Page 31 of Hunted

5

Ellie

“YOU HAD THE DREAM AGAIN LAST NIGHT?” Dr. Calgary Caldwell’s expression was impossible to read through the virtual portal we used for online therapy sessions, his voice equally indiscernible. Then again, even on the rare occasion we had our sessions in person, River’s oldest brother was never exactly an open book.

“It’s the same one I have every night.”

Cal glanced up. “Every night?”

“Not every night.” I silently cursed. “Not on the nights he—" I waved a hand, cheeks flaming. Cal simply raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to go on. I let out a strangled cough, reaching for my water bottle. “Not on the nights River visits my dreams.”

Cal silently made a notation on his legal pad. And of course, this was the problem with having your therapist be the older brother of the guy you were sleeping with. Total cringe. Not to mention it was a professional conflict of interest on Cal’s end. We’d talked about me finding a new therapist, the only problem being that I now had access to too many secrets. River’s neural manipulator abilities. Information about the Tracers. My own research on ALDD in the lab at UT. It would have been close to impossible to find someone with the same security clearance that Cal held, and so for the time being he was still doing my therapy sessions.

“What do you think it is about River’s presence that keeps the nightmares at bay?”

I fidgeted in my desk chair. Butternut hopped over and I scooped down to pick him up, nuzzling his velvety ears. “I don’t know. River’s been trying to help me strengthen my mental shielding. He says now that it isn’t enough that he built the walls around my mind. He makes me practice pushing him out over and over until I’m so tired I want to fall asleep.”

Cal watched me intently. “What does that bring up for you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re still dealing with the trauma from having memories forcibly taken from you on orders from the werewolf council. River was the one to do it. You’re telling me it doesn’t bring up any feelings when he forces himself into your mind?”

I looked away. “One of the vampire scientists working at the other site went missing three weeks ago. They found him yesterday. Rossi erased his memory. He could have killed him. Instead he left an empty husk of who he was, with no memory of his family. They tried to approach him and he screamed. He didn’t recognize anyone.”

“I heard,” Cal said softly. “That level of cruelty is unimaginable. What does it bring up for you?”

“What River is doing is different. This is the way they train Tracers so that no one can break into their minds. He’s trying to protect me.”

“I’m aware of Tracer training protocols.” Cal’s voice gentled. “I also believe River’s heart is in the right place. But my question was how this impacts you, given your personal history and his.”

I swallowed, suddenly back in my bedroom. River’s voice was everywhere in my mind, urging me to keep him out, while at the same time trying to force his way in.

I won’t let him touch you, he’d said fiercely. But you have to lock down your mind when he starts trying to find a way in. That will buy you time to get away.

And then there was the sensation of his power, tendrils of dark magic twisting into invisible crevices in the wall I tried to hold, no matter how hard I fought against it.

Suddenly an old memory surfaced. I was curled in bed, almost a year before I’d fought free from the memory block, hair damp and sweaty against my neck, lost in one of the panic attacks as Meera sat beside me, stroking my back and helping me breathe, whispering that everything would be okay, that we would get through this just like we always did.

All those months, I’d believed there was something wrong with me, that a medication I’d been taking had caused me to hallucinate the events out in the cornfield, when I’d seen my sister and her friends turn into werewolves. I retained some of the original memories, but they felt like vivid, terrible dreams. Like I was going mad.

River had allowed me to believe that. Me and countless other non-shifters like me, our memories wiped to protect the secret existence of werewolves.

Fuck you, River, I’d whispered, wanting to slap him, wanting to hate him.

He didn’t react, voice cold behind me. When Rossi comes for you, he will take every memory that was ever yours and twist it into a lie. He will make you believe you hate your sister, that everyone you love wants to hurt you.

I can’t talk to you about this right now, I whispered. You’re not even sorry.

Not sorry? He laughed sharply. I hate myself for what I did to you more than you will ever know. I can’t change the past, Ellie. All I can do is do everything within my power to protect you from Rossi now. When he comes for you, you’ll want to run away from everything you’ve always known. Your mind will be a fractured nightmare, and there will be nothing I can do to fix it. That is what I’m trying to save you from. If there is nothing else I can give you, no other way I can redeem myself, let it be to spare you from this fate.

Tears filled my eyes as I whirled to face him. You do get the irony of this, don’t you? You’re training me to resist Rossi, when he’s just like you. It was the cruelest thing I could have said to him, and yet I didn’t stop. You do this every day to people. Destroy their lives.

Yes. His expression didn’t change. Now let’s go again.

Cal cleared his throat. I blinked, realizing I’d drifted off.

“Things between you and River have gotten mired in confusion in just a short time. It would be okay if you wanted to ask someone else to take over some of those tasks. Having Fallon be the one to try to force her way into your innermost thoughts might make things less confusing.”