Distorted Affliction

Chapter Eight

"When Lucas called me, he asked me if I remembered the place we used to live," I explained as we barreled down the highway towards the city. "I said yes, thinking that he meant the place on the lake, but I realize now that he was testing my memory. He made me forget our house in Bozeman, and I would only know to find him there if my memories came back."

"Do you really think he'll be there?" Sin asked, glancing at me for a moment before returning his focus to the road ahead of us. I took a deep breath, trying to decode how I felt about everything at that very second, though I wasn't having much luck. There were a million questions running through my mind, but I only allowed myself to focus on finding Lucas first.

"I have to believe that he's there," I whispered, averting my gaze to the view outside the window. "Or that he at least left behind a clue on how to find him when we get there."

There was silence that swallowed us as he drove, and I allowed myself to ponder on the situation that had resurfaced in my memory. Lucas had known Sin, and had even advocated for him when I felt confused on how to handle leaving town. It crossed my mind that they could have been friends, though he wouldn't have pressured me to handle what it had seemed like Lucas was infering was a breakup.

I could have asked Sin, who was sitting in silence next to me, though I couldn't exactly find the words to strike up that conversation. Would he even be honest with me? He had given me answers already, but I didn't feel prepared to dive into that drama just yet.

Pain seized my head once again, and I cried out before it went away and I was sucked into another forgotten memory.

"That's it?" Sin's voice was low, but I could hear the undertones of anger hiding behind his calm demeanor. "You were just planning on leaving without saying anything?"

"I don't know," I whispered honestly, throwing my hands up in frustration. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Sin. Lucas wants to move out of the city, he wants to be someplace safe when the baby is born, and I'm not exactly in the position to argue with him."

"That's bullshit," he spat, turning away from me for a moment before shaking his head and facing me again, his eyes red with anger. "You're a witch from the most powerful bloodline in existence. You carry the ability to kill Mouri or create them, the ability to bargain the creation of life with the spirits, but you can't stand up to Lucas?"

"My husband isn't as easy to navigate as you think," I sighed. "He threatened to turn me over to my coven for the fertility magic I did. If they find out I put all of our magic at risk for this baby, they'll question my ability to lead them. I can't lose my coven, Sin. Without them, I'm nothing more than a wayward witch, and the spirits would cut me off. I don't even want to imagine what that would mean for this child, conceived from that magic."

We shared the space in silence, neither willing nor able to break it. I could sense that he was angry with me, and that anger pierced my heart in ways I didn't want to admit to him. No matter how much I tried to pretend like this would be easy to move on from, Sin meant more to me than Lucas ever could, and that bond was one I never wanted to part from. But the safety of my child, a child conceived with Lucas, was at stake and until I could provide accurate safety from the direct consequences of my actions, I would have to let Sin go. The gravity of the situation tore me in half, and I needed him to understand.

"I will find my way back to you," I whispered, touching his arm softly in an attempt to coerce him into looking at me. "There isn't a world where I would ever walk away from you of my own choosing, please know that. Give me time to figure things out, Sin. The last thing I want is for you to hate me. I love you."

"August," Sin's voice called, drawing me back to the car pulled over on the side of the seemingly endless highway. "Are you alright?"

I blinked several times, trying to find a reasonable response to what he was asking, though there didn't seem to be one. I wondered for a moment if Lucas had been trustworthy, or if he had, in fact, turned me over to the coven and taken my memories after Silas had been born. If he had, was it out of spite for the relationship I had built with another man? I had seen no anger to his expression in my memories when he spoke of Sin, but that didn't entirely mean he wasn't capable of more than I believed.

"What were we?" I asked suddenly, turning my gaze to Sin. "Before I left Bozeman with Lucas and my coven, we were...something more, but I can't remember any of it."

Sin didn't answer right away, and his only response was to turn his attention to the field outside of the driver's window. Everything, for miles, was Montana farmland, and beautiful at that. I knew he wasn't just appreciating the view, though, but rather gathering thoughts before he turned back to me.

"When we met," he started, avoiding my gaze. "You explained that your marriage was going through a rough patch, in ways you were unwilling to speak about. You didn't know what I was when we met, and I had no intentions of telling you. I had no intentions of letting you see another day, if I'm being completely honest. I found you in a little bar, drowning your sorrows in a bottle the same as me, and on impulse I wanted to tear you apart. Then you spoke to me, and I knew that turning you into my dinner would have done you a great injustice.

"Lucas encouraged you to see other people," he continued, and I listened intently. "He was seeing someone else, someone from your coven I suppose, and you weren't handling that very well. But you trusted me, and I wanted to be trustworthy for you until you no longer needed me. I never realized that you would find yourself moving on so quickly, pregnant and leaving town with Lucas before I ever got the opportunity--" his words fell flat, and he stopped speaking.

I wanted to remember it, I willed myself to bring the memories back, but it was no use. The compulsion on my mind hadn't unlocked those moments yet, and I wondered if I would ever have the opportunity to relive the days when Sin was more than a stranger to me.

"I told you I loved you," I whispered, narrowing my eyes at my hands as my fingers intertwined again and again, fidgeting nervously. "Was that real? Did...did you feel the same?" My eyes found his again, and for a moment I watched a million things shift inside of them before his expression went flat again.

"It doesn't matter," he answered, starting the car and putting it into gear. "We're wasting daylight, and we have no way to guarantee that Lucas will even still be there."

I said no more, and promised myself that I wouldn't speak of it again until my memories returned and I knew what I was talking about. There were obviously some problems between us that we hadn't worked out, things that had gone unsaid or unsolved when I left the city, it seemed. I wanted to know everything, but it seemed as if Sin, the keeper of the little moments between us, was reluctant to share. There were secrets there, secrets only time would tell.