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“So let’s start with some confessions,” he says, leaning forward. “You may have noticed that there are some gaps in your memory, Nina.”

She tenses in my lap, and my arms band a little tighter around her body before I begin to purr. It’s a deep, gentle rumble. This isn’t going to be an easy conversation.

The last thing I want to do is hold her captive in my arms as she listens, but I don’t know what else to do.

Please understand why we let you go.

Nina

Forget. They’ll kill you if you don’t.

There’s been so many times where this has run through my mind, the echo of a lost memory.

“It’s like it’s full of Swiss cheese,” I say, keeping my head against Cooper’s warm chest. It’s helping to keep me grounded, my breaths even. I need to hold onto that. “I can reach for information I should have, but it’s not there. Or, sometimes I can feel the emptiness where a memory should be. It’s really disconcerting.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Ellis’ boyfriend swallows hard. God, they’re right. There’s so much I just don’t know. I know that part of that is because Cooper and I got caught up in each other, but hopefully I can get some answers now.

“I’m sorry to say that I’m responsible for that,” he says. “I made you forget Ethan, Cooper, and myself.”

“Ethan…” I trail off. I don’t know who that is. Should I?

My heart begins to pound with anxiety, and Cooper’s handruns up and down my back soothingly. I don’t know if I should lean in or shrug him off.

What should I do?

“I’m Ethan,” Ellis grunts. “Way to bury the lead, Riley.”

“So your name is fake too,” I mutter bitterly.

“Yet everything else is true,” he counters. “I didn’t know if you’d know me by that name.”

“I don’t know you at all,” I yell, feeling frustrated.

“It looks as if what I did worked better than I thought,” Riley says.

At my glare, he grabs my hand.

“Ethan and I have been friends since undergrad,” he says. “If he told you that, then know that part is true. Your mother put you into Weeping Willow because you found out that Ethan and Cooper were your scent matches and she wanted to reprogram you into the perfect daughter.”

“I’m not the perfect anything,” I say, pulling my hand away from his. I’m feeling overstimulated for some reason, and I don’t want to touch him right now.

I push away the whisper in my mind that tells me I’m a liar, because I don’t want to listen to it. I hate thinking about the hospital, but it appears that I don’t have a choice.

There are answers I need that lay there.

“We’re going to agree to disagree there,” Riley says, a wrinkle between his eyes.

His hair is tousled just so, and I wonder if he likes to have it tugged on. My thoughts are drifting in a very different direction, forcing me to ground myself. Almost unconsciously, I do what I always do, and Ethan glances down at my feet.

Only when they cramp fiercely do I stop, breathing deeply. As if nothing happened, I shrug at Riley. My quirks to survive are mine alone.

“Maybe so,” I say. “Is that why I went into heat when they brought me in? I remember that part of things.”

“Yes, sometimes, meeting your scent match will trigger anomega’s heat,” he says. “I joined the hospital as a medical student three months after that happened. Ethan came to me and told me you were the girl he ran into on the university campus. He was completely smitten. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“Only because I refused to let you see it,” Ethan grumbles. “My butterflies were widely ignored when it came to you, Riley.”

“Yes, because you’re an idiot, son,” Cooper mutters.