Chapter 164: 164-Missing piece (2)
"It means my mom was in Felor... and neither of us remember seeing her there."
Varitreya swallowed hard, but the words still scraped painfully against her throat. The realization had been gnawing at her ever since the memory surfaced, burrowing beneath every certainty she had once trusted.
"And quite frankly, I’m starting to question the happy time we all had over there."
A chill raced down Addessa’s spine. Gooseflesh erupted across her arms, each tiny hair standing rigid beneath the sudden cold.
"You think something bad happened in Felor..."
Her eyes widened as the weight of Varitreya’s words finally sank into her heart. "And your mother made us forget and planted fake memories in our heads?"
The thought was horrifying. Addessa shivered so violently her teeth nearly clicked together. Her breath snagged in her chest as memories of their pleasant break flashed through her mind.
Moments that had once felt warm and comforting now seemed subtly wrong, their edges warped beneath suspicion. They were too bright, complete and perfectly arranged.
They no longer felt like memories. They felt like a story someone had carefully written for them, polished until not a single flaw remained. "That is extremely scary."
Varitreya’s fingers closed around the hairpin again. The sharp metal bit into her palm, grounding her in the present while her mind threatened to drown in everything she could no longer trust.
"She certainly is powerful enough to pull it off without us noticing." Her voice trembled despite her desperate attempt to keep it steady.
The idea of her mother doing something like this was unbearable. Varitreya had spent years believing that, whatever else her mother was, she would never deliberately harm her.
But the possibility that something terrible had happened to them and that her mother had decided they were better off forgetting was somehow worse.
It meant her mother might have looked at the truth, looked at Varitreya, and decided she could not be trusted to survive it.
’What could possibly motivate mommy to do this?’
Addessa stared at the blood seeping between Varitreya’s fingers, bright and unnatural against her pale skin. The sight made her stomach twist.
Normally, the scent of such rare blood would have awakened her hunger instantly. Instead, nausea surged through her, overwhelming even that ancient instinct.
Her mouth filled with sour saliva while her stomach clenched as though it wanted to reject not only the blood, but the memories attached to it so she looked away.
Addessa’s gaze drifted into the distance as her mind began racing through every memory she had of the school break.
Every conversation, laugh and seemingly ordinary moment that felt out of place for someone of her personality.
What if they weren’t real? What if the happiest memories of their break had been carefully constructed to cover something terrible?
Addessa’s heart began pounding harder, each beat hammering against her ribs. She desperately searched through her memories, clawing through one recollection after another, trying to find a single moment that felt unquestionably hers.
Nothing came to mind. "Truly terrifying," she shivered harder.
The harder she searched, the more uncertain everything became. Familiar scenes blurred beneath the weight of doubt and their warmth draining away until they felt like painted backdrops.
Addessa could almost feel them sliding out of reach, leaving behind only the sickening impression that someone else had been living inside her mind.
Her right hand slowly found her left arm. She scratched at the skin, dragging her nails over it until a faint sting bloomed beneath her fingertips.
She didn’t understand the impulse either. It simply felt as though something had been carved into her skin and was now itching beneath the surface, demanding to be remembered yet there was nothing there.
There was no mark and no writing on her arm. "That’s even stranger."
On the other side, Varitreya’s expression hardened. She was afraid of the answer to her own questions.
Afraid that asking would tear open a part of her she could never close again, afraid that the truth would prove her mother had betrayed them, and even more afraid that it would prove Varitreya herself had been powerless to stop it.
But she was even more afraid of never asking the question. If she retreated into the comforting version of events, she might lose the courage to challenge it again. She might spend the rest of her life defending a lie simply because it was kinder than the truth.
"Now the question is..." ℴℴ𝘮
She looked down at the bloodied diamond resting in her palm, its sharp facets glinting darkly through the red.
"What is it that we’ve forgotten about school break?"
She carefully removed the pin and wiped the blood from its surface before slipping it into her pocket.
The wound in her palm closed almost instantly, the torn flesh knitting itself together until nothing remained but smooth, unblemished skin.
"How do you figure we find out what is going on?"
Varitreya was about to answer her when every hair on her skin stood on end and she discovered someone was watching them.
The sensation crawled over her like invisible fingers. Her instincts screamed at her to turn, to find the threat, to demand answers, but she forced herself to remain still.
Panic tightened around her ribs. Whoever was watching them already knew too much. She suspected it was a spy from her mother, keeping an eye on them to report back.
She didn’t dart her eyes around and didn’t give their observer the satisfaction of knowing they had been noticed. ’The leash is getting tighter and tighter.’
She moved closer to Addessa. Her hand slipped around Addessa’s waist, firm and possessive beneath the guise of tenderness.
The blackblood went completely still. Her eyes widened as they met Varitreya’s pale white gaze.
For one disorienting instant, Addessa forgot how to breathe. The warmth of Varitreya’s hand seeped through her clothes, and every muscle in her body locked around the contact.
Her pulse lurched wildly, betraying her before she could force herself to react. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. ’What kind of crazy is this now?’