Page 81 of Thorn

Lynx nodded with a gentle smile that felt friendly and concerned. “Did you ever burn through the fever to see how you felt without the IV fluids?”

She squeezed Thorn’s hand. “Never.”

“It’s probable that he was administering the drug and when it started to leave your system, he would give you another dose.”

“But how would a dose last that long? I remember distinctly that once I was up to my twenty-second day. I was giddy, thinking that I might not have that fevered reaction again. How could the drug stay stable in my body that long?”

“The professor said with encapsulation. But, to be clear, our expert didn’t study the drug. She was making some educated guesses.”

Arya’s gaze travelled along the far wall of the small clinic room. “I thought a new fever was starting just as I got on the plane. I almost turned around. By the time I got to Toulouse, I was feeling pretty bad. The next morning, twenty-four hours into feeling ill, things started to feel off in my brain with my memories when I went to my childhood apartment. The pictures that I called ‘memories’ flashed up as − I’m looking for the word − all I can think about is phantom pain from an amputation. It was disorienting. As I went to visit the places from my memory, pictures in person − what was described as a childhood apartment and then my grandmother’s house − it seemed odd to me how nothing had changed from those pictures to twenty years later.”

“That fits doesn’t it, Lynx?” Thorn asked.

“With what the sailors said in their description of their experience?” Lynx asked. “Yes, I just got hold of an unredacted file from back in 2000 on that, and Arya’s experience sounds parallel.”

Fit? Obviously, there was data available. Later, when her head was quieter, Arya thought she’d ask to read it.

Lynx turned her focus back to Arya. “Others were part of a PTSD experiment that was conducted in 2000. The men reported the same sensations and confusions. It can be extremely disorienting – all of this can. I’d like to take a break from the information and check how you’re doing.”

“Science helps. Facts…” Arya took a few deep breaths. “The longer I felt feverish, the more things shifted for me. It was like a veil was being pulled back. When I saw the men, the Russian scientists, who pointed their guns at me and forced me into their car in Toulouse, I recognized them. There are other memories now. They’re coming back to me. Not – well it’s like a tide isn’t it. The water laps out then a wave brings it in. Each time, the water is just a bit higher on the shore.”

“When we get you back to the United States you will be given all the support you need. The professor hypothesizes, based on lookalike drugs, that all of your memories will return, good and bad. But you won’t be alone as you integrate them.”

Arya looked up until her gaze met Thorn’s.

“You have Thorn there with you,” Lynx said. “You can trust him. You can lean on him. He’s there for you.”

“Yes,” she said, and in that moment, she fully believed it. But she’d trusted others, and they had betrayed her.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Arya

Paris, France

Nighttime

“Hanging in there, Arya?” Thorn asked. “We can take a break.”

“No, we can’t,” she replied. “You need to understand what’s going on, right?”

“Yes,” Lynx said. “So we can make plans on how best to protect you. The better our picture, the better our plan.”

“Out of self-preservation, breaks aren’t a good idea.” She looked straight at Thorn. She really had become, since her hearing was damaged, very good at reading expressions. Thorn was conflicted.

“I think this is a balancing act,” he said. “We need the information, and we don’t want to push you too fast or too far.”

“No way to tell, though, is there?” She pulled her gaze away from Thorn’s to ask that of Lynx.

“Unfortunately, that’s correct.”

Arya turned back to him. “Better out than in, right Thorn?”

He shook his head. “In this instance, I don’t know. I think you’re going to have to be the one who sets the pace.”

“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. I’m not…there’s a lot. It’s not organized in my head. It’s kind of like a kaleidoscope.” Stress pulled at her forehead. A headache lurked in the wings ready to fill her head with a gonging cacophony. She thought her time for being helpful was probably short lived.

“I’m going to ask you about your relationship with a series of men. I don’t know all of their names. I have their photos. When I show them to you, if it causes you too much distress, you’ll tell me. Will you promise to do that?” Lynx asked.

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