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CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

AIDEN

“How much longer will this take?” I seethe. “You’ve had two sessions already.”

I grab him by the scruff of his shirt. He cowers, fear radiating from him, like a zebra caught in the jaws of a starving crocodile. He has a job to do, and my patience is waning. I want results, and I want them now.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Lex y-yesterday,” he stammers. “I’m trying everything. It’s difficult with Acacia breathing down my neck. I need more time.”

“You said you could do this, Doctor,” I hiss, spraying spit over his glasses. I wouldn’t leave his face intact if it wasn’t for needing to avoid suspicion. “You claimed you could unlock her memories.”

“And I can,” he insists. “I just need more time. I thought we were getting somewhere today, but she’s fighting it.”

“She needs to remember!” I launch Doctor Warner across his office like a piece of trash. “She needs to know!”

He shakily brushes himself off. “You must be patient.”

“We have been patient,” I growl. “You said your methods would work.”

“It’s proving more difficult than I originally anticipated,” he says. “Her memories are sealed away, hidden in her subconscious, just like he wanted. I’ve been gradually reducing her medication, which will help her see things more clearly. Taking it slow is the only safe?—”

“We don’t have time to do this slowly,” I explode. “We can’t wait!”

We have to leave Pasturesville. This town has stolen years of our lives already, but we can’t leave without her. She’s keeping us here, tying us to this perpetual hell. And until she knows everything, we’ll never be together. Not how we should be.

“I’m doing the best I can. I want to help.” Doctor Warner tries to use his therapist’s voice, but I’m not falling for his bullshit. “What Acacia did was wrong?—”

“Wrong?!” I smash my fist into the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. “We had a deal!”

Doctor Warner is the only professional in the asylum to be appalled by Acacia’s experiments, and he sympathized with us. We took advantage of that, exploiting his weakness to free ourselves, only the poor bastard never expected to see us again.

When we returned to Sunnycrest to demand his help with one final task, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Perhaps he thought that Acacia disposed of us, like all of the other patients he’s made disappear over the years.

Despite agreeing to help, the stress is taking a toll on him.

His rumpled clothes look slept-in, and he hasn’t shaved.

It serves him right. Although he doesn’t agree with Acacia’s experiments, his silence still makes him complicit.

He’s had every opportunity to raise the alarm, but he’s too afraid. Too weak. Too fucking pathetic.

“This is a delicate matter,” Doctor Warner says. “Her brain is fragile, and her grip on her reality is fragile. We have to be careful when dealing with repressed memories. One wrong move can?—”

“She knows her sister’s dead,” I say bluntly. “I told her.”

His brow furrows in concern. “I warned you about giving her too much information. The exposure could cause a psychotic break. To help her remember effectively, we must tread carefully. With another few months in therapy, she?—”

Months? I expected results in days. We can’t wait that long, and neither can she. As long as she’s under her father’s influence, she’ll never be free. Who knows what else he’ll do the longer she stays? She belongs with us.

“If you can’t speed up the process, we’ll do it our way.”

“Aiden, I don’t advise?—”

“We won’t be needing your help anymore, Doctor,” I say coldly. “We’ll take it from here.”

We’re getting her back, no matter the cost…