Page 24 of Ride or Die (The Body Shop #5)

“ I don’t like that face.” Matty pinched my thigh. “Whatever you’re thinking, you should stop it.”

“I’m lucky my brain is still braining after everything. If I did stop it, it might not start back.”

“Braining,” Carter said dryly. “If that’s not an indicator of high cognitive function, I don’t know what is.”

“Cut her some slack.” Harrow bumped into her shoulder. “She’s had a rough couple of days.”

“More like a rough couple of lives.” Josie tipped her head to one side. “You know what I mean.”

“On the topic of high cognitive function,” I drawled, “I’m still waiting for you to unveil your master plan.”

Squinting at me, Josie attempted to melt my brain with her mind powers.

Sadly, just like when we were kids, my brain remained solid as ever.

“All I’m saying is our original plan won’t work. We’re a man down, which blows our advantage.” An ache moved through my chest. “Kierce is in no shape to help us. We’ll have to go it alone.”

“We will kill Dis Pater first.” Anunit leaned her weight against me. “Then we will avenge my daughter and her mate.”

“Hey.” Lucia caught me by the wrist. “You won’t be alone.” Her palm slid over my fingers as I pulled away, gently, and she yelped and jerked her hand back. “What’s that you’re wearing?”

“Oh.” I had forgotten it was there. “Ankou tied it on me while I was with Ithas.”

“It’s a charm.” She sucked on a blistered fingertip. “A memory charm is my guess.”

“He didn’t say.” I frowned at it, noticing the knot had come loose and begun to fray. “Did he worry Ithas would wipe my mind like Dis Pater does with Kierce?”

Impossible to collect on his favor if I had no memory of it, or him.

“Let me guess.” Lucia shot ramrod straight. “If you think too hard about certain topics, you get a splitting headache. There’s something you can’t quite put your finger on, like you’re forgetting an important detail, but you can never bring it into focus.”

Shame and fear collided when I realized she was right, but I couldn’t answer the question. “I’m…not sure.”

“Ithas. That fucker.” Lucia reached into her pocket and produced what looked like a pack of silver thumbtacks. “You’ve got a mental block. God glass is what they call it. It’s kind of a magic shell that filters out certain thoughts and memories.”

“Ankou knew.” That kind of aid went beyond protecting his investment and veered toward consideration if not kindness. “He helped me.” I locked gazes with Anunit. “He wanted me to remember Berchem and Dinorah.”

Maybe he wanted me to help Kierce remember them too. I was close to my limit on how much longer I could deny what was right in front of me. But it hurt so much when I looked at it straight on.

“Then he did you a favor I’m sure has a price tag to match.

” Lucia slapped the box across my palm. “I spent eight years trying to figure out what happened to me in that fertility clinic. I should have told you earlier, but I couldn’t see why he would put a block on you, so I omitted that part.

I didn’t think it applied. But that thing on your finger?

” She shook her head. “It won’t last much longer.

Maybe another day. Probably less. Odds are good it allowed you to keep what Ithas told you, at least while it has magic to power the charm, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more in your noggin you can’t reach. ”

“You recall all the details of your brush with Ithas,” I said, hope coating the back of my throat, “so you must have found a cure.”

“I located a shaman with experience removing blocks, and I happened to know the collector holding on to a sacred relic stolen from his people. We made a trade. The relic for these.”

“Dis Pater erases Kierce’s memories all the time. How is what was done to ours any different?”

“Our memories aren’t gone. They’re locked away. Ithas is a creator, and he has a delicate touch. He can manipulate flesh and bone better than any surgeon.” Her mouth pinched. “Dis Pater is a death god. His magic decays Kierce’s mind every time it’s used to force him to forget.”

“You’re assuming Ithas blocked me, but what if it was Dis Pater?”

“Then you’re going to have dead zones in your recall too.”

“Does that mean Kierce has no memories of his past?”

“Due to the nature of death magic, there will likely be a lot of holes. No matter how much or how little is left, your boyfriend isn’t gaining access without a lot of magic and a lot of pain.

” She scratched her brow. “The older the memories, the more eroded they’re bound to be, and the less reliable too.

Rot could have eaten away context, which will only leave him more confused with what he learns.

” She exhaled. “Just make sure you ask his permission before you start digging around up there. There’s no telling what you’ll uncover. ”

“I would never rob him of the chance to make the choice for himself.”

Even though I already knew he would want to know everything. He had been too curious for too long to let an opportunity like this one pass him by. I wished it was otherwise. I feared it might break him. But she was right. It was his call. Not mine.

“In the spirit of making choices, I’ll give you one.” She cracked open the case and extended it toward me, wearing a neutral expression to conceal her opinion. “Do you want to remember? All of it? Everything?”

Yes. No. Maybe? “How does it work?”

“Press it into your skin and leave it?—”

“Are you up to date on your tetanus shots?” Josie wrinkled her nose. “That can’t be hygienic.”

“They’re glamoured to appear as an everyday object.” Lucia chuckled at her expression. “They’re not actually thumbtacks.”

“Oh.” Josie cleared her throat. “Carry on then.”

“You’ll have seven days of mental clarity,” Lucia said, “before the god glass begins to reform.”

“Hold on.” Matty peered over at Lucia, his expression grim. “If this is your stash, and you’re still treating your condition, then that means there’s no cure.”

With so much new information mixing and mingling in my brain, I hadn’t put two and two together, but he was right. Which meant this was a temporary fix. A taste of total recall for me to determine whether my memories were worth fighting for or should be allowed to sink back into the abyss.

“The only way to remove it for good is to convince the god who placed it to rescind it, or to kill them.” She appeared to choose her next words with care. “If your boyfriend’s brain is as scrambled as you say, he might not take the death of his god too well.”

“Kierce is old.” Josie pinned her bottom lip between her teeth. “Like dirt was still in diapers when he was born.”

“Wait.” I hushed Josie. “What do you mean he won’t take it well?”

“An ancient being recalling too much of his past too fast for his brain to process the influx of information without proper context—especially if his core memories are warped too badly for them to fit into a seamless timeline—could fry his brain like short-circuiting a computer.”

“That’s a big risk for answers.” Harrow rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Are there any other options?”

No one volunteered any other ideas, which didn’t help with the vise clamping my heart.

“Okay, then. Guess I’ll go first.” I lifted a tack, careful not to prick myself on the others. “Any suggestions for where to put it?”

“Anywhere it won’t be in your way.” She patted the back of her upper arm. “It will stick until it’s used up then fall off on its own.” She grimaced. “Try not to step on it when it does.”

Anyone who has ever stepped on a thumbtack knows how very much it sucks, and it made me hesitate. This might not be an actual thumbtack, but I didn’t want to lose track of it.

“Wimp.” Josie stole the choice from me. She plucked the tack off my palm and, taking her cue from Lucia, shoved it into the fat in the back of my left arm. “All done.” She craned around to see my face. “How do you feel?”

As soon as the metal pierced my flesh, the point as thin as a needle beneath the glamour, a jolt of bitter herbs hit my tongue.

Magic, sour and strange, poured down my throat. I choked on it. Spat to rid my mouth of the foulness.

Nothing helped me overcome it. Nothing lessened its pungency. Nothing offered me relief.

As quick as it came on, it swirled away into nothing, and I could breathe again.

Slowly, faint impressions trickled in, not clear enough to grasp but swirling dully in the background of my mind. The one constant was Kierce. He featured in each of them. Every single one a glimpse at where my life intersected his, from that first moment when we met at Bonaventure until now.

The glide down the timeline of our relationship only highlighted the oddities I hadn’t noticed even once.

People had hinted that he and I shared a past. Over and over. And I never thought twice about it. I never wondered. I never explored the possibility they were right. I experienced zero curiosity. No. I took it one step further and encouraged him not to pursue his past either.

God, I had been stumbling around blind and deaf to any hint my world—my self —was anything but what it had always appeared to be.

A kaleidoscope of conversations flickered through my brain, casting bright shadows of discovery.

“Kierce was Berchem.”

The truth I could no longer deny, the one I had refused to face from the moment Ithas spilled my history and sparked this bottomless ache within me, ripped from my throat, shredding my vocal cords.

“Are you sure?” Matty rushed to sling an arm around me as I swayed on my feet. “That means…”

“The bone from Dinorah that’s in me…”

“No.” Josie took my hand. “Don’t go there.”

“I’m a fragment of the woman Berchem loved so much he defied his family to be with her.

” Stinging tears poured down my face. I couldn’t bear to remember more, but neither could I stop the blinding rush.

“His family killed her and punished him with eternal servitude to Dis Pater. That’s what drew him to me. That’s what’s always drawn him to me.”

And after he remembered Dinorah, what had become of her, he would see the world through new eyes. He would see me as a desecration. A sacrilege. He would sever ties with me, allow himself to grieve and to heal as he hadn’t been allowed to while the wound was fresh.

I would lose him.

But if I didn’t kill Dis Pater, he would never stop coming for me. He would never stop hurting my family and friends to get to me. We would always be in danger. I couldn’t ask them to live like that.

For the sake of everyone I loved, I had to act, even if it meant cracking my heart wide open.