26
Lia
“Where are you taking me? What do you want from me, anyway? You need to let me go. I want my bazooka.”
I keep up a stream of questions, punctuated by the occasional swear word. By now, it’s for myself, not for him. I know he won’t answer. He won’t say a thing. I seem to remember the black holes speaking a long time ago—when they took her. Whoever she was. But they won’t speak to me.
Still, my questions clearly annoy him. So I don’t stop talking until the car screeches to a halt, and he slams a gloved hand against my mouth.
“Let go of me. Don’t touch me. I’ll scream!”
Now, why the hell didn’t I think to do that before?
I open my mouth to let out the most bloodcurdling cry I can manage, but before I can do much more than squeak, he pulls off his leather glove and crams it into my mouth, before covering my face with his hand.
Between the palm on my mouth and the glove choking me, I can’t make a sound.
I struggle to get out of his grip, but he only squeezes my face harder until I wonder if he’ll squeeze it right off. Then he pushes down on the gas pedal.
A few minutes later, he drives the car into a parking lot.
He lets go of me for a beat, and I try to open the passenger door, but of course, it’s locked.
I scurry into the back seat, not really knowing what I’m trying to achieve, since I can only imagine that it’s locked too.
But I need to get away from him. I’m not going down without a fight.
Apparently, though, no matter how hard I fight, I’m going down anyway.
I feel his hands hook themselves around my ankle and drag me back that way.
I wince as my body bumps back helplessly.
Then he grabs onto my hair, yanking me back, and tears spring to my eyes.
That hurts. Fuck, it hurts. I have no idea why.
He doesn’t let me wonder for long, letting go of my hair to wind his hand around my neck. I was so busy trying to get away that I never even tried to spit out the glove, and now, he shoves the fabric into the back of my throat, resting his palm once more against my lips.
He half-drags, half-carries me that way, nearly choking me with one hand as the other one silences me.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel cold cotton dab at my shoulder.
Then there’s a little prick on my arm, and a needle slides in.
I want to cry out, because I’ve hated shots ever since I was a kid. At least, I think I have.
The room sways around me, and I wonder if I’ll be sick. Am I going to pass out? Did he give me something to make me unconscious? Or am I going to die?
Are these moments the last ones I’ll ever experience?
A tiny tear bubbles up into the side of my eye. I can sense him removing his hand from my mouth. I cough out the glove, and try to speak, but my voice comes out strangely garbled.
“What… the… what are you…”
He’s at my feet, a felt pen making little dots around my ankles.
“What are you… stop that…”
The marker against my ankles is the last thing I’m aware of before I pass out.
_
I come to with a jolt and try to stand up.
But I can’t move. I’m stuck to some hard surface—a table, maybe.
Thick bands tie me to it, and as darkness fades from my vision, I notice a pouch full of blood strung up to a metal walker.
Wires connect me to it, and I can only stare at it helplessly as it fills, drop by drop.
Oh, fuck. That’s a lot of blood.
“What are you…” My voice comes out garbled again. “What are you doing…”
I don’t expect anyone to answer. After all, the black holes don’t talk to me, for whatever reason.
No one really talks to me but Logan.
It’s strange, how well I remember his name. I remember his face, too. Weird. My mind was so foggy when I passed out, but now, I remember him.
Seventy-four freckles.
What the hell was that?
It’s like my brain glitched, like it wobbled suddenly inside of me and pulled some strange, vivid image from the recesses of my mind.
I turn my face to the side, opening my mouth because I think I’m going to be sick. But I manage to breathe through it, and the feeling fades.
But then my brain glitches again.
Redheads don’t wear pink. But she chose it… doesn’t she look sweet?
Another glitch, just as I try to make sense of that image.
I don’t blame you for that. I blame you for fucking and marrying the first man who wasn’t me.
“Ahh!” I gasp, struggling against the bonds as the visions torture me.
Don’t take her from me. Please! Don’t take her from me!
Tears are streaming down my cheeks now. I can’t handle the images, but I can’t escape them. They push down on me, choking me.
I’ll never leave you, ghost girl.
“Logan!” I scream. “Logan! Save me! Logan!”
I’m far too out of it to do more than vaguely make out the sound of scuffling outside. Then, through my tears, a hazy, warped vision appears.
I blink them away until I can see him. It’s him. A tan, brown-haired man, with dangerous eyes.
“Logan,” I moan.
His eyes widen for the space of a second, but he doesn’t react more than that, hurrying to me, trying to undo the bonds that are tying me to the table.
“Look out!” I cry. “The black hole… look out!”
But the black hole doesn’t try to stop him from freeing me. He takes out a large object, and then I feel a sharp blade against my right ankle, where the dotted marks had been made before.
It’s an axe.
“Fuck!”
Logan falls on the other guy, and together they tussle, a mishmash of limbs and fists. I can’t tell who’s winning the fight. But I see the metal glint of the axe as they fight over it. And then Logan goes crashing down, his face oddly grey.
Anxiety overwhelms me. Logan untied enough of my bonds that I manage to wriggle out of them.
I jump on the black hole’s back, squeezing his neck with one hand, my legs twisting around his waist as I try to wrest the axe from him.
He’s far stronger than me, but adrenaline gives me the strength to cling on.
Still, it’s not enough. So I find a bare stretch of skin on his neck, and bite down.
A shout leaves his usually mute lips. I bite harder, feeling a chunk of skin rip off. Blood fills my mouth, and I spit out the flesh. He reaches a hand to his neck, howling again when he feels the gaping hole.
Then he takes a swing at me, and I crash backward against the table, losing consciousness again.
_
“Lia. Lia!”
I blink awake, groaning in pain. “It… hurts, Logan…”
Then, I wake up all the way, and bite my lip. I’m back to complaining about a surface wound—about a bump on my head—despite the fact that Logan’s pain is so much worse. He stands above me, his shirt drenched in blood. “You’re hurt, Logan.”
“Shh, baby. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but you.”
I struggle into a half-sitting position and take stock of my surroundings. I’m back in Logan’s room, but not in the cage. It’s in the corner of the room, its bars sawed off.
I remember when the black hole sawed them off. I remember when he took me. I remember everything.
“Logan…”
“Good girl.” He grabs the hand I’m reaching out to him, and kisses my palm. “You remembered my name. I saw you didn’t write it a single time, but you remembered it all the same. I’m very proud of you.”
“Y-yes… Logan…”
“Are you hungry, baby?” He sits beside me, tossing his shirt off, and I breathe out in relief when I see the blood must come from the black hole. His fingers thread through my hair as he murmurs, “Want to eat?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t want to eat whatever’s in those bowls. The dog food, or whatever.”
“It was just cereal.” He kisses me on the tip of my nose, and the old, familiar smirk twists the sides of his lips up. “But I guess it did look like dog food, since I put it in a dog bowl.”
“I don’t want you… to put me in that cage anymore.”
“Hmm.” He presses his lips to my hands again. “I don’t want to either.”
“So you won’t?”
“I’ll try very hard not to,” he half-promises me. “But you have to behave. Okay, ghost girl?”
“O… kay.” I look away, trying to make sense of this new and painful way he has of treating me. Locking me up in a cage, and feeding me from a dog bowl.
It’s so different from how it used to be.
Or is it?
The bittersweet memories come crowding back, and I wince with the effort of trying to handle them. But they’re so vivid, so colorful. I’m not used to them. They make my brain hurt.
I don’t hear Logan until he’s asked the same question three times.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Uhm… a bagel. With cream cheese. An everything bagel, with a ton of cream cheese and salmon. You owe me one.”
He pauses in his kissing of my hand. “Lia.” His voice comes out thick and warm. “Do you… remember?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stay afloat despite the waves of images pushing down on me.
“No, I don’t think… maybe… yes.” I inhale sharply when he grabs me and pulls me into his lap, hugging me to him despite his wounds. “But I don’t remember if I ate it.”
He lets out a shaky laugh. “I don’t either. But that’s how memory works, isn’t it? You don’t have to remember everything. How long ago was that anyway, two decades ago? What do you remember, baby?”
“I…” I inhale spurts of air, trying to wade through the memories I’m losing myself in. It feels like I am remembering everything. At least, I’m remembering far too much. “I don’t… know. Logan.” I speak his name urgently, latching onto his collar. “What’s happening to me?”
“Hey, hey.” He runs his hand up and down my spine, soothing me. “This is good. Your memory’s coming back, baby.”
I rub the bridge of my nose, trying to focus. “Is that what it is? My memory? Are you sure?”
“Baby.” He presses my face to his, kissing my hair. “I told you I’d fix you. I don’t know how, but… you are fixed. It’s a goddamn miracle. You’re Lia again. I mean, you always were, but… but you really are, now, aren’t you?”
“Logan.” I don’t know what else to say, but I think he hears everything I’m putting into his name. All the love, the relief, the happiness… the fear.
“Don’t be scared,” he hums into my curls. “You’re not going to forget again. I promise you. Those memories are here to stay.”
I pull away abruptly. “How do you know? How can you possibly know?”
The thought that it could all disappear again sends me into a spiral. “Am I going to lose my mind again, Logan? Am I?”
“Shhh.” He takes his phone out from his pocket, awkwardly since he refuses to let go of me.
Then he dials a number on speaker phone.
“It’s okay, Lia. I’m calling Al Campbell.
He’s the head of the science department at Devil.
He’ll tell us what’s going on.” His hand leaves my back to stroke the side of my face, and then he hugs me to him and kisses my freckles.
“Hi, Logan,” says a voice as the ringing stops. “What’s up?”
“Hey, man. Listen, I’m calling about that drug. Memoril. You said its effects were permanent. That there was no cure. Didn’t you?”
I tense in his arms.
“Uhm, yeah. Sorry, Logan. Why are you asking me now?”
“Well, my girl is remembering things. Why is that? How can she possibly have her memory back? She’s not going to lose it again, is she?”
There’s a pause and I wait, so anxious to hear what he’ll say that I grind my teeth hard enough to give myself a headache.
“I didn’t think it was possible for her to regain her memory,” he says at last. “Did anything happen to cause it?”
“Well, yeah.” Logan glances at me uncomfortably. “The Puicin Gang injected her with some weird shit.”
“Did they tell you what it was?”
“Uh…” Logan kisses me before answering, “We kind of killed them before they could say anything. Though I do know the Prices had been dealing drugs to them. We figured it was Memoril, though...”
There’s a long pause, during which Logan winds his fingers distractedly in my curls.
At last, Campbell clears his throat. “So I guess the rumors were true. They did find the antidote. I didn’t think it was possible.
” He pauses again before adding, “You know, when the Prices did something, they didn’t do it halfway.
The antidote must work. And if that’s what the Puicin Gang injected into Lia...
well, it seems likely her memory is here to stay. ”
Logan turns to me, a happy grin on his face, and I can tell he’s just as relieved as me. “See, baby? I told you. Everything’s okay now. Everything will always be okay from now on.”
He pushes me down on his bed, his hands finding my wrists and pinning them above me on the mattress, before pressing his lips to mine.
“Now let’s get you that everything bagel,” he breathes against my neck.