High Society (The High Stakes Saga #3)

“No, you were perfectly calm. You floated in the water with a serene look on your face. Your hair was drifting all around you, but you never panicked like I did.”

I didn’t remember it, but my lungs felt too large for my chest, like I couldn’t get enough air. “I can’t tell dream from memory anymore,” I admitted. “Everything is so foggy. I feel like I’m just crazy.”

“Well, you are a little crazy,” he teased, putting an arm around my shoulder and pulling me in. “But if you are, then so am I. And at this point, I think it’s safe to say that these visions and dreams are memories surfacing. Maybe time travel affects whatever they gave us to suppress them.”

“They made me watch a feed from a store’s surveillance video. There was a woman and a little girl, and they kept telling me it was me and my mom. But I remembered my actual mother, and how I’d been brought to the Compound, so I told them they were liars.”

His hand tensed on my upper arm. “What did they do?”

“They drugged and tortured me until their lies became my truth.”

Titus cursed, stood up, and began to pace the narrow path that led from the cot to the door. “Do you remember your entire past now?”

“No, I can’t remember much, but I remembered knowing that they were liars. That they were feeding me full of false information. I remembered the violating feel of it all.” I paused a moment, my thoughts skittering around. Then I remembered why I went to Titus. “Titus, I need your help with something. It has to do with my clone.”

He paused and studied me. “That was quite a transition, Eve. You just told me you’ve been tortured into remembering something that never happened, and now you’re all like… Help me with my clone.”

“Yeah.” I wanted him to stop pacing and focus on something else. Something other than the truth, because if they took me and tortured me, and then gave me a new name and history… they probably did the same to him.

“I need to know everything you can remember,” he stated. “You need to tell me about your mom and about your real past.”

Suddenly, my head felt like it was splitting in two. A sudden, intense pain began the moment I tried to sift through my memories. Did Victor and Kael implant something in our brains so that we suffered if we remembered?

I didn’t want Titus to know I was having any issues. He had enough to think about without me distracting him. “I promise to tell you everything when we have more time, but what I need from you can’t wait, Titus. I can’t do it without you, or without causing too much damage to be helpful.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, switching back to business in a flash.

“Cut the tech out of her hand.”

“Why?”

“We might need it. We might be able to use it to learn more about her.”

He pursed his lips together in disapproval, but in the end, reached for my hand. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

“We need a lantern.” I led him to the kitchens and found the one I’d used earlier sitting on a mantle.

* * *

The dark, damp cellar smelled of mildew, soil, and the garlands of garlic hanging in the corner nearest the door. “Where is she?” Titus asked.

“Farther in,” I answered, ducking down and leading him to her body, which was still tied to the chair. Her head hung down onto her chest. Trails of drying blood flowed from her neck on the right side.

“Shit,” Titus cursed. “She’s dead.”

“You already knew that.”

“Yeah, but I thought maybe he hadn’t completely drained her. I mean, how does a vamp even hold that much blood? It’s gross how they can just gorge themselves on it.”

“He didn’t kill her because he was hungry.” My heartbeat pounded in my ears. The coppery tang of blood drowned out the loamy scent of garlic and earth. “Asa thought she was too big a threat.”

Titus pinned me with a look of warning before removing a knife from his belt. I quirked a brow. I’d planned to look around the cellar for one, but he was steps ahead of me. “Took it at dinner and I’m not sorry.”

“I’m not judging,” I told him, waving him toward the 1776 model. I held the lantern up for him. It cast only a small light in such a dark place.

He knelt behind the clone’s chair and dragged the knife’s edge across her skin. A thin line of blood welled in its wake. “I hate dull knives,” he complained, sawing through skin and sinew until the containment cell was visible. He used the tip to gently pry it out before carefully disconnecting the circuitry beneath her skin. He shoved the tech into his pocket and stood up.

Blood dripped from her hand onto the dirt. I sat the lantern down near the puddle. “Titus, can the dead still bleed?”