Page 108 of Amnesia

“You’re gonna pay for that,” he intoned.

My head snapped up, anger filling me once more. “No,” I said. “You will.”

Lifting the scissors, I held out a chunk of hair and snipped it off. I watched the blond silk fall to the dirty, cold floor.

“No!” he bellowed and lunged forward. I scrambled back and cut some more. Again and again, I sliced into my long, perfect hair. The hair he coveted so much. Maybe now that it was hacked up and ugly, he’d have no use for me.

A few moments of him yelling and screaming went by, and then I was tackled. The scissors were ripped away. The sound of the metal slapping against the wall was like a shotgun.

“What have you done?” he roared, wrapping his hands around my throat, pushing so hard I thought my windpipe was going to collapse. I stared up at him, my eyes empty, all feeling gone.

I was happy. Happy for the first time in what felt like forever. The pain etched in his face at the loss of my beautiful hair was sweet.

“You should never have done that,” he spat, spittle flying into my face. His hands let go of my neck, my lungs automatically gasping for air. “Bad girls get reprimanded.”

“No!” I screamed, rolled over onto my belly, and clawed at the floor to get away.

He laughed, grabbed me by the ankle, and dragged me back. I swung my arm out. My fist caught him somewhere in the chest.

A sound of rage erupted all around me, and he dropped me onto the ground. Large, heavy boots stepped on my fingers, crushing them into the floor and pinning my arm out away from my body.

“I’m sorry,” I said, fear making me tremble.

He said nothing as he brought up the other booted foot and stomped down onto my arm just by the elbow.

The bone snapped with a sharp cracking sound, and pain made my vision go dark.

Screams echoed off the walls around me… and pain was my entire life…

I gasped, sagged against the wall, and fought to shove back the memory.

“No more,” I pleaded with myself. “No more.”

I gazed down at my arm, the one Dr. Beck warned had been broken and healed wrong. Now I knew how it had broken… and why.

The mess my hair was in when I woke up in the hospital, I’d done that to myself. I hacked up my own hair as a punishment for someone else.

But in the end, I paid the ultimate price.

Ache echoed through my arm as if it too remembered that day. With another gasp, I spun from the doorway and back to the mirror. I ripped at the braid, the one I’d just thought of as so beautiful. I couldn’t look at it anymore. I couldn’t take the chance it would remind me of something else.

Once the hair was smooth and tucked behind my ears, the tightness in my chest eased. I sucked in a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

“Whatever that was,” I whispered, looking at my reflection, “that was the past. Someone else. You’re safe now, and everything is fine.”

I repeated it several times, a mantra. Feeling a little steadier, I left the bathroom to go find Maggie. I didn’t want to be alone.

Yes, I was safe now… But for how long?

Loch Gen was busy, more so than usual. Part of it was because I was the only one working this morning because all our summer help went back to school. Also, because I’d been kind of neglecting the place, not putting in quite as much work as I used to. I was too wrapped up in Am and spending time with her.

And then there was Amnesia. People were curious about her so they were coming into the store, asking about her, looking for her… wanting to know if we knew for sure who she was.

When she actually started working here, business was going to be steady, at least until everyone got used to seeing her around and the memory of how she came to Lake Loch faded.

I worked out front most of the morning because I had to be accessible to customers. So mostly, I worked on stocking shelves and pulling up the schedule on a laptop at the front counter. It was actually good timing for Am to start here. I could use some daytime help.

The staff here was almost a skeleton crew in the winter because it was such a small town. During the summer, we usually hired high school students or college students home for the season. With Dad taking more time away from the business, I needed someone else to be here with me so I could work in the back or up in the loft when I needed to. There was a lot that went into running this place that required me to not be at the register all day.

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