Cade was still shaken up as he sat on Salem’s sofa waiting for Deianira to start speaking.
When she’d dropped in the training room, he’d nearly had a heart attack. Then, she started shaking and screaming. Cade had no idea what to do so he picked her up and ran to the infirmary. It was pure luck that Mikhael was already there, but he didn’t know what to do either. Cade had never felt so helpless. He didn’t move an inch from her bedside until she woke.
What did she mean by ‘it happens all the time’? Cade would’ve liked to think that he would’ve noticed something like that, but being completely uninformed on the matter, he sat back and listened. Deianira remained standing and flicked a glance his way before beginning.
“Remember when you told me that compulsion has to be undone to prevent side effects?”
“Yes,” Salem said from her chair opposite Cade, eyeing him, probably trying to figure out why he was there. She didn’t look annoyed in particular, but something told him that she didn’t want him there.
Deianira’s eyes flicked down. “I think someone might have done that to me.”
“Done what?” Salem asked, her face blank.
“Compelled me…and whatever they did, they didn’t take it away.”
“How long have you known about this?” Salem inquired.
“The headaches only started a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t sure until the flashbacks started. Like you said.”
So these aren’t just little headaches.
Salem’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. “Why didn’t you tell me at the Haven?”
“What do you think?” Deianira raised her voice defensively. “I’d be saying that someone compelled me to do something very, very bad. That is a huge claim to make and I still haven’t gotten the full picture yet.”
Salem blinked. “That’s understandable but this is quite dangerous. The longer you leave it unattended, the worse the symptoms get. You could lose your actual mind.” she said evenly.
What?! His shock aside, Cade was perturbed by the way that Salem spoke. Her tone was so conversational. She was just reciting information with no emotional resonance. Not even a flicker in her tone.
“Okay, Gods, I get it,” Deianira declared, tired. “I’m asking you now. Can you help me?”
She blinked. “How?”
“By undoing it.”
“Undoing what?” she asked.
Deianira sighed. “The compulsion, Salem.”
“Oh. I don’t even know what the memory is.”
Deianira flicked her eyes to Cade again. Whatever the memory was, she didn’t want him to know. Standing from his seat, he spoke to her softly. “It’s okay. I’ll wait outside.”
Her gaze followed him until he was at the door.
“No,” he heard from behind him. He turned back toward her. “Stay.”
Hiding his approval, Cade nodded briefly. He walked back to her but before he took his seat, he guided her, with a hand at the small of her back, onto the sofa, then took the seat next to her. Surprisingly, he was met with little resistance but when he looked up, Salem’s raised eyebrows showed that she’d witnessed the whole exchange.
Feeling awkward, Cade motioned to Deianira. She took a shaky breath.
“The night my family died…I don’t think it was an accident.” Cade tensed. “I think someone compelled me to…kill them, then tried to make me forget. It’s not all back yet but I remember them telling me…” She grew so quiet, Cade only just about heard her. “They said to start with my father, then my mom, then Cal.”
He wanted the floor to swallow him up. Cade remembered the day he’d thrown that in her face and if he thought that he felt as guilty as he could back then, he was grossly underestimating himself. Deianira had been bearing that day on her conscience for over a hundred years only to find out that someone had made her do it.
“After all this time, I thought I had lost control and lashed out. If someone else is responsible, I want to know who it is, so please, undo it.”
Cade examined her closely but he couldn’t decipher what Salem was about to say for the life of him. She assessed Deianira’s words, responding with only sharp nods and head tilts.
“I apologize. I didn’t explain properly,” Salem started. “You misunderstand. I can’t take something that I didn’t put there.”
Sensing her annoyance and desperation, Cade wanted so badly to console Deianira, but he doubted she would be so welcoming to his affection at that moment.
“No! The first thing you said earlier was that you didn’t know what the memory was. That means that there is a way.”
Salem took a moment to recall before nodding.
“Technically speaking, there’s always a way, but it’s not worth the damage I could do.”
At Deianira’s defiant look, Salem let her eyes stray around the room before landing on the coffee mug on the rack in her small kitchen. Gesturing to it, she started.
“Imagine that mug is the false memory and you hid it in a pitch-black house rigged with almost a hundred billion tripwires. Every time I trip a wire, a neuron in your brain dies. The information you’ve given me is as good as telling me what room it’s in. I’ve never been in the house before and I didn’t see the person responsible plant the mug, so I don’t know where it is or where the wires are. Every move I made would put you at risk of irreversible brain damage.” She nodded to herself, looking proud of her explanation. “So, yes. I can walk in and blindly reach for it, but there is a 98.6% chance that it would result in brain death.” Sitting back in her seat, she looked at Deianira. “Does that help?”
Cade could barely believe what he was hearing. No, it doesn’t help! He wanted to shout. But this wasn’t about him. He watched the hope drain from Deianira and be replaced with irritation.
“So what do I do?”
“Whoever planted it is responsible for your family’s deaths and I doubt they would step forward; therefore, you won’t know until the memory unravels. So you have to let it.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” Cade asked tersely, no longer able to just observe.
Deianira rolled her eyes while Salem narrowed hers before responding.
“The speed of her progression depends on how strong her mind is. She’s very powerful so it should unravel fairly quickly but the episodes will continue, they’ll be more painful, and she might lose time. But it should all stop altogether when she gets the full picture though.”
Cade stared at Salem, horrified. Deianira would have to go through that all over again.
