Page 14 of The Red Rider
“Don’t ever mention Teletubbies again, or I swear, I’ll get Aeron to teach me this.”
I was so deadly serious about that that if the next words out of his mouth involved that show, I was getting up and walking out. Where was he even going with this? Dice just held up his hands like I was going to punch him in the face.
“Just hear me out, Ariel. You seem to get your memories back when people say certain things. You remember you saw that show, and it freaked you out. It’s a seemingly insignificant memory in the grand scheme of things, but you got it back. There might be some memory lost in your lizard brain that could help you beat him. Think about it. Why else would he have summoned Satan to take them? Isaiah isn’t stupid. He must have known it only would have been a matter of time before we found you. I’m sure he intended to get some sort of intel and moving you, but he would have known eventually, we would have found you.
“We have all his research. We know most of his crimes. There isn’t much about him that wedon’tknow except things that might have been said behind closed doors in front of a child. He could have asked you to do something or done something to you that helps us get close to him. Getting your memories back is important.”
“Aren’t I going to go insane if I remember all at once?”
“If you try to force it. We’re just having a conversation and seeing if it jogs anything loose.”
“About Teletubbies!”
“I believe it was you that said not to bring that up again. I just kept you talking about it to see if you could remember anything else about that day?”
“So, there was some sort of method to your Teletubby madness?”
Dice just smirked at me.
“Ialwayshave a plan. It just takes other people time to recognize my genius.”
“Like stealing every single remaining bomb in the world and making a bomb toy chest?”
“I do love my explosives, but the alternative was waiting until they ran out and that involved dropping them on innocent people, and your father was going to make damned sure the war didn’t end until it absolutely had to.”
“True.”
“And we needed them because Leif was planning mass delivery with aerosol. I just need to neuter the total mass destruction aspect.”
“It’s a bomb, not a golden retriever!”
“You’re so focused on my bombs when you need to be worrying about remembering.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was a cure-all for Satan induced memory loss, and everyone has been telling me remembering too much is dangerous.”
“That’s why we’re just having a chat. Now, first love. Go.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to get attached that way until I met Leif and Aeron. You might not have noticed, but kids tend to have trust issues when their father is the Antichrist and experiments on them.”
“Then Aeron and Leif are lucky angels. Fair enough. What’s your earliest happy memory?”
“I already know that. I remembered it with Leif. It was my first Christmas with Miss Mabel.”
“Do you remember Christmas with Isaiah?”
“He didn’t celebrate holidays. He’d throw big parties for his birthday, but it was always to network with senators and people in business. They never allowed me to attend, but sometimes, I would sneak out and watch. He would always pitch a fit if there were a politician he wanted in his pocket, and they declined his invitation.”
“He was only able to get that supplement in the water because of his government connections.”
I had a flash of one of his parties and got excited because it didn’t seem to make any sense.
“He also wanted clergy at his parties. He never talked to me about the importance of believing, but the only time he ever went to church was when he wanted another pastor or bishop in his back pocket. He pretended to be so many different religions. He’d be Catholic one week, and Baptist the next. There was this Rabbi he wanted. He called Isaiah agonifand banned him from his synagogue. Isaiah pitched this huge fit about that.
“He threw me in my padded room and demanded I draw something big. He left me in there for a week because he didn’t like what I was drawing. He eventually let me out because he was excited about this pastor that just got elected to Congress, but I never found out what the big deal about that particular conquest was.”
“I can tell you.”
Right then, my vision started getting hazy, and my hand felt itchy. This wasnotthe time for my Harbinger side to come out and play. I had a feeling that particular politician was important because it excited my father when he got elected. He left me alone for an entire month because he was making phone calls trying to get an introduction.
