Page 129 of Eternal Surrender

She reached for her cell and stared at the screen. “No signal. Do you think they’ll hear us if we scream?”

I shook my head, dazed.

She gave a shrug. “I’m willing to share my deepest fear.” She gave me a look of reassurance. “James and I went out to dinner the other night. He ordered us dessert to share. Vanilla ice-cream.”

I raised an eyebrow, fascinated with where she was taking this.

“It’s not that I don’t like vanilla.” She shifted her position. “It just suddenly dawned on me that I don’t want my life to be vanilla.” She turned to face me. “Domestic drudgery terrifies me.”

Silence ensued filling the small chamber, leaving us quiet with our thoughts.

“I suppose it goes deeper.” Ingrid broke the silence again. “My dad was a sergeant in the Army.” She pulled the end of her sleeves over her hands so that only the tips of her fingers were showing. “I got to travel quite a bit. Europe, mostly.” Distracted, she examined her fingernails. “My dad got posted to the Middle East. You know, I’m still not quite sure why they call it friendly fire?”

I realized what she was saying. “Your father was shot?”

“He recovered. But then they sent him back. Right into the center of combat. When he returned home from that second tour. . .”

“Post Traumatic Stress?”

She seemed far away.

“Ingrid, how old were you?”

“Thirteen,” she murmured.

I followed both Ingrid’s thoughts and her words, daring to reach her in that darkest place within but not able to go there.

“Your father took his own life,” I whispered, having read her mind, barely able to grasp the fading images.

“I have this reoccurring nightmare that I’m standing at my parent’s bedroom door. But I don’t go in.”

I tried to find the words that might lesson her pain, but there were none.

Her face was flushed with grief. “My dad survived two wars, and yet, he couldn’t survive the one raging inside his head.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said softly.

“I’ve never told anyone.”

“I believe this is Fabian’s way of helping us,” I said, hoping this was true. “Having us open up to each other like this.” I chastised myself for not seeing this coming.

Ingrid wriggled round to face me. “William, go on then, what’s your biggest fear?”

Staring straight ahead, I silently begged Fabian not to do this.

Quietness ensued, the small chamber stiflingly still, punishingly claustrophobic. Fabian’s answer was evident.

“You can trust me,” Ingrid said. “We’re in this together, right.”

I looked over at her. “Your memory was wiped by Fabian.”

“What?”

“You witnessed something unspeakable in the dungeons of St. Michael’s Mount. So Fabian removed those memories.”

“How?” She looked horrified. “What did I see?”

I rested my head back against the brick, doubting Fabian’s method of having me finally reveal to Ingrid who I really was.