Forty-one
Victoria’s mind raced. He wants me to come. He wants me.
She stared at Graham, concern warring with her delight. What did he need to tell her that had him so distressed? Perhaps his family would object. He had previous obligations of some kind. He worried about his reputation, bringing a lady back with him after being gone for so long. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t enough to detain her. She’d made up her mind the minute he’d asked her.
She had nothing to hold her here. Her mother had Cordelia and Jane to fawn over now. The two girls welcomed Enid Digby’s pampering, something Victoria had always detested. She’d lost her position as a Naut, and she refused to marry Charles. If she went with Graham she could leave all of that behind.
Graham paced in his tan suitcoat, red waistcoat and cream cravat, his shoes brushing along the grass.
“Gosh, how do I even say this?” he said so quietly she almost missed it. “Victoria, I didn’t invite you right away because Starkey said if you remembered your past self it could cause some mental damage. But I’ve thought it over. I think it will help you to know. I think it will make the flashbacks and déjà vu you’ve been having stop.”
“What do you mean, it could cause some mental damage?”
He took her by the shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. I trust Starkey, but I don’t think he’s right. I think you need to know exactly what you’re agreeing to if you . . . if you decide to come with me.”
“If it will get the flashbacks to stop, then I want to know.” At least, she thought she did. If what he was saying was true, her whole life had been a lie. All her memories, fabrications. She could see herself going with Graham, slowly regaining herself. Would she want him then? Would he want her?
“Is it—is it that bad?” she asked in a daze.
Graham paused, as if unsure whether he should go on. “Your name was Jenna.”
The whiteness began, starting at the base of her skull, bringing with it a sharp, biting pain.
Her eyes closed.
“Your father was a mechanic, and you lived with him above his shop. But he was caught selling drugs and got thrown in jail, leaving you all on your own.”
“Stop,” she said. The whiteness climbed, right at the edges of her brain, cold and killing to every one of her cells. She thought she’d been ready. She thought she wanted this.
“You got into some trouble after that. You dropped out of high school when—”
“I said stop!” she shrieked. Fear, panic, and worst of all, the whiteness draped her mind. Sadness and shame descended, but she couldn’t escape them this time. They dredged in her chest like a bog. Tears stung her eyes at the flash of a kind man’s face, at his admittance that he’d been arrested, that he would be leaving her to fend for herself.
Good heavens, she remembered him. She remembered her father. Her real father.
The image clashed with the thought of Thomas Digby, a gray-haired man who’d raised her, who’d encouraged her, taught her to ride horses, allowed her to accompany him on his excursions, took her to watch the planes as they’d been built.
Tears streamed down her face. Both images suffocated her. Both were too much, too hard to grasp.
The strength left her knees. She teetered against the tree.
Graham reached his arms to keep her from losing her balance. “Victoria? Are you okay? Aw, man, I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I have to think,” she said, staggering to the water’s edge.
“Right.” He hurried to catch up with her. “I know it’s a lot. But Tori, I—I don’t care. You’re you, no matter what happened in the past. I mean, your past only matters if you let it.”
Her throat clamped. She peeled her distant gaze away from the water to look directly at his entreating brown eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to say a word.
“I care about you. I don’t know if it’s love yet, but I think we’re on the way to it. And no matter what it is, no matter what you did, we can figure it out. You’ll be with me. You’ll always be with me over there, okay?”
Victoria blinked at him, drowning in the irony of it all. Out of nowhere a laugh ripped from her throat.
“We’re on our way to it? You don’t even know who I really am! Or what I’ve done that’s so terrible.”
Graham reached for her, but she shoved him away.
A look of hurt crossed his face. “I do, I know. Starkey told me. But I told you, it doesn’t matter. You’re still you.”
Her head shook, almost of its own accord. “I don’t want to go back there.” Her voice was as weak as a shadow. “I can’t become that person again. I have to think this through, Graham.”
“Sure, but . . .” He ran to block her way. Gradually, she lifted her eyes to meet his sinkhole brown ones.
“Midnight. At Starkey’s,” he said. “You’ll need to warn the Nauts. There’ll be another attack. I hope you’ll be there. I understand if you won’t, but I hope you will.”
Oscar dragged his body along the grass in a slow, mechanical motion. Move forward, pull. Move forward, pull. His nails carved into the dirt. Blades of grass tickled his palms. The pain in his neck increased, but he couldn’t stop moving.
He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since Rosalind left, but he wasn’t able to loiter and wait for the doctor’s arrival, especially not when he was fairly certain the doctor could do nothing to help him. Rosalind didn’t understand. Not even Graham would understand.
The mechanical arm gripped the ground with strength he’d never known, leveraging him forward. Perhaps the strain was too much. But he couldn’t slow, he had to…
Pain lanced along his collarbone.
. . . keep . . .
It blossomed like an explosion, spearing up his throat . . .
Into his chest . . .
Pain so strong mastered him, took control of him, rendering him incapable of movement. He still had control of his voice, however, and he screamed out as the pain tacked onto his bones. It drilled into him like sculptor’s picks, transforming them into something else entirely. Something not quite human.
Oscar collapsed, gasping for breath, for anything to take this away. But the dirt could do nothing to help him. No, the dirt couldn’t.
The water could.
Water, cool and inviting. It would wash over this burning, unbearable discomfort. Trees bowed over the lake’s edge, and as Oscar slowly, torturously slithered his way to it, it began to burble.
The water’s surface churned like a pot set to boil, and a form rose out from its center.
Oscar knew what it was. His bones turned icy cold as if metal had replaced them inside his skin. The miniature Kreak lifted a small claw. The beast was the size of a small house. And Oscar knew he needed to change that. He needed to join with it.
It all made sense. Lord Baxter’s talk of experiments, his denial of Rosalind’s hand. What could Oscar have been thinking? Of course he could never be with her. And while the thought tore at his heart like it was trying to rip the organ from his chest, he had a new master than his own self will. The creature rose from the water, beckoning to Oscar.
He was almost there. Almost to the wet ignorance, to the forgetting.
There’d been another time he’d ached to forget himself. He’d huddled into the fetal position on the concrete while pain from their hands, their feet, pummeled into him, shattering through his body. A group of angry boys and men surrounded him, beating him for wanting out of their brotherhood. For wanting a different life than the one he’d been living.
He fought now. He struggled against this pulling memory as his will poured back in over the creature’s. But he couldn’t stop. Any second he would be in the water. What would happen to him then, would he lose himself completely?
There was more to life than what he’d been living. He’d known something was off since he’d returned from University. He had to find out the truth.
Oscar dug his palms into the dirt. Graham and Victoria were leaving that very night. And Rosalind.
Oh, merciful heavens. Rosalind, forgive me.
Giving it everything he had left, he ducked from the creature’s reach. Pain burst like shards in his chest and neck. It wasn’t enough. The creature grabbed him, sinking too fast back into the lake’s depths.