Vicious Memories

Chapter 25

"What does it mean?"

Scott looked at Alice, unable to stop from glancing at the gun in her hands.

"This isn't good," Arun said to himself.

It was the understatement of the century.

"She was with me the entire day that Sirus was murdered," I said. "It couldn't have been her."

"Right. Because your testimony is so trustworthy."

"I've never lied," I snapped. "And the file doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could be fake, or just plain wrong. We don't have any way to verify what's inside."

"Did we read the same file? We both know it's probably true."

"Probably isn't enough to convict someone."

"But it's enough to consider. What if she didn't kill Sirus or Jessica, but she did do what the file says she did? We just ignore it because we don't know those people?"

"She wouldn't even remember it. You know her. She's not that person."

In the periphery I saw Alice cock her head, as if she'd just heard something confusing.

"Is she not?" she asked me. "Memory or no memory, is she somehow a different person now?"

I didn't have an answer for that. I didn't have an answer for any of it, really.

But finding the file meant that the truth of our pasts wasn't lost. Someone, somewhere, knew it. It should have been an obvious realization - clearly the world hadn't stopped spinning just because we were on this island - but the papers in that briefcase made it much more real now.

The problem now was that our pasts could be much darker than any of us had anticipated. At least that's what the briefcase was telling me.

All of the hope I'd been holding out about my own memories began to wilt. My thoughts fractured beneath a new onslaught of fear. If Neema had been a killer, then I, with my only memory as it was, easily could have been. And then what?

Beneath the protection of the thick tree above us, nobody had anything else say.

We set off for the village immediately, our search for Mads fruitless, the gray light rapidly dwindling, the rain thick. Arun carried the briefcase. Alice held the gun in her hands so it wouldn't misfire.

The return journey was shorter than the original trek. Perhaps because the unknown is scary, while return trips are already covered ground. Perhaps because it's always easier to undo something than it is to do it. Like a painting destroyed by a single bad brush stroke. Or trust eviscerated by a lie.

Alice took the lead and didn't stop once. Nobody complained. Nobody fell behind. The world simply disappeared into flashes of brown mud and tree trunks, deep green leaves, pounding footsteps, sharp breathing, the storm. It raged around us in glimpses of brilliant lightning and stampedes of thunder.

The jungle we ran through - these trees, the leafy canopy, the whipping underbrush, and even the dirt beneath my feet - had started to change for me. It no longer made my breath catch in my throat, or made me shy inward to escape its oppressive density. Instead it began to calm my racing thoughts. Landmarks I'd never seen before seemed friendly and familiar - almost comfortable.

It was, I realized with some surprise, starting to feel like home. What I didn't know was whether I wanted it to feel like home.

By the time we reached the outskirts of the village the light had faded completely.