Page 6 of Pressure Point (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #2)
CHAPTER
SIX
Consciousness returned slowly, like surfacing from deep water.
She blinked against the afternoon light streaming through the clinic’s windows, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings until memory—what little she had—came flooding back.
Lantern Beach. The woods. Atlas.
She turned her head and found him still there, but something had changed since her nap.
The warmth in his green eyes had been replaced by something more guarded, more professional. He studied her with the careful attention of someone trying to solve a puzzle.
“Hey.” Her voice still sounded rough with sleep. “You’re still here.”
“I try to be a man of my word.” His tone was neutral, giving nothing away. “How do you feel?”
Before she could answer, Dr. Spenser knocked and entered, clipboard in hand.
“I wanted to check on you again.” The doctor approached the bed, pulling out a small flashlight. “Follow the light with your eyes, please.”
She complied, acutely aware of Atlas watching every movement.
“Looks good. I’d still like to keep you for observation a while longer, but I expect to discharge you sometime today.”
When the doctor finished the examination, she asked, “What exactly happened to my head? I mean, what kind of injury is it?”
Dr. Spenser glanced at Atlas, then back to her. “The pattern of the injury suggests something heavy and hard was deliberately struck against your head.” Dr. Spenser’s expression was gentle but serious. “It appears to be blunt force trauma.”
The clinical description sent a chill through her bones. “So someone attacked me.”
The doctor nodded almost apologetically. “Yes, that would be my professional assessment.”
She tried to reconcile that information with the blank space where her memories should be. Instead, she flinched at the sharp pain echoing through her skull.
“And I still can’t remember anything about it,” she finally said. “You said that the amnesia might be temporary. How temporary?”
Dr. Spenser pressed her lips together and looked down at her notes, her fingers drumming against the clipboard before she caught herself and stopped. When she looked back up, her expression carried the kind of careful neutrality doctors wore when the prognosis wasn’t good.
“There’s no set timeline for these things,” she finally said. “It could be hours, days . . .”
“Or never,” she finished quietly. “It might never come back.”
Her voice caught at the thought. How would she even go on without her memory? It didn’t seem possible.
“I don’t want to give you false hope or false despair.
” Dr. Spenser’s voice sounded soft with compassion.
“Memory recovery is unpredictable. Sometimes a trigger brings everything back at once. Sometimes memories return in fragments over months or years. And sometimes . . .” She shrugged apologetically.
After Dr. Spenser left, silence stretched between her and Atlas. She felt his new wariness like a physical presence in the room.
What had changed in the time since they’d last spoken?
He’d discovered something he hadn’t told her, hadn’t he?
“You found out something.” She studied Atlas. “About me. What is it?”
Atlas remained quiet for a long moment, seeming to weigh his words. Then he asked, “Do you know why you spoke in Russian while you were sleeping?”
“What?” She startled. “Russian? Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Her mind raced. Was she Russian? She didn’t have an accent.
Her gut told her she wasn’t.
But then why . . . ?
Instead of making more sense, things just seemed even more confusing than ever.
She shook her head. “I have no idea. What did I say? Did you understand it?”
Atlas nodded. “You said, ‘No, you can’t make me do it. I won’t. Too many will be hurt.’”
Her head began to spin. “I have no idea what that means. Did I say anything else?”
“In English, you said, ‘The target is protected. I need more time.’”
“I . . . I don’t like the sound of that.”
Atlas’s stony expression made it clear he didn’t either. “What’s the last thing you remember before running into the road?”
She closed her eyes, reaching for anything that might be lurking in the shadows of her mind.
“Fragments. Rain on windows. The feeling of being trapped. Was I being held captive? It’s the only way to explain the marks on my wrists, right?”
His eyes sharpened. “That seems like the most plausible scenario.”
“What if someone was holding me against my will, and I somehow managed to get away? What if that’s why I can’t remember—because whatever happened was so traumatic my mind just . . . shut down?”
The possibility felt both terrifying and oddly logical. It would explain the defensive wounds, the way her body seemed to remember how to assess threats even when her mind remembered nothing else.
“That could be correct,” Atlas said as if choosing his words carefully. “But it would also mean whoever was responsible might still be looking for you.”
A lump formed in her throat at his words.
He was absolutely right.