Archetype (19 page)

W
-why?” I step away now. “Why him?”

Declan’s hand falls heavily to his side. “You don’t have to be scared, Emma. He’s not going to hurt you. I would never let anything happen to you. You know that.”

I shake my head. Step back once more and hit the frame of the bedroom door. “I do not know anything of the sort.”

That isn’t exactly playing along,
She says.
Think about what you’re doing. He doesn’t know what you know. Stop reacting and just think.

“Dr. Travista will run tests,” I add hurriedly. “You know how I feel about his tests.”

He turns and presses his palms into the island countertop, leaning in, head bent forward. “You don’t understand, Emma.”

“So explain it to me. What are you so afraid of?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says and pushes off the counter. “After today, you won’t remember any of this.”

I slide to the right, my mind’s eye on the sliding glass door and the world outside. I do not know where I can go, but away sounds good enough to me. “What do you mean, I will not remember? What will he do?”

“Erase the memory, and if there are any others, you may as well tell me now. Arthur already suspects you remember a lot more than you’re letting on. He’s wanted to get his hands on you since before the opening.”

Goddamn seagulls,
She says.

“I will not let you do this to me,” I tell him.

Declan steps cautiously forward. “Do you think I
want
to do this? Emma, I spent many nights lying awake praying this day wouldn’t come.”

I slide over again. “It is only one memory and I have not run from you. I still love you despite it. I would never hurt you, Declan. Please. Do not let him do this to me.” My fingers graze the corner leading back into the dining room. “Can you not just love me as I am?”

Something in these words causes pain to glance across his face. “It’s too dangerous. I love you too much to risk it.”

Go.

I twist around and run. He is ready for this, though, and crashes into me. His momentum drives me into the edge of the table, which slams into my stomach, forcing the air from my lungs. My arms fly out and strike the glass centerpiece of flowers. The vase rocks over the other side and the glass shatters, sending hundreds of clear glass marbles skittering across the floor.

Declan flips me over and pins my wrists to the table. His face is bright red and his hair has loosened, hanging between us like a jagged curtain. Veins pulse around his eyes.

“You are hurting me,” I say, wincing as the table’s edge digs into my lower back. The tips of my toes barely find leverage grazing the ground.

He yanks me up and throws me over his shoulder. The movement makes me dizzy enough that it takes until we are halfway to the teleporter to begin kicking and pounding on his back.

I pitch over his shoulder and fall awkwardly thanks to the viselike arm around my legs. He loses his grip trying to catch me. I thump to the floor, elbows knocking, and jam my left shoulder, sending bolts of pain through my arm and up my neck. Still, I scramble away from him.

His arm hooks around my waist and hoists me up so fast my legs fly up, kicking at nothing but air. I clutch his wrists and dig my nails into his skin.

“Stop fighting me,” he says tightly. His other arm clamps around my chest, pinning my arms. “It won’t do you any good.”

“You bastard. Let me go!”

“If I could let you go, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

We reach the teleporter and I kick my feet up to brace against the glass opening. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I never would have let my father force me into this marriage if I didn’t want you the moment I saw you. It
means
I never would have spent the last eight years keeping one ear to the ground for some sign that you were still out there.” He rears us back and I lose my footing on the glass. He is fast and forces us inside the teleporter.

Declan drops me to my feet and spins me around the second the door closes us inside. His eyes have glazed over and look hard into mine. “It means I fucking fell in love with you, Emma, and I’m not giving you up. You’re
mine.
” He rockets a rattling punch into the wall behind me and I flinch. “I can’t risk you remembering your past. I won’t.”

He is keying in the port number by the time I get over my shock. He really loves me? “Why can you not just trust me to—”

The scent of spearmint fills the space and paralyzes my vocal cords. The world around us melts into the transporter room at the hospital.

And orderlies standing next to a stretcher.

I cannot think to finish the sentence I began. I can only struggle again. Only this time Declan has assistance. Strong hands grapple for my flailing limbs and heft me onto the stretcher, their fingers digging, bruising deep into my flesh. Half the men restrain me while the other half work to strap me down. The white braces pinch my skin as I continue to buck and wrench and shove and thrust. I know it is useless but I cannot give up.

All hands rise from me at once and all eyes watch my futile struggle. Declan pushes his hair away from his face, his chest expanding with a deep intake of breath. He will not look me in the eyes, instead choosing to focus on my bound chest and wrists. Legs and ankles.

Defeated, tears stream from my eyes. I have to blink them away when he finally looks at me. I want to see the sea in his eyes turn into a storm when I say my next words.

“You know what is sad?”

He shakes his head, brows furrowed.

“No matter how this turns out, no matter how much we think we love each other, we will always live a lie. Never the real thing. What makes it truly sad is that I loved you regardless of the lies. I will never make that mistake again.”

 • • • 

White lights blind me and I cannot move my head to shield my eyes. Randall and his sour face ignore me as he inclines my bed a few inches. Other nurses work around him in silence. One stabs a needle into the crook of my elbow. Another drapes a sheet over me, wafting cool air up to my face. Another removes the top from the bed and places my head in cool metal stirrups. Randall starts strategically placing electrodes on me.

We aren’t giving up,
She says.

I want to laugh.
If you see an alternative way of escaping this, I would love to hear it.

Just don’t let go.

You make it sound so easy.

I’m still here, aren’t I?

Dr. Travista moves to the right side of my bed and eyes me over the rim of his glasses. “I am sorry about this, Emma, really I am.”

I laugh, a low chuckle in the back of my throat. “We can stop the lies, Travista. Just this once, do me the courtesy of being truthful.”

He nods once and a smile quirks over his lips. “Okay.”

“How many times have you done this to me?” I cannot help but wonder if this is not the first.

“One other time. A full memory wipe.”

“After my supposed accident?”

He twists to lean a hip into the bed frame and folds his arms. “I wouldn’t call it ‘supposed,’ but ‘accident’ might be the wrong word.”

“Because I was shot,” I say.

His eyes widen a fraction. “Yes, that’s right. So you do remember more than you’re letting on.”

“Do not get excited. I only remembered today.”

He nods. “I’m surprised you stuck around, but then again, knowing who you really are, I guess I’m not.”

“And who am I?” My heart drums as I wait for the answer to this long-wondered question.

“You are a girl who got herself mixed up with the wrong people. They nearly got you killed. Luckily for you, you ended up nearly dead on my doorstep. I saved your life.”

“What do you mean
your
doorstep? I was in a WTC.”

He nods. “Who do you think owns that WTC?”

The pieces fall together suddenly. The newspaper headline about the attack on Burke Enterprises. Declan’s reaction when I asked about it. He said it happened around the time of my “accident” and was not upset because it changed his life. He even smiled.

“Declan,” I whisper.

“Yes, and he found you dying, tucked away in some office. Carried you to me himself.”

“And then what? You worked some magic to make me brand-new?”

He laughs. “In a manner of speaking.”

“What—”

He does not let me finish. Instead, he turns and strolls away, leaving the busywork to his nurses and orderlies. They work feverishly around me, preparing the final stages.

Near my head, one of the nurses, one I have never seen before, leans to fiddle with some controls on a station with a lot of wires and buttons and screens. The silver contraption is very close to my ear. He stares at it, seemingly bewildered over something or other, and begins tapping his middle finger against the side.

On some subconscious level, my mind listens to the series of taps, the swiftly moving uneven beats of them, and I make out the letters. Then words.

Morse code.

It is a message.
I will figure this out. Promise. Noah.

 • • • 

The room—dark around the edges of the spotlight over me—is practically empty now. I do not care one way or the other. I am numb to it all. Numb to the reminders to
stay very still, Emma. If you move, Emma . . . It will be over before you know it, Emma. I am sorry, Emma.

I am reminded of the day She warned me not to talk about my dreams. Dr. Travista asks me to think of things I love and enjoy and dislike and hate and what makes me sad. . . . I focus on nothing. Say nothing. I will not help them wipe my mind clean of who I am as if I need a good dusting.

I close my eyes and picture a perfectly square, white room with so much light I cannot see the corners. I cannot tell the floor from the walls from the ceiling. It is only white space. I put myself there, feel the flat surface under my feet, imagine the temperature is neutral. Warm would give Dr. Travista something to work with. Cold would, too. I take even breaths, relax every muscle. Concentrate on nothing but my white space.

Dr. Travista’s voice filters into my white room as if through a loudspeaker. “She isn’t cooperating.”

“I hope you aren’t suggesting we start over,” Declan says.

“No. Not yet, at least. Let me try something else.”

Sparks, like flashes of electricity, flicker in my white room. They come from random places on my walls and ceiling and floor. Sizzles of charge break up the silence and ozone wafts across my nose a moment later. The neutral temperature swiftly rises to an unbearable heat. But I will not let it faze me. This is my space. He cannot touch me here.

“Emma,” Declan says, and his voice sounds very close to me. “Listen to Arthur. You don’t want to start over, do you? End up like Ruby? Like a child?

“Spring is coming,” he adds in a coaxing tone. “You don’t want to miss the spring. The colors of foliage outside the house in the spring are beautiful. I can’t wait for you to see it. Think of the paintings. If we start over, by the time you even remember how to paint again, it’ll be summer and hot and the colors will be gone. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can cooperate and be home tomorrow. Painting. Going on with life as if you didn’t miss a beat.”

He does not know me if he believes the hint of spring will bring me out of my white room. Promise me sand and brine on the wind and the deafening crash of waves and the scream of seagulls.

“Nice room,” She says.

I turn slowly and look directly into the eyes of . . .

Myself.

S
he is definitely me, only different. She wears worn dark jeans with tattered knees and cuffs. The long-sleeve black top fits to Her torso, with a wide neck baring Her collarbone and a single shoulder. She stands with a cocked hip and hands tucked jauntily into Her back pockets.

She tilts Her head, and long dark hair slides off Her shoulder in a silk curtain. One corner of Her full lips angles up. “Could use a little color, though.”

I saunter forward, ignoring the jibe on my white space. “You are me. This whole time.”

She nods. “Of course I am. Who else would know so much about your life?”

“If that were true, why can I not remember everything? Why hide so much?”

“You’re the one with the memory filter. Not me.” She talks in a half smile, flashing a small dimple, and I understand the allure She has. How She can easily fool some misguided man into believing She is as harmless as they come.

All around us, the flashes of sparking electricity continue, but She does not flinch or avert Her attention to them. Her sole focus is on me. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“To fight, of course.”

“I still do not know what I am fighting for.”

She pulls Her hands out of her pockets, and the moment they are in front of Her, a computer tablet appears. Her fingers play over the screen until, at last, She swipes over the top and an image flies onto the wall to my left.

“Noah,” She says and smiles.

 • • • 

The children whimpered so loud, not even the explosions outside would hide us if a WTC guard happened to be nearby. My entire body vibrated with fear and adrenaline, and it took everything I had not to yell at them to be quiet. The rifle I carried felt awkward and heavy in my sweaty palms.

I’d managed—with the help of some other senior girls—to get rid of the guards, who had thinned since the attack on the compound started, but now I was alone. We’d split off to get the younger girls from their rooms, leaving me with every girl between the ages of five and eight.

We made our way to the side entrance unhindered before we came across a large group of men in black. The uniform covered every part of them except their faces, and their expressions registered surprise when we rounded the corner. I bit back a cry of relief when they came into view.

The resistance fighters.

I had not realized how coiled tight I was until that very moment.

The men began leading my large group out and I followed. One of the girls closest to me started sobbing, and as I turned to go to her, I found her already being swept up in a man’s arms. She was much too big for him to cradle the way he did, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Everything’s okay,” he whispered to her. “Promise.”

I had never seen a man show such kindness, and it brought me to a standstill. He stroked a gloved hand over the back of her head and whispered more assurances in her ear. Soft dark-blond waves escaped the bottom of his black beanie, and his jaw and neck needed a good shave.

He shifted to turn and walk out with her but caught me staring from the corner of his eye. He barely turned his head to look and did a double take. He had the most beautiful amber eyes; they literally stole my breath away. He was older by several years, midtwenties, I thought. Handsome in a rugged way, not like Declan and his too clean-cut prep-boy way.

Thinking of Declan made the fresh brand on my hand burn lava hot. A fresh wave of images flashed through my mind of the hours-old arranged marriage and topped it off with an additional twist in my gut.

The man cleared his throat after several unsteady heartbeats. “Hey.”

I forced the images away, approached him, and held out my gun. “Switch with me?” I motioned for the girl he carried.

He grinned. “No, I’m good. You?” He shifted his steady gaze to the gun and back, his smile never faltering.

I returned his grin. “I guess.”

“I’m Noah.”

“Emma.”

“Very nice to meet you, Emma.”

 • • • 

I stand back in my white space and She smirks at me. Sparks sizzle over us and tiny yellow lights rain down like fireworks.

“It is getting worse,” I say, eyeing the room a little more closely. It is like tiny bulbs shattering and spraying light everywhere.

She takes a step closer, the consummate tilted grin faltering as She looks around. “Time is running out. On to the next.” She swipes Her finger across the touch screen and a new image floods the wall.

 • • • 

I stretched out in a comfortable bed with pristine white sheets and a tan comforter. Sun blazed through windows with the curtains drawn to the side. According to the vid screen hanging over a small dresser, the boxy-looking love seat, and the dark brown desk and chair, the room was nothing more than a small hotel room.

I squinted against the sun and sighed dreamily. The bed was too warm to get out of and I contemplated staying in it all day. My plans ended when a knock sounded on my door.

With a groan, I rolled out of bed and threw on a thin robe. I peered through the peephole and saw Noah running his hands over the top of his head, mussing his hair. I bit my lip to choke back a laugh.

“What do you want?” I asked a moment later, affecting an aggravated tone.

He tilted his head at the door as if he could see me and grinned. “Open the door, Emma.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“Well, get dressed. I’ll wait.”

Butterflies flapped against my stomach and I ran into the bathroom to clean up. Once done, I tightened the robe over my pajamas and pulled open the door. “Yes?”

He pushed by me and I got the impression he’d had far too much coffee already. He was jittery and twisting his hands together, which was unlike him. Normally I found him to be the most collected, level-headed person I knew.

I opened my mouth to ask him if he was all right when he spoke over me. “We’ve known each other for what? A year?”

I laughed. “Two.”

He blinked. “Really? Has it been that long?”

“Yes.”

His lips pinched together and he sucked in a deep breath. “I woke up this morning and realized I can’t let you go on this raid without—”

He stopped and a flush crawled up his neck. He took another deep breath and mussed his hair. He was so damn cute. I wished he’d just kiss me already. I’d do it, but I liked watching him squirm.

I folded my arms. “What is with you this morning? Did you get me out of bed just so I could watch your coffee jitters, because I can find Foster for that any damn morning beginning at six
A.M.
”

He scowled. “What do you see in that guy?”

“He’s my friend, and what gives you the right to act like a jealous boyfriend every time I bring him up?”

His eyes widened. “This might come as a shock to you—or maybe not; you’re pretty perceptive—but I”—he stopped and laughed—“can’t say this. You turn me into such a fucking idiot.”

“Noah Tucker, you really are an idiot,” I said, grinning.

I took his hands and placed them on my waist, then slid mine up his chest. I looked up into his eyes. A slow smile lengthened across his recently shaven face.

“Just show me,” I said.

He lost all hesitation and kissed me in such a way that sent me stumbling back two steps. His hands left my waist and cupped my face. When he pulled away, it was with a sigh that sounded mostly of relief, and his nose circled mine gently.

He smiled. “I think I love you.”

My heart danced. “I think I love you, too.”

 • • • 

The white room returns and I am startled to find the sparks of electricity have increased in speed and intensity. The once still air swirls around us, lifting Her hair. Between the sparks and increasing wind gusts, She has to raise Her voice to speak to me.

“I thought that was the happiest day of my life,” She says.

“You thought?”

She nods, then swipes another image onto the screen. When She looks at me, there is a gleam to Her hazel eyes. “One thing you have to remember about Noah: He’ll never cease to surprise you.”

 • • • 

Noah and I stood in the command center, covered in dirt and blood, surrounded by our exhausted team. Noah was angry, but so was I. The team watched in silence, waiting for our cooler sides to return before celebrating our recent victory.

“You”—he pointed a finger in my face—“are getting too reckless.”

I swiped at his hand. “So it’s okay for you to risk your life but not me?”

Foster sat forward in a chair nearby. “She did save my life. And she didn’t even get a scratch.”

Noah and I turned a glare on him at the same time. I said, “Stay out of this, Foster,” at the same moment Noah said, “Stay out of this, Birmingham.”

Noah turned his intense eyes on me and lowered his tone. “My goddamn life flashed before my eyes today—”

“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

“—and I realized something.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh God, what? Am I too petite? Fragile? Feminine? What?”

He raised his eyebrows, daring me to continue, warning me that if I did, he might seriously hurt me, then said, “I realized that I’m wasting precious time. Marry me.”

Foster jumped straight up, fist in the air, and whooped. High-fived a few people surrounding him.

I choked on pure oxygen. “What?”

“You heard me.”

The entire room held their breath while I blinked in surprise. I didn’t have to think about the answer. I’d been dreaming of this moment for more than two years. What caught me up was the fact that he was doing it in the middle of an argument. In front of
everybody.

I narrowed my eyes. “First of all, where’s your sense of romance, you jerk? Second . . .” I took a deep breath and let the moment last as long as possible. He deserved it. “Yes.”

 • • • 

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, laughing. “You aren’t claiming my work. An original by Emma and Emma alone.”

“You know,” Noah said thoughtfully, “I would buy this original by Emma and Emma alone. I particularly like the colors you chose for the sunset.”

I stood and whirled around on him. I pushed my palms against his chest, and as he and the stool went toppling into the sand, he grabbed my forearms and took me with him. He rolled us until I lay on my back and buried his chin in my neck.

I threaded my fingers into his hair. “The hearts were a good idea. I like them.”

He pulled away and grinned his most devilish smile. Laugh lines fanned out from his eyes. “So does that mean I get to take the credit?”

I gripped his hair in my fists. “It means I like them. And from now on, when I paint them into a painting, you’ll know it’s only for you. Like a secret handshake, only it’s like a secret kiss or a declaration of love or something altogether corny and disgusting.”

“A reminder of the time we made love on the beach,” he added and grinned.

“We haven’t done that.”

“We’re about to,” he said, his voice turning husky.

 • • • 

The screen goes blank in my white room. It is only me and Her among the sparks. We do not stand steady. The room grows unstable. The gusts of wind threaten to take us off our feet. The electricity is a constant crackling and flaring of light. My room groans from the pressure, and I think it might soon break.

All amusement is gone from Her face. She reaches out a hand for me. “Hold on to me, Emma.”

I reach out and grip Her forearm, and She grasps mine in return. The room shakes and begins to rock violently. We reach for the other’s second arm at the same moment. As one tear slides down Her left cheek, one slides down my right.

“Do not leave me,” I say, and my voice is lost in the noise of the room I have created around us.

“Just hold on,” She yells over the thundering electricity and wind gusts. “Remember everything. It’s too important to forget. And it’s only the beginning. There’s so much more.”

A gust of wind turns us weightless for the length of a heartbeat. With my feet firmly on the ground, my stomach slams back home. I swallow against a dry throat. “What if I cannot remember? What then?”

“Fight to remember, Emma. Hold on to me. To Noah. Fight.” The wind picks Her up and pulls Her toward the white space that is my walls with no visible edges. Just nothingness. “Hold on!”

I tighten my grip. She slips and we grasp hands. I grit my teeth.

She is slipping.

“No!”