Page 186 of The Midnight Order
I shoot him a look of disbelief. “Don’t placate me.”
“I’m not!” He lifts his hands in defense. “I’m just trying to figure this out like you.”
“I need to draw blood,” I say more to myself than to Asher, rummaging around in my cart for a butterfly needle and syringe. I’ll need to test my blood for any kind of psychedelic drug or substance.
“When you’re done spiraling, and this makes more sense, come find me. I’m going back to bed. Our girl’s getting cold.”
That sentence would usually be enough to break me out of a spiral, but not today. Today, I think I got a bit too close to whatever’s been happening around here, and now I’m wondering how long it’s been happening.
Has someone been fucking with us all these years and then wiping our memories?
Or is awakened now that the curse is close to breaking? Some kind of fail-safe?
I get my blood drawn, and the mess cleaned up, and once it’s running in the blood chemistry analyzer, I sigh in relief that I’ve tried to figure out the missing time in my memory.
And then I head to Jasper’s room.
He’s on top of his covers, asleep in his boxers with one hand down the front of them.
It’s odd to see him so vulnerable. He typically wears a tight mask of indifference.
“Jasper.” I shake him.
He wakes like a wild beast, pulling his arm from his waistband and swinging it around as he comes to violently. “What happened?”
“We need to talk.”
Chapter 48
Silver
Standingaround the dining room table, we all look at one another, shifting our glances between the box and each other.
I know they are waiting for me because, even as menacing as they are, they care about me and consider my feelings.
“It seems bigger. Is it bigger?” I ask and am met with Asher’s snicker.
“No, little lamb. I don’t think the box grew in your absence.”
Nodding, I bite my lip. I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly as I walk to the table’s edge. Reaching over the box, I carefully remove the lid.
Tossing it aside, I look inside, finding file after file, more administrative things to do with my name change, and fake documents Soliel had made for me to enter public school that I don’t remember at all.
“These are all forged,” Asher says as I toss files onto the table’s surface.
“Typically, forgers leave their signature somewhere. They can’t help themselves. It’s a pride thing,” Corvin says, grabbing the birth certificate from Asher’s hands as I hand Asher paperwork for a school nearby.
“This is only an hour from here,” Asher says.
Lowell moves closer, looking over Asher’s shoulder. “Do you remember going to school?”
I shake my head. “I remember nothing about when I was young. There are bits of flashes now and again, but they’re not… clear.”
He nods. If they’re frustrated by my lack of memory, they don’t let on.
I’m thankful. I don’t think I could take their disappointment on top of everything else.
“What the hell are these?” Jasper mutters, removing small books one by one and setting them down on the table. Flipping through the pages, his brows only knit together in confusion further. “What the…”
