Page 130 of Stolen Omega

“Your parents …” He trails off. “Do you remember what they looked like when you were a kid?”

“What they looked like?”

“Humor me. Your dad liked to take us to the mall in the city because he got free donuts at the cake place, and we all loved those weekends. Your mom would make these amazing s’mores on her stove whenever we were watching a movie. I’m sorry, I think I’m still hungry, but you get the idea.”

I can’t help the little snort of laughter that comes out. “You were always eating back then, too.”

“Yeah. Kind of because my mom was a bad cook. I’d eat anything else I could get my hands on.”

“I remember the weird spaghetti!”

“Oh my God, you remember that?”

We laugh, and I start to feel safe.

“But seriously, you have to at least remember those s’mores …”

The taste comes back first, and then the memory. My mom coming into the room with a plate full of them and setting them on the coffee table where we were lined up waiting. Dale was the first to grab one, and the first to need to go wash his hands and face.

I smiled at my mom, and she smiled back at me.

She had a big smile, warm eyes, and her hair was always up in a messy style of bun. Her clothes were well worn but pretty. It was obvious she wasn’t rich, but she was happy.

The memory fades away quickly as shivers rush over my body.

“My mom isn’t my mom,” I murmur.

Oh. My. God. My whole life is built on a fucking lie.

My legs give out from under me. I drop the unicorn, hearing it thud to the floor a second before I collapse fully and join it. Everything goes fuzzy, and the room fades into darkness.

I hear Dale’s sweet voice and feel his soft touch before the world fades to black.

“Zoey! Zoey, what happened?”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Zane

It feels weird to listen in to their conversation, but Dale was right. I needed to talk to her to know what she was able to remember. Clearly, some things had come back to her since she got here, but he’s the one who got her to remember our names.

He even made her laugh like he used to when we were kids.

The smile that puts on my face doesn’t last.

He pushes a little too far, moving on to talking about her parents, and she goes pale and drops to the floor, passing out cold.

Fuck! I drop the keys in my rush to get out of the observation room.

It takes me a couple tries to get the door open, and I scratch my side on the lock when I dart out of the room. I ignore the flash of pain as I rush to her side, dropping to my knees to check her over.

“Sorry,” Dale murmurs, his expression pained. “I don’t think she’s hurt, not really, but … I shouldn’t have asked about her parents.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

Which is entirely why it should have been me. I would have known to deflect when she started trying to piece things together. Her parents not being who she thought they were turns the life she knew into a lie.

It was the biggest bombshell we could have dropped, and any fallout it causes is on my shoulders.

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