Page 8 of Montana Memory

I made my way back to the diner where I’d hot-wired the car earlier that night. It was parked in the shadows behind the lot, exactly where I’d left it. I wiped it down and returned it to the lot where I’d taken it, then found a trucker heading toward Denver who was willing to give me a ride without asking a lot of questions.

I spent the ride in silence, my thoughts tangled. Jada had no past. No future. No defenses. I didn’t do attachment. I was nobody’s savior.

But she had nothing—no memories, no resources, and no way to protect herself from what might still be coming for her.

An hour later, I stood outside her motel room door, my fists clenched. I’d made my decision. I couldn’t help her. She wouldn’t want the help of someone like me anyway, not once she knew what I was really like.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out an envelope of cash, and slid it under the door along with a note. Two words:

Lie low.

Then I turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.

It was better for everyone this way.

Chapter 3

Jada

The curtain surrounding my tiny section of the emergency room didn’t do much to block out the world. I could hear everything—the murmur of nurses at the station, the beeping monitors from other patients, the shuffle of feet on tile. A man two beds down kept groaning like he was dying, but no one seemed too concerned.

I pulled the thin hospital blanket tighter around me, curling my fingers into the paper fabric like it was an anchor. My stomach twisted as I fought against the terror pressing in from all sides. It had been two days. Two days of staring into hotel mirrors, trying to make sense of the woman looking back at me. Two days of studying bruises I didn’t remember getting, of touching a scar on my elbow and wondering how long it had been there.

Two days of waiting for Hunter to come back. But he hadn’t. He’d left me money and paid for a week at the motel. A kindness, I knew. But he was gone. And that meant I was on my own,so this morning, I’d decided I couldn’t just stay in the motel anymore.

I pressed my thumb to the inside of my wrist, feeling my pulse thrumming just beneath the skin. It was too fast, my body still locked in some kind of survival mode. I’d spent the past forty-eight hours trying to talk myself out of coming here. But doing nothing was worse. Sitting alone in that motel room, feeling like a ghost in my own skin, was worse.

The curtain shifted slightly as someone walked past, the glimpse of movement sending a spike of unease through me. I clenched my jaw, breathing in slowly. I had no name. No ID. No past. And yet, I was still here.

Who the hell was I?

I’d spent hours in front of that motel room mirror, studying myself like a puzzle I should be able to solve. Every bruise, every mark, every inch of my body should’ve told me something. But none of it did.

The woman staring back at me had pale skin, dark-brown hair, and frightened eyes. Nothing familiar. Not even a whisper of an answer in my mind. Why couldn’t I remember who I was? Where I came from? Anything at all?

I traced my fingers along the small scar on my elbow, feeling its smooth ridge beneath my touch. It had been there long before two nights ago, but I had no memory of how I’d gotten it. I pressed harder, hoping for some kind of response—pain, recognition, anything.

But there was nothing.

The bruises across my arms, ribs, and face told a story, but not one I could read. I knew the burn on my side had come from a stun gun. I didn’t remember the moment it happened, but my body did. That flash of pain, the way my muscles had locked up—it had jolted through me when I’d caught sight of the mark in the mirror. So my body knew things. My brain just wouldn’t share.

That was the worst part. I still knew how to do everything. I could read. Write. Drive. The motel remote hadn’t been a mystery. I’d made coffee in the tiny room’s pot without thinking twice. But when I tried to think about if I liked cream or sugar? Nothing.

A favorite book? A meal I loved? What my house looked like? Just a hollow space where memories should be. I was a person without a past. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t claw it back.

I’d obeyed Hunter’s warning. For two days, I’d laid low, just like he told me. And it had nearly driven me insane. I’d spent the better part of this morning pacing the length of the motel room, going back and forth in my own head. Maybe I should just wait. Maybe Hunter would change his mind and show up again. Maybe whatever I was running from—the thing that made him tell me to “lie low”—was worse than I realized. But how the hell was I supposed to hide when I didn’t even know who I was?

And Hunter was gone. I couldn’t blame him. He’d said he hadn’t really known me, so expecting him to stick around, or come back, had been completely unreasonable.

I’d finally snapped. My hands had trembled as I’d checked my reflection one last time. It hadn’t made any difference—I still didn’t recognize the woman staring back.

By the time I made it to the emergency room, my nerves were shot. The lady at the front desk barely looked up when I told her I had no ID, no money, no memory of who I was. She just typed something into her computer and handed me a clipboard like this happened every damn day. Maybe it did. Maybe Denver had more lost souls than I thought.

I’d spent an eternity in the waiting room, surrounded by sick kids and exhausted parents, a guy who smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks, a woman dabbing at a deep gash in her palm.I kept waiting for someone to demand answers I didn’t have, to ask why I’d waited so long to come in.

But no one did.

And now, I was here. In a tiny, curtained-off section, waiting for someone to tell me what the hell I was supposed to do next.

---