I glanced behind me one last time before following Eiryn to the campsite.
Eirynand I sat by a small campfire away from the main campsite and party.
“What made you head off into the woods?” he asked, poking the fire with a stick, causing orange embers to rise in a plume of smoke.
I stared into the flames. “I don’t know. I guess I thought I heard something out there. It’s all in my head. I haven’t been out there in a long time.”
“Do you want to go back?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I still have dreams about the man in the woods that night. I see him out there. I guess I feel like if I check enough, maybe he’ll return.”
“But surely this guy, no matter how harmless he seemed, was the one who took you, right?” Eiryn said quietly.
My thoughts always dead-ended here. I knew it didn’t make sense. Eiryn was right, but it wasn’t a feeling I could shake. I was safe with him, whoever he was.
“I have no idea. At this point, I’d listen to Pinocchio if he told me he knew what happened that night,” I said.
“Maybe you don’t need Pinocchio,” Eiryn mused. “Maybe you need to go back to the cabin.”
Go back? Is that what I’d been doing?
My shoulders slumped. “Yeah, maybe.”
Eiryn squeezed my knee.
“What do you think happened?” he asked.
“Maybe my dad wanted to know me. Maybe it wasn’t him at all, and whatever happened was so horrible I blocked it all out. Maybe I wasn’t kidnapped, and I got lost for a year.”
Eiryn stalled and made an awkward attempt at a laugh that quickly faded into a thick silence.
“You told me once, a while ago, that they ruled out any sign of assault, right?” he asked, quietly.
“Yeah, I wasn’t raped, or attacked—nothing,” I whispered.
“That makes it sound a lot like it was your dad if you ask me,” he said.
“But why return me a year later? Why go to all that trouble?”
“He probably realized how much of a pain in the ass you are,” Eiryn said.
I smacked him and grinned.
“Anna, I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling. But I do know one thing—you’re strong as fuck. I don’t know one other person who would’ve survived what you did and then been able to get their GED so quickly after missing so much school. I mean, you’re a fucking martial arts master, and you’re what—” he paused, his brows furrowing as he glanced at his watch. “Oh shit, it’s midnight! Happy birthday!”
The corner of my lips curved upward. “Thanks.”
“Anna, what I’m saying is, you’re going to be okay. It may not feel like it now, but you will,” he said. “I know it.”
Hearing him say it with such certainty almost made me believe it.
But the memories that made no sense were vivid in my mind.
It didn’t matter how vivid they were—they were hallucinations. That was all. Trauma-induced hallucinations. It was the only explanation. Because what I remembered about that night couldn’t have been real.
Right?
Chapter 4
