Page 40 of Aftermath
She was gone.
I woke, sitting up straight, and grabbed for my phone.
My heart was racing, and my skin had a cold sweat coating it. The phone trembled in my hands as I swiped a finger over the screen to turn it on. The time flashed on the screen: 3:00 in the morning.
I put it down and laid back in the bed.
If I couldn’t get a grasp on these nightmares, I was going to slowly drive myself back toward that dark place.
It was the reason I’d drowned myself in alcohol and drugs those three months after her death. Only the haze they left me in drove away the memories, and now, they were all coming back again.
I sighed as I pulled the covers tight and tried to close my eyes. I knew it was useless; my mind would never settle now.
I stayed that way the rest of the night, eyes closed but refusing to allow myself fully back to sleep.
8
LENNY
He knew.
He knew, and I ran.
I ran until my legs ached, and I found myself miles down the stretch of beach I frequented when I could. This time, the sand and waves were a blur. My mind raced, every horrible thing I feared plaguing me, and I couldn’t stop it.
He knew, and now everyone would know.
I was the coward who ran. The Jane Doe who snuck out of the hospital before they could even identify her. I’d been mutilated and left to die, and by some stroke of luck, I’d survived.
I’d been unconscious for weeks, my body recovering. When I woke, the wounds were healed, but the scars remained.
Weeks, and no one had come for me.
The nurses said the FBI had taken extreme cautions. No one knew who I was, and they kept my appearance away from the press. There wasn’t any trace of my identity for them to contact my family. They kept the hospital I’d been taken to completely secret, afraid the killer might seek me out.
I was practically a ghost.
I feigned not remembering anything. What happened, my name, who attacked me, all gone like distant memories, but that was never true. I knew, but I couldn’t stand the idea of reliving it all. I didn’t want to become the whole focus of the investigation.
I knew he would never forgive me if I did.
So, I pretended I couldn’t remember when I woke, just long enough to heal a little more and leave. They never found my wallet or anything about my identity, the killer taking those things.
The nurses were patient and understanding.
Shock.
That was what they said it was, assured me it would come back. I just needed rest. I didn’t want it to come back. It was already there, and I would’ve done anything to forget.
All but one nurse, one who was the entire reason I was able to make it out before anyone knew who I was. She showed me a kindness I could never repay. I’d lost everything and was about to be thrust into the middle of an investigation and the spotlight.
She saw that and took mercy on me.
I bent down and picked up a pebble from the rocky shore, throwing it as far as I could into the ocean. Amidst the waves, it barely made a splash. That was exactly how I felt—in an ocean of people and cases, my story barely mattered.
Right?
I’d seen Agent Beck’s face. He’d been adamant I was the key to solving this. If he knew what I knew, he wouldn’t think so. I was a coward, and I hid from the truth. Even though I remembered, I never let myself fully remember.
