Page 9 of Jacob Michaels is Dead

“What about Mrs. Wagner?”

“No.” I slid my hand from his thigh.

Lucas glanced over at me, nervously.

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I shook my head.

“Babe…”

“She’s not my grandmother, Lucas,” I stated a little more sharply than I had intended. “I don’t know how I know that…but I know it.”

“How can you know something but not know how you know it?” He asked gently, obviously not wanting to fight, but also wanting answers he had a right to hear. “I mean, that’s weird, right?”

“I guess.”

“Rob, you forget that we have some of the same memories. If Mrs. Wagner wasn’t your grandmother, don’t you think that would be scratching around in my mind, too? I have no reason to think she’s not, babe. That’s weird, too, right?”

“Well, yes.” I agreed. “I think maybe I’ll figure things out once we have some time and distance between Point Worth and us.”

“Why?”

“Lucas,” I was chewing at my lip, “things haven’t been right in my head, memory-wise, since I came back to that fucking shithole town. I thought I knew what my previous life was like, then I realized our memories were…I don’t know? Fucked up?”

“But we have our memories back.”

“Yeah. I mean. Yeah. We do.”

Lucas gave me a suspicious look out of the corner of his eye.

“What?” I laughed a little too sharply.

“You don’t seem convinced that we have all of our memories back.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“Just forget it.” I turned my head, looking behind us. “I mean, I’m just all foggy from…everything. Right? Once we’re out of Ohio, I’ll feel differently about everything.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I just need some distance. That’s all.” I could see lights off in the distance behind us.

That was odd.

“No. No. No. No.”

“Babe,” I turned around to look at Lucas, “don’t get all pissy with me, all right? I’m just all wonky in my head right now. That’s all.”

“Fucking shit!” Lucas growled, which made my eyes triple in size.

Lucas slammed on the brakes of my car, forcing me to turn and brace my hands against the dashboard to keep from being sent through the windshield. The sound of squealing tires against asphalt filled the interior of the car as I held onto the dashboard, and Lucas brought the car to a full stop. When we had come to a complete stop, I was still staring at Lucas, even more wide-eyed than before, and my fingers refused to be pried from the dash. Lucas’ hands were no longer on the steering wheel and were slowly curling into fists, and his face had turned red with rage.

What the fuck was going on with him?

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!” Lucas punctuated each curse with a slamming of his fist against the steering wheel, ratting it on the mount.