“Ow,” mutters Rex dramatically. “After last night you’d think we’d be more.”
“Last night,” I repeat and my stomach twists. “Falco, you tell me what happened and you tell me right now!”
“I think you were drugged,” Falco says immediately, his expression grim. “In fact, we know you were.”
“Drugged?” My heart begins to pound. “I…how did that happen?”
“It must have been at the bar,” Pidge says as he joins us in the kitchen. “I’ve spent all night pouring over CCTV from that place and no one approached the table to slip something in your drink, so it must have happened at the source.”
Pidge carries the same expression as Falco. The longer I stare at all four men, the more pressure weighs down on my shoulders. It’s like they all know something they aren’t telling me, and the twisting in my gut grows into a sickness.
“Why do you all look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
“You were…attacked last night, Aerin.”
Attacked.
I wait for the words to trigger something, to unlock a memory or a fear, but there’s only the throbbing of my face. Nothing springs to mind. No memory of anything. “Attacked?”
“You really don’t remember?” Falco’s head tilts as he studies my face. “Nothing at all?”
I shake my head. “I feel fine other than my face hurts and I’m a little cold.”
“I can fix that, partly,” Bullet says. He vanishes through a white door behind me, and a few seconds later, something clunks loudly, followed by a rushing hiss. Then the heating clicks on.
“You were kidnapped from the bar and taken hostage. Three men attacked you and we got there in time to save you,” Falco continues, his voice tight. “I’m sorry, Aerin.”
There’s still nothing. Everyone’s looking at me like something horrible happened, but there’s nothing in my mind.
Nothing about my body suggests anything happened; there’s no pain anywhere else, and the only issue aside from my face is maybe some lingering exhaustion. “I feel fine, honestly. You don’t need to apologize.”
Falco stands abruptly as if my words have struck him, and he shakes his head. “You have no idea what I?—”
“Falco,” Pidge warns suddenly. “Maybe we should show her the video.”
“Video?” Suddenly my stomach sinks. “There’s…what video?”
“No,” Falco replies immediately. “But no memory…was it GHB?”
“Could be,” Pidge replies. “But Aerin was docile. Very easily persuaded to leave the bar. Even when you got there, she followed your requests to a T.”
“What the hell is strong enough to do that?” The nerve at the edge of Falco’s jaw jumps as he clenches down.
“Devil’s Breath,” Rex speaks up from the stove while depositing whatever he’s cooked onto some nearby plates.
“What’s that?” Bullet returns from the boiler room.
“Devil’s Breath,” Pidge repeats. “It’s uh…scopolamine or you’d know maybe as hyoscine? It’s typically used to prevent nausea or vomiting, especially after surgery, but in really strong doses itcan make you disoriented and painfully sensitive to suggestion, leading to memory loss.”
“Hyoscine,” Bullet repeats. “Aye, I know that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Falco snaps.
“It fits her symptoms,” Pidge replies. “And much harder to detect that GHB.”
I watch them all in a daze, tracking their words back and forth as they unravel a puzzle I only have a couple of pieces of. Last night, I was drugged and attacked but I have no memory of it, not even a distant glimmer in the back of my mind. The more they talk, the more dazed I feel until I stand abruptly. They all fall silent.
“Enough! Stop. Please, stop. This is…too confusing.”
