Page 71 of Bad Moon Rising
Nova watched herself appear on screen. Surreal to see someone who looked exactly like her and to accept it was herself. She had her hair secured into a tight ponytail and wore a black turtleneck with no jewelry.
The Nova on screen said, “Listen closely. You get one chance to hear this. At this point, I know you want answers, but I can only say so much for fear someone might find your flash drive before you. Peter knows nothing more. Forget him. He was a means to an end. To the one who helped get you here, thank you. I know it’s been confusing, but you were chosen because of who you are. The fact you’re here means I chose wisely. All of you must to stick together. Did I do the things they say? Probably. Did I want to? No. They made me. I don’t remember doing them. Nova, it’s important you don’t try to remember your past. It’s imperative your mind remain blank. I can imagine how scary that is. The world needs for you to not remember. I took the drug on purpose. It was a last resort…the only way. I need for you to be okay with not getting your memory back and starting a new life. But you must figure out why I had to erase my memories…our past. The lives of many depend on it. How you find out is to figure out what happened to the one of you who’s missing. And, Nova…” She leaned forward. Her forehead crinkled. “Gloves help. Can’t say it’s the most useful of talents, but sometimes it is.” She paused for a few seconds of silence. “This file will self-destruct as soon as it’s done playing.”
The screen wobbled and a male voice mumbled, “Turning it off now.”
All three of them sat in silence until Roman said, “Play it again.”
“It won’t play.” Flynn pulled the laptop close and typed rapidly. “It’s corrupted. The file’s gone. I can’t get it back.” He typed wildly. “Damn it.”
Roman leaned back and released a frustrated sigh. He covered his face with a palm and then ran the hand over across his forehead slowly.
“She’s talking about Ky, isn’t she? The one who’s missing?” Flynn said. “Or maybe it’s Shane because how would she know when she recorded this that Ky would go missing unless she knew where he was going and what he was doing? Or someone helping her had precognition…like… Like Shane got sometimes.”
“Who recorded it?” Roman asked. “That wasn’t Ky’s voice. I think it might’ve been…”
“It’s simply inconceivable.” Flynn’s voice cracked on the last word. “It can’t be.”
“Who was on the other side of the camera? Do you think I had someone in my life?” After a swallow and tug of air to inflate her lungs, she clasped Roman’s hand so hard, her knuckles turned white. “Do you think…could there be someone I was involved with?”
Roman let go of her hand to lean forward with his elbows on his knees and cradled his head. He thrust both hands into his hair. “I don’t know.” He released his hair and stared around her to look at Flynn. “How couldshehave Shane’s lighter? It’s simply not possible unless…” His voice cracked. “He survived. That sounded like him.” Roman reached across her lap and gripped his brother’s forearm. “If that was Shane for real, then he escaped it. He’s free of it. If he was alive and not free of it, he’d have had to return when all of us last got recalled a few months ago.”
She might belong to someone else. To Roman’s own brother, Shane. Had she been unfaithful to someone to whom she’d made promises? Self-loathing settled into a dull thudding inside her head. There couldn’t be a lycan who wasn’t Roman that she’d loved to the depths of her soul. She’d remember him.
She didn’t love Roman. This was lust.
Oh no, she might love him.
Impossible. She trusted him, yes. And, what happened in bed blew her mind.
This was about great sex, chemistry, and a modified version of Stockholm syndrome. Right?
She swallowed bile rising in her throat. There couldn’t be someone else she had a relationship with.Thatshe would’ve told herself in a video. If she was going to erase her memories, she’d have been sure there was no one who would remember her that remained important in her life.
Then who filmed the video?
She panted through head pain and pushed to remember.Come on.Something had to flicker in there. Was there someone else? She massaged her temples as pain crackled through her skull. She shouldn’t be pushing, but she wanted to remember at least this. To know if she’d had someone.
Tightness compressed her chest. She replayed the male voice behind the camera in her head over and over. Nothing about the baritone triggered a memory or even a visceral reaction. Instead, all she thought of was last night with Roman, the two of them taking each other to highs until neither of them could move from being so blissed out. The way he kept looking at her as if he wished for so much more than he could give her was burned into her mind.
Nothing from the past came to her. And it never would.
Say it—that you’re never going to remember.
I can’t.
I’m too much of a coward to face a future without knowing what happened before.
In the video, she’d told herself not to try to remember. To be okay with not remembering. Wouldn’t that have been the moment to reveal she had someone or a family? But if she was trying to forget her past, someone who knew her intimately would be able to fill in the blanks and run the risk of pushing her to remember.
Meeting that someone who might’ve been special to her before she erased her mind terrified her, and not because she might remember him. Because she might like him more than Roman.
The world needs for you not to remember.
She wasn’t the kind of person to accept failure, even if there was little she could do to resurrect the memories that had been deleted.
“There might be a way out?” Flynn took a few shaky breaths. His words snapped her out of her identity crisis. He said, “I’d do anything to be free, Roman. Any. Fucking. Thing.” He glanced heavenward and then at Roman. “You said this was so much bigger than her. That she was important. I questioned you, but damn it, you’ve never been wrong. I’m a believer in your weird as shit, dead-on correct gut feelings.”
“What did she mean by gloves?” Roman’s eyes narrowed as they settled on her. “Care to clear that one up, Nova?”
