Page 23 of Ghost Hunted
“I don’t… I don’t really know.” Lia blinks. “Everything’s a little cloudy in my head. I think I was staying with my mother. And my father came regularly. Every time he came, he injected me with Memoril. When he wasn’t able to come… that’s when my mom ran away with me.”
“How long ago was that?” asks Piper.
“I’m not… really sure.”
For Piper’s sake, I try to control the rage threatening to overwhelm me. “Stop fucking lying, Lia. Stop with the bullshit. You aren’t a helpless child. You’re a grown woman, and the least you can do is own the horrible person you are.”
I rest a hand on my holster, and her eyes follow my movement.
“I’m trying to remember, Logan,” she whispers. “I’m trying really hard.”
I force my eyes away from her. I just can’t look at her. It’s too fucking painful.
“Ignore him,” says Piper, still speaking in a fake bubbly voice. “What happened next?”
“Well, we came here. To this little cottage. We hid out for a while, but I was ill, very ill.” She pauses and licks her lips, as if hoping her words will make me pity her.
I don’t pity her. I’m glad she was ill. I really fucking hope she suffered.
When I don’t answer, she continues. “I had a lot of dreams… so many lucid dreams. Or at least, I thought they were dreams. I thought they must have been, but then I started to realize they weren’t…”
I swear to god, I’m going to shoot her. Or shoot myself, because I already know I can’t hurt her, but something needs to happen, because I’m pretty sure I’m running out of broken bones.
“Get to the point,” I grunt. “Or stop talking. One or the other, but do it fast.”
“Oh.” She lifts a shaky hand to her eyes. “Okay. Well, my father found us. He… killed my mother. He made me bury her.” She swallows audibly, and I can hear the tears in her voice. I rest my aching forehead against the glass window. “Then he prepared another injection, and that’s when I killed him. Stabbed him with a pair of scissors until he died.” She shudders. “It took a long time for him to die.”
“Mama!” Piper runs over to Lia. I watch her crouch beside her, wrapping her arms around her mother, her head falling into her lap.
It doesn’t make me as angry as it should. I try to access the anger that was boiling inside me just moments ago. It’s still there, but it’s lessened enough that I can wonder.
I really don’t want to fucking wonder. But somehow, I can’t help it.
“Tell me,” I begin, looking at Lia. “Why did you never contact me? In eighteen years, why did you never once try to contact me?”
I didn’t think it was possible to look more ghostly than she did, but now, any remaining color drains from her face. She blinks her watery eyes at me. “Please… don’t be mad at me. I mean… I know you already are. But please don’t… don’t…”
“He’s not going to kill you,” murmurs Piper, stroking her mother’s arm. “You’re okay, mama.”
The world has gone fucking upside down.
I merely shake my head, regretting having asked.
She probably won’t answer, anyway. There’s just no possible explanation for not contacting me once in eighteen years. It doesn’t matter if she was being held against her will. If she was in the hands of her abusive family, or kept in a somewhat confused state by the injections.
Nothing can explain it. Nothing can justify the fact that she didn’t once try to reach me. For eighteen years. Eighteen whole fucking years. She should have found a way, she shouldn’t have stopped trying until she found a way.
There’s a very long, heavy silence, and I’m just reaching the conclusion that she won’t answer when she suddenly blurts out, “I’m sorry, Logan. I had… I had forgotten you existed!”
6
Logan
Istare at her in dumbfounded silence. “How can you have forgotten?” I ask at last. “We spent a whole lifetime together. How is it possible you forgot?”
The anger is still there, but it’s edged with devastation now. It had never occurred to me she could have… forgotten.
Even when she was talking about the Memoril her father was injecting her with. I remember what Damien said about it—how it causes temporary amnesia. But he used the word temporary.
