Chapter 27
RETAINED MEMORY
CORA
Elliot looks intoxicated. He stumbles down the final stretch of cobblestone street, relying more on me than himself to stay upright. I’ve got both arms wrapped around his middle, fingers digging into his blood splattered shirt. If anyone happens upon us right now…
I look to my left, then the right. I don’t know what time it is, but the stars are still visible, and the moon is high in the black sky.
I’m relying on the natural light to guide us to Elliot’s home, a place I’ve never dared to go.
More than once, Elliot has encouraged me to meet his mother, to at least show up as his friend.
I always knew it wouldn’t end well, so denying him was easy.
Now though, I wonder if this all would have ended differently if I had.
Maybe, if Madam Lyrie met me before Elliot brought me to report Harrison’s crime.
Maybe, if she’d known me as one of Elliot’s friends.
Maybe, if she knew me at all, she would have believed me.
She would have punished Harrison, and Elliot never would have…
I swallow. It doesn’t matter.
“Hey, that’s my house,” Elliot slurs.
My head throbs at the sound of his voice. I’ve got too many memories stuffed in my head. Every single piece I stole from him is now trapped in my skull, desperate to escape. I don’t have room for both his memories and my own.
I’ll need to empty his at some point. For now, there are bigger problems at hand.
“That’s right,” I say. My voice is soft and smooth, gentle, as if I’m talking to a child.
I’ve never wiped someone’s memories. I’ve read about it, but up until a couple weeks ago, I’ve never had the magic to attempt it. Elliot had replaced my true cuffs with these false ones, but I’ve hardly had time to master my magic. I’ve managed a few small spells, but this was far out of my league.
Still, I think I did it right. It’s too late to question it now.
I glance up at Elliot. He’s looking at his house before us, blinking slowly. I think he’ll be okay. His brain should heal around the stolen memories, and he should be exactly as he should have been all along: whole without me there to ruin him.
Without consciously deciding to, I slow my steps, taking in every detail of the way he looks.
I’ll never see him again after this. I’ll never run my hands through his soft hair or feel those hazel eyes on me.
I’ll never fight to get ‘Dark One’ removed from my file.
I’ll never marry him or bear his children.
It was foolish to hope for those things anyway.
We reach the Lyrie house. It’s large and white, with black shutters and a well-kept lawn.
I’ve seen it multiple times, but only ever in passing.
At night, it feels even more ominous than it does during the day.
There are too many trees clustered around the front of the house, their skeletal branches looming above us.
“Step up,” I tell Elliot as we reach his porch.
There’s a porch swing on one side with brightly colored pillows and a thin rug that stretches to the opposite corner.
A wreath hangs on the door, heavy with violent orange and red and yellow leaves.
Mama Blake has one like it, but the Lyrie one is larger, fuller. More expensive, undoubtedly.
“You smell nice,” Elliot murmurs, his breath tickling the crown of my head. “Like honey.”
I don’t. I smell like sweat and anxiety, a potent combination from hours of nightmares. Visions of Harrison holding me down, of those fish watching from the corner, letting it happen.
A flash of Elliot’s memories flares through my own. Harrison’s lifeless eyes, staring up at the ceiling.
It’s an impossible, unbearable combination of relief and guilt. He’s dead and I am relieved, but it was Elliot and it’s my fault and if I don’t fix it, his entire life will be ruined because of me.
“Have we met before?” Elliot asks.
The question eviscerates my heart, but it’s a good thing. The best possibility. He doesn’t remember me, and yet, he sounds more lucid than he did a few minutes ago. Now, I can only hope he’s disoriented enough to forget everything that’s happened in the past twenty minutes.
This long walk from Mama Blake’s house to his own, the fact I’m here at all, dragging him to his front door.
“No,” I say. The word catches in my throat, garbled enough I’m not sure he’s heard it.
“You’re pretty,” he says. “What’s your name?”
He’s definitely still disoriented. It took Elliot years to confess he found me pretty, and he’d been drunk then.
I swallow, steadying him roughly against me. We’re at his front door, the wreath glaringly bright between us. Elliot stumbles forward, and this time, I let him. He slumps against the white stucco of his house, staring at me with confusion and wonder and…
I close my eyes. That’s the last time he’ll ever say those words to me, so I let them absorb into my skin. I inhale them with each unsteady breath.
You’re pretty.
You smell good.
I killed him, Secora. He’ll never touch you again.
I open my eyes. My entire body is trembling as I look back to Elliot. It’s a relief, truly, that he’s fallen asleep. His chest rises steadily, mouth parting softly. I’ve never seen him sleep before.
I never will again.
I knock on the door, harder than I should given the circumstances.
I should have checked Elliot’s pockets first. If I weren’t a trembling, emotional mess, I would have.
I wouldn’t risk someone else in this fancy neighborhood hearing me, peeking through their expensive curtains to see us standing here.
Me in my nightclothes. Elliot in a blood-soaked shirt.
The door opens.
I’ve seen Madam Lyrie many times before, but this is the closest I’ve ever stood.
I’d seen her across the playground, picking Elliot up from school.
I’d seen her give speeches on big stages, making grand promises that too often didn’t come to fruition.
And I’d seen her last week, in that horrible auditorium, surrounded by a select few council members.
Elliot wasn’t allowed to come with me. I’d stood there alone while she told me there was no proof of Harrison’s wrong-doing.
There would be no trial. No viewing of my memories.
No justice. And as for me, my trial for Gregg’s injury would still be forthcoming.
I was dismissed, never being allowed a word.
Up close, Madam Lyrie looks…pleasant. She seems like the type of woman Mama Blake would have as a friend, though I knew they weren’t. I’d never questioned that before now. Even with Elliot and Margot’s friendship, Mama Blake never spoke of Madam Lyrie at all.
Maybe that should have been a warning in itself.
Madam Lyrie’s hair is braided, and she’s wearing simple orange pajamas. Her feet are bare, and she looks like she’d been fast asleep. When she blinks, I realize it might not be sleep alone that’s given her this hazy expression.
He drugged her, I realize. Gave her something to ensure she wouldn’t catch him leaving.
“You’ve been drugged,” I inform her. My words are fuzzy in my ears, sounding foreign, even to me. “You’ll need to sort that first.”
Madam Lyrie blinks at me. Her eyebrows scrunch, and though it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking, she manages a nod. Her attention flickers from me to Elliot, who is still asleep against the wall. If she notices the blood on his shirt, she doesn’t mention it.
She only nods again and steps back into the house. She leaves the door ajar, and I follow, dragging Elliot behind me. He mutters something incoherent as I guide him to a sofa. Like almost everything in this entry room, it’s dark orange and looks both vintage and expensive.
Elliot collapses on the sofa, his feet hanging over the end. He blinks heavily at me, and it’s only a few seconds before he’s asleep again, a tender smile on his face. I watch him, jaw clenched so tight I might break a tooth.
He’d done this for me.
I wish you hadn’t, I want to tell him. I wish you didn’t love me at all.
A tear slips down my cheek and I wipe it roughly with the back of my hand. I’m still watching him when Madam Lyrie returns to the living room. She’s still dazed, her steps wobbly, but she’s gripping an empty vial. Remnants of something purple color her lips.
With every blink, she’s more lucid, until she looks less disoriented and more horrified. She looks from me, a Dark One standing in her living room, to Elliot, her only son, covered in blood.
I meet her furious gaze, counting the seconds until she speaks.
I’ve almost passed two hundred when she steps closer.
She tosses the vial onto a side table and crouches at Elliot’s side.
She touches him, hands gingerly moving down his body, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
With his stomach and chest exposed, I tell her what she clearly already knows.
“He’ll need a healer,” I say. “The sooner the better.”
“What did you do?” she asks.
I swallow.
Nothing, I could say.
Everything, might be better.
“He came to me like this,” I say finally. It’s a simple truth, easier than the full story.
Shock flickers over Madam Lyrie’s face, but it’s gone in an instant, replaced with a carefully blank mask. She already knew Elliot and I were friends. He came with me to make my official report, after all. She knew her son was someone I trusted, but I doubt she expected he trusted me the same.
Rather than responding, she turns back to Elliot. She smooths his shirt into place, careful not to disturb the wound on his stomach. Then she inspects his arms, the sides of his throat, the top of his head. She’s so intent on him that I doubt she realizes she’s given me her back.
She’s too worried over Elliot to protect herself from me, and it gives me all the confirmation I need. For all the cruelty Madam Lyrie has shown me, she undoubtedly loves this boy as much as I do. I didn’t know that was possible until this moment.
She loves him, and that means I can trust her.