It looked like a large, possibly, cargo area with enormous ropes hanging from the ceiling on gigantic hooks, their loops slightly swaying back and forth, while seven or eight other random vehicles sat parked around us with no one in them. The walls were made of some dark blue metal, or steel — the overhead lighting dim so I couldn’t tell exactly — and in the far distance in one corner, at a large, old wooden table, I saw Felix and Aros and…yeah, that was her name for sure…Bindi sitting at it, playing cards, all their hair spelled various Com shades. I swallowed hard, searching my memory for where the f**k we were and how the hell we had gotten here.
But I couldn’t come up with anything.
Not a damn thing.
Panic set in, and I swiftly turned in my seat, glancing out the back window, but I only saw more of the same. “Antonio, what the f**k’s going on?”
He cleared his throat and wiped his brow, never having answered my other questions. “This is a cargo ship. We’re heading for Australia. Outside Sydney, to be exact. That is to be your post right now. All those with power are being dispersed worldwide to lead our forces. I believe war will be officially declared once everyone is situated where they need to be.” He paused. “And no, Bindi doesn’t need to be killed. She saw you use some of your abilities, but she can be trusted, and act as a nutritional source for you.”
I blinked, my heart rate not calming any. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”
His lips pinched, and he glanced away, not answering.
My eyebrows snapped together. Something was seriously wrong. Again, I glanced around my surroundings, but nothing looked familiar except for the individuals I could see and my Vizoac, Bonnie, in the backseat. Glancing down at my clothes didn’t even help because I was wearing a man’s overlarge grey t-shirt I didn’t recognize that read: Live Hard or Die Bored. My eyes narrowed at its hem, which was over my black cargos — those I recognized. All along the bottom of the left side of the shirt was stained dark. Glancing at Antonio, his jaw still clenched and his gaze away from me, I lifted the bottom of the shirt and sniffed at it.
It was blood.
I froze, staring at it. What the f**k had happened?
Mind spiraling, I sniffed at it again, then dabbed at it with my tongue. Wild spice. Dizziness swept over me, but somehow I knew that wild spice was what my blood would taste like, the knowledge there even though I had no f**king clue how it was, that in itself making me nauseous.
I patted my leg where the shirt had been, but I wasn’t injured. Disorientation reigning like a tornado in my mind, I sniffed at the unfamiliar shirt further. Profusely, I scented myself, but also Antonio, which meant he had rubbed up against me multiple times, maybe carrying me on this ship that I didn’t remember boarding…but…there was also a spicier scent deep in the threads, barely lingering. I didn’t know this person’s scent, and my eyes slitted as I focused, trying to remember any details. I sniffed long and hard, Antonio now watching me closely, and I met his gaze as I held in the scent that was barely there…but, dammit, I was still unable to remember whose shirt or whose scent this was.
My gaze darted back and forth between Antonio’s eyes as I lowered it. His face expressed nothing. “You aren’t going to tell me anything?”
He said nothing, his face blank.
My eyebrows rose as I took in the surroundings, the scents, and tried to focus rationally, past my frantic emotions, to analyze my confusion. We sat in silence. It hurt my brain attempting to examine the limited amount of information given, concentration hard as shit to pinpoint, each tiny detail — with my panicky thoughts — trying to derail me. But eventually, I came up with the only possibility given the fact that Mysticals healed too quickly for brain damage.
My gaze met Antonio’s. “Someone wiped my memories.”
Still, his expression gave away nothing as he stayed silent.
“And it wasn’t you because you would be trying harder to fill in the blanks, not to mention I don’t believe you would ever do this to me.” My head cocked. “But still, you’re acting oddly.” I assessed him, remembering how he had tried multiple times to speak, but it had come out mangled. Totally indecipherable. Gradually puzzling it out, I voiced my thoughts. “You can’t tell me, but you know.”
He looked forward. Not one damn thing communicated if I was right or wrong.
But… “I’m right. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” I turned to stare out the windshield and saw Bindi staring at us, watching us intently but, I swear to God, with that same damn expression of nothingness on her face. “Bindi knows, too.” I placed an elbow on the door, chuckling softly, a bit hysterically, with a hand on my forehead as I stared down at the blood on my shirt. “Well, it looks like I put up a fight, anyway.” I fingered the blood, which I had no clue as to how it had gotten there. “What the f**k did I do to deserve a memory wipe?” Another glance at Antonio. “And who the hell is powerful enough to do it that you couldn’t stop it?”
I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one, but I went silent, staring at nothing straight ahead as I zoned out, going through every memory of King Hall and King Cave I had. After an hour of us sitting in silence, Antonio not making a peep nor falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the ocean we were in, I stated, “It more than likely happened at King Cave. That’s where my memories end. I remember waking in the infirmary, but I don’t know how I was hurt. Before that, you and I were in Vegas searching for my Prodigy, and I found him. But after that…nothing…then I was in the infirmary, and I went back to my room, which I don’t remember too much about, but that’s where the memories end. At King Cave.
“Unless whoever did this wiped my memories after that, which I guess could be a possibility, but still, it’s not likely. King Cave’s where it happened. Where the most powerful Mysticals would have been to do this.” I tapped the window, staring at the glass. “I must have f**ked up big time to have this done. Broken a Law, because no magic can be performed inside King Cave that isn’t pure. This was a legal action.” My head fell back against the headrest as I rubbed my forehead — thoughts swirling in anger and panic — and even feeling cold, a literal shiver racking my frame, knowing someone had been in my memories, wiping and pulling whatever they wanted from it, leaving me nothing. “What the f**k did I do?”