Fallen Memories: Book Two

Fallen Memories - [10]

Fallen Memories - 10

    My body snapped to attention, mind powering on high alert. I gripped the phone tighter, casting a wary glance over my shoulder to ensure that I was alone. One quick glance at the door showed that it was closed. Mom had probably gone off with the overly kind woman, asking her all sorts of questions regarding Maine’s history. So long as she didn’t disturb me for at least half an hour.

    “A lead?” I repeated back to Colton, only slightly unsure that I had heard him incorrectly. It couldn’t have been that easy. There was just no way. We’d only been out of my dream a week, and in that week, Colton hadn’t even completely devoted himself to searching. I’d expected a long stretch of anticipation, awaiting the day he told me he had found a lead. A connection to the person or persons behind my absence of memories.

    And here he was, today, telling me he had a lead. Something wasn’t right here; I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, but in time, I knew I would be able to. For now, it was my job to listen and supply as much of my own information as I could.

    “I’m unsure of his name, but there’s a fallen angel who fell two weeks before I did. He fell under the archangels’ suspicions, and because of that mistake, they’ve tidied up their laws.” There was a hard edge to his voice. “Five girls went missing one week before his fall. When the girls were recovered, they had no recollection of who their kidnapper was, or why they had been kidnapped. They couldn’t remember when they had been kidnapped. The lack of detail only heightened when they admitted their amnesia stretched farther back than the amount of time they’d been missing for.”

    “I wasn’t kidnapped,” I said. “I’m almost certain I was in school. Whoever their kidnapper was, probably has no connections to who erased my memory.”

    “Their kidnapping is insignificant compared to the damage done,” Colton said, rather darkly. “Reflect back on it, Ivy. You don’t remember who did it, do you?”

    “No,” I said, frustration pecking away at my mind. I took a mental sledgehammer to the black wall that stood tall and proud in my mind. I willed the pieces to break and fall; to reveal who was behind it all. No face came to mind, but what did come to mind was a feeling of vulnerability and terror. The feeling of being used. Everything that belonged to me, taken away.

    “Exactly. Those girls don’t either. No doctor in the county could come up with a logical reason as to why they couldn’t remember. At first, it was traumatic amnesia, something easy to diagnose. And that’s when the flashbacks began.”

    “Flashbacks?” I whispered. Did hallucinations amount to the same description? “Did all five girls have flashbacks?”

    “All five,” Colton confirmed. “Their flashbacks consisted of a faceless man. A man that tortured them, played with their minds and tricked them into believing they would be trapped forever.”

    “How did he do that?” My tone was laced with horror, appalled at the faceless man who’d done that to those girls.

    Colton was silent for a moment. “Fallen angels have the ability to play with the minds of others. They can make them believe they’re seeing something they’re really not.”

    “He made them believe they would never go home,” I whispered.

    “When they described the flashbacks, the doctors ruled out temporary amnesia.” As if reading my mind, he tacked on, “flashbacks aren’t the same thing as hallucinations which is what provoked the doctors into agreement. They came to the conclusion that the girls’ minds weren’t protecting them by blocking what had happened.”