Thicker Than Water

Chapter Seventeen

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*This story may contain mature content at any point - reader discretion advised*

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            "What the fuck did you just say?" I rose from the couch, my body responding blindly to my sudden shock. Another bolt of pain arced through my head. I squeezed my temples, and the pain relieved.

            She nodded, her hands over her eyes. "You... are Abigail Forrester. I'm sorry. I didn't want to have to tell you this, but if the King and Queen know you're still alive, all hell is about to break loose."

            "What do you mean, Mara?" my voice got louder as the panic inside me grew. "What do you know that I don't?"

            She glanced up at me, a pensive look forming in her eyes. "Nearly thirty years ago, I was given an order. I was directed by the head of my coven to take out some vampire who had broken some mystical law- which one, I didn't know. Back then, I wasn't high up enough to be given that kind of information. But our leader said 'do it', so I had to.  I found out the person I was supposed to kill was you. In that moment, I knew there was no way I could do it. I knew you were innocent."

            "Why would witches want me dead? And why didn't you do it?" I asked, sitting back in my seat. The weight of the world was crashing down upon me and I couldn't bear it. 

            "At first, I didn't know why they wanted you dead. But I'll get there in a minute. As to your second question, there's one part of this whole thing that's been true from the start. We've always been best friends. Since that first day in elementary school." She smiled, her white teeth gleaming. "Try to remember. It was fourth grade, and you'd just been transferred to Washington Elementary. I was the weird girl with the Halloween obsession, who doodled runes and wore black everyday. No one wanted to be my friend. But you sat down next to me and said, 'Pretty dress'. From that day on, we were inseparable."

            I nodded, though the memory felt wrong to me. It felt more like a dream than anything tangible. I twinged as a small pain slipped through my head yet again.

            Mara smiled, continuing. "You were and are my best friend. No matter what order I'd been given, there was no way I was going to kill you. So with the help of a couple trusted friends, we faked your death."

            "And I was just okay with that- to just give up my life and everything I loved?" I was confused. That didn't seem like me, or at least the me I knew now. I wished so desperately that I could remember this stuff, but it just didn't match any of my memories. 

            "That's where this all gets a little shady." She continued, wringing her hands the way she always did when she was nervous. "If I didn't kill you, someone else was going to. You never would have left Apollo on your own- you two were so infatuated with each other. So I... stole you away. I made the world believe you were truly dead, and I put a spell on you to block out all your memories as Abigail. I gave you new ones, where you were a human, an orphan. Where you never had any true relationships or friendships other than with me. The less people you interacted with, the better."

            My heart raced, the sound thumping wildly in my ears. I couldn't speak. The words kept coming out of her mouth, but I was having a hard time comprehending them.

            "I told you that your name was Bridget Sheehan, and you were abandoned as a baby. I gave you false memories of us growing up together in foster care. I gave you a false life- a quiet job where you would never really speak to anyone, a shitty apartment in a town where I didn't think vampires lived..."