked bedroom door. A slash of dim light cut across her room from it, but she stayed in the dark, unsure of how close her parents were.
“I’m not mad at you, dear,” her father mumbled, his words clear despite the volume he spoke in. “I’m upset he got an answer from me he didn’t like, so he targeted you instead.”
“I know, people can see right through me.” Anika could almost picture her mom, a gentle, sad smile adorning her face. “I always get us into trouble.”
“No need to worry, I’ll handle it. While Alek may not be a door-to-door salesman in need of shooing off our property, I’ll make sure he gets the message all the same.”
Her mom laughed. “I trust you. Whatever you need to do, I’ll support you.”
The faint sound of a kiss met Anika’s ears. “I know. We can’t let this man take away our livelihood all for the sake of revitalization. We’ve seen what it’s done to other neighborhoods…”
* * *
CONSCIOUSNESS WAS FLEETING, but this time she was ready when it graced her, its touch soft against the wrinkles of her brain.
Again, she tried pouring every ounce of will into moving her extremities. And when she was about to give up, her mind spent and sweat somehow forming on her skin, she felt a fingertip move. Nervous excitement coursed through her and she tried again, but a noise caught her attention.
Begging her body to cooperate and open her eyes to see what had made the noise, she was disappointed when it refused. She was nothing more than a pile of bones; her eyelids were controlled by another entity, not listening to her own mind.
A scream clawed at the back of her throat.
Anika didn’t stand a chance at protecting herself like this. Something was amiss, and she wasn’t alone in the room. Intuition and the familiar prickle skittering across her skin told her this. Even in her debilitated state, she knew it was Mikko. She grappled against her mind even more fiercely.
As if sensing her trepidation, he spoke. His voice filled the space around her. “I can see you struggling to come to, malyshka, but I can’t have that. Not quite yet.”
Her tongue twitched in her mouth, choice words for him dancing behind her teeth, but silence was all she could manage. Rough bandages scraped along various areas of her skin, her wounds miraculously patched up although still sore.
Mikko continued, not needing her responses to carry on a conversation of his own.
“But I’m going to give you more medicine so you can heal.
” He was closer now, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he presumably sat next to her prone form.
“If you’re to be your best self when you come to, you’ll need rest.”
Moments from before flashed behind her closed eyes.
Levi’s blank expression, the violets in his drink taking effect.
Her struggle in the dark to reach her gun.
And the taste of violets on her tongue as Mikko made her drink her own poison of choice.
“You’ll wake when I want you to,” his breath whispered across her face in the present. Internally she cringed, wishing she could headbutt him in retaliation. Again.
The pieces started falling into place as the feeling in her entire left arm started coming back. Excitement wiggled its way into her head; Mikko thought her weak and dull in comparison to him. All she had to do was act incapacitated—
Something poked her arm near the crook of her elbow. The pain was a blessing spreading across her skin as a reminder she was returning to this dimension, but that relief was soon erased.
A needle wormed its way beneath her flesh, the unknown liquid inside eager to make her forget—to make her weak.
Anika tried to fight it, teeth gnashing together faintly behind her lips, but it was for nothing.
She couldn’t outrun the effects of whatever drugs Mikko deemed acceptable to pump through her veins.
And the blackness enveloped her, her childhood memories the only thing left to keep her company.