Page 115 of Stolen Omega

Eventually, I find a snow globe with three little kids inside it building a snowman.

Two boys and a girl. It makes my heart hurt, and I don’t know why.

“Doesn’t matter, Zey,” I murmur, as I feel the weight of it in my hand.

It’s heavy enough to use as a weapon in a pinch.

I set it by the side of the bed, and I keep looking.

There’s got to be something better.

I just need to find it.

Chapter Forty-Two

Zane

Watching Zoey go through her room doesn’t feel the same this morning as it did last night.

She was happy then, remembering something every time she picked things up.

I could see it in her face. Her memories were slowly coming back.

Now, after she was in the kitchen and went back to her room, she looks pissed off.

I don’t know what she’s looking for, but she doesn’t seem to be finding it.

“Fuck,” I mutter, wondering what I did wrong.

I screwed up somewhere, or else the advice I got to undo the brainwashing Warren Corvina did to her was not as good as I thought it was. I got second and third opinions on that before I started setting this up, and every professional had the same advice.

To provide her with familiar things to help her memory wake up on its own.

Maybe the room was too much all at once.

Maybe the kitchen was a mistake.

She didn’t eat the sandwich.

I wasn’t sure she would, but it might have helped.

My mother makes the best sandwiches, and I made it exactly the same way with the same ingredients.

I’ll try cookies this morning. Chocolate chip and Skittles. She’s bound to remember those.

I get up and bring the tin of cookies along the hall to the kitchen, then I turn off the recording I made on a Dictaphone when I was a kid. I always had that Dictaphone on me, and the tapes were the only thing I ever spent money on. I was obsessed with capturing Zoey’s singing voice, so I could listen to her any time I wanted.

That morning with her and my mom wasn’t about trying to catch her singing. I hid when I heard her come to the door for me, knowing my mom would offer to make her something eat while she waited for me to appear. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

I’d waited until Zoey finished the sandwich to walk into the room, because I knew she skipped lunch on Saturdays when her mom worked later, and I wanted to make sure she ate the whole thing, which she did, but only because I didn’t show up and steal her attention until after.

It felt like a special moment to me, at the time, but maybe it wasn’t really anything to her.

I don’t know. I can only try as many different ways as possible.

She needs to remember us before I speak to her.

It’s the quick way to push her memories to come back.

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