Page 125 of Stolen Omega

He never gave up hope. Not for one second.

He kept looking, and he actually found her.

“True mates always end up together, Dale. I wish things could have been less painful to get here, but we’re here now.”

He hugs me close while I try to get the whirlwind of emotions inside me under control. His reassurance helps, and his touch.

I’m in shock, I guess. I never let myself believe he might be right.

I kept telling myself it was a delusion. It had to be.

Kidnapped girls never show back up again as popstars.

Then again, Zoey was always one in a million.

She had to be, to fit so well with us both.

Moving back, I wipe at the dampness under my eyes.

“I need to see her. Where is she?”

He presses his lips together. I don’t understand the hesitation in his expression.

“What is it? Isn’t she awake?”

“I did a bunch of research into amnesia and brainwashing, since Zoey doesn’t remember her past. We need to be careful about how we help her remember things. That’s why we couldn’t just stop the van and talk to her.”

“What do you mean? How do we help her if it’s not by talking to her?”

“There’s this thing called confirmation bias. If we try to just tell Zelena about all of this, she’ll assume we’re crazy because she has no idea she had another life before she became Zelena. She’ll make decisions based on what she knows, and she’ll refuse to believe what we’re telling her.”

That’s fucking horrifying. “That’s why you brought us out here.”

“I needed to find a place where I could give her time to remember on her own.”

“How exactly is that going to happen? If we can’t tell her …”

“The advice I got from experts all amounted to the same thing. Introducing familiar things until she starts to remember on her own is the best possible way to help her get her memories back.” He sighs deeply. “The kidnapping was part of that. I wanted her to remember the original kidnapping. I think … It looked like she was remembering something, before I had to sedate her.”

“Wait. You said we shouldn’t talk to her, but you let her see you?”

He shakes his head. “I put on a mask before I let her out of the box. She ran, and when I caught her, she was afraid. She said something before she passed out. Asked me why I was doing this again.”

“Oh my God,” I murmur. “You had to do that?”

That poor woman. I might be able to live with what Zane did to get me out here with him, but I can’t help worrying that no matter what Zelena remembers, the girl we only knew for a few years back when we were kids might not be quite so forgiving.

“I’m not proud of it, but I knew it could help.”

“Sounds like it did.”

I guess. If the point was to traumatize her, it definitely worked for that.

“I think she’s starting to remember more, Dale,” he says. “When she woke up, she was completely absorbed with touching everything in her room. I swear, she looked happy.”

He motions to the monitors, and I turn around, finding the monitor that shows a perfect copy of Zoey’s childhood bedroom. It’s completely trashed. The drawers are all out of the dresser and everything that was in them is littering the floor. I can barely make out the carpet under the mess.

“That’s what you call happy?” I ask him.

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