40

Maria
There was no such thing as too much information. It was the lack of details that created nightmares. I should know, since the demons I was fighting were clawing the earth beneath my feet in a desperate attempt to free themselves.
I felt as if I was locked inside a vacuum, and it was slowly sucking the life out of me. I had no idea how I’d gotten through the performance, not that I remembered much about it. My hands were shaking as I tried to slide the card into the key slot, dropping it once before managing success.
Before I walked inside, I tipped my head over my shoulder. One of Clinton’s men had stood watching over me in the auditorium, ready to attack anyone who bothered me. I’d had to push him off a dumb and very drunk guy who’d jumped on stage to paw me. He was lucky Brock hadn’t tossed him against the wall.
“You don’t need to stay,” I told him.
“I follow orders, ma’am. I’m not leaving.”
“Okay.” I walked inside, taking a deep breath before closing and locking the door. I had no idea when the three men would be back, but I wanted to find out everything I could about what had happened to me and who they were before they did. I’d never felt so anxious in my life, as if I was standing on a precipice of a mountain, staring down into a murky bottomless abyss.
I also had the feeling my life was spiraling out of control.
After pouring a glass of wine, I grabbed my laptop, yanking it into my hands and placing it on the coffee table next to the wilted Marias from the first night. As I waited for the computer to boot up, I picked at the petals, pulling a few off one at a time and placing them on the table. They were still soft as well as fragrant, which surprised me.
Red petals.
I closed my eyes and could see a room. A nightstand. And a single petal. What the hell? Then I heard voices inside my head.
“I think someone has been in our suite more than once.” I was standing in front of a nightstand speaking. There was someone with me.
The girl was beautiful, staring at me intently. Who the hell was she? “Why would you think that?”
“There was a Maria petal on my nightstand just like the one I found a few weeks ago. And a pair of my panties has gone missing.”
The girl rolled her eyes. It was obvious we were friends. “Oh, come on. Why would anyone come into a dorm room?”
“Kennedy,” I said out loud. I was certain that was her name.
A dorm room. Crandall University? Maybe. I took a gulp of wine and stared at the petals one last time before turning my attention to the computer. I found the news article again, then decided I needed to write down some notes. I grabbed the same pad where I’d written the story several nights before, remembering something else. I used to write stories exactly like the one I’d penned the other night. It was something else I was certain of.
This was crazy. It was like I’d lived an entirely different life. What had happened that was so terrible that my parents had done everything in their power to shield me from whatever it was?
I plopped down on the sofa, making a timeline of what I remembered, adding as many details as possible. Then I read the article again, jotting down a couple notes. A revelation hit me. Ten years had passed. Okay.
“As a member of an elite group, the men who graduated from the austere college were handed more than just a diploma,” I read out loud. “They were also provided with a key to wealth and utter success in every avenue of business as determined by their powerful families.”
I sat back, thinking about what the reporter was saying. Apparently, Crandall University was also called the City of Hope.
As I googled the name, the first picture that came up reminded me of a cathedral, the ancient stone building appearing as if it had been built centuries before. Kentucky? Hmm… I scrolled through their programs. Then something caught my eye. Music. The university had one of the most esteemed music programs in the country.
My skin began to crawl.
The article also alluded to debauchery and criminal acts, but of course the reporter was smart enough not to name any names in direct connection to the apparent lewd acts. However, the year was mentioned. Ten years ago. Apparently, the Elite had been permanently disbanded, several young men expelled. Where had the reporter gotten such detailed information?
I scrolled for another thirty minutes, unable to corroborate the reporter’s findings in a single article or mention anywhere on the internet. Of course the parents had enough power and influence to sweep everything under the rug. I tried a different tactic.
It only took a few minutes to ascertain that all three of my men had been seniors the same year as mentioned in the article. The reporter had also alluded to the fact that there’d been a storm that night. Why did that matter?
Storm.
I clenched my eyes shut, the same vision from months before of running through the forest rushing into the forefront of my mind and played out. Only this time, there was something different. Lights. Headlights. The startling realization kept me on edge, but I was excited that additional pieces of my memory were starting to come back.
What else were my passionate lovers hiding?
After another sip of wine, I allowed my fingers to keep searching through the various pages. All three men had glowing articles and snippets from events attended as well as disparaging ones. Christian was even suspected of killing his own father. Wow.
Another forty-five minutes had passed, maybe longer. I’d yet to find anything that intertwined my life with the debauchery the reporter had mentioned. Not one thing. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my memories were conjured up stories partially from what I’d written. An overactive imagination. Or maybe I needed the mystery of what had happened to me to be a bigger deal than it was. My parents had told me it was a swimming accident. I should just leave it alone and move on with my life.
Did I even know a Kennedy? Not that I remembered. I laughed and folded my legs, resting the laptop on my knees. I continued to scroll through the pages, although the stories were starting to drift to other people entirely. The ache in my head remained and there was a nagging that refused to go away.
“I need to surrender to them no matter what they want me to do.”
“Whoa. Hold on. That’s crazy. Why?”
The girl from my dorm room was sitting right beside me. We were in a vehicle. There was a storm. I was certain of it.
“Because my parents want me to be chosen.” The girl was insistent. She’d made the statement as if it was the best thing to ever happen to her.
“Chosen for what?”
“To hopefully marry one of the bastards one day.”
While her words had been said with disdain in her voice, I’d seen the glimmer in her eyes. She was excited. Wait a minute. She’d brought me to a… party. That’s right.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a few seconds to rest them. When I opened then again, my pupils fixated on a blue tag in the screen. The Damned Strike Again. Tragedy.
I hadn’t seen this article before. Why?
My fingers were shaking as I read the article. By the time I was finished, I was sick to my stomach. Then on a hunch, I returned to Clinton’s name, adding the word ‘brother’ into the search bar. It didn’t take long to find a carefully crafted article from twenty years before.
Donavan Cross had been slaughtered in his own home by an unknown assailant who’d never been found. His twelve-year-old brother, Clinton Cross, had found the body. “Oh, God.”
Revenge. Clinton wanted revenge. If what I suspected was true, there was no coincidence to the fact that the four of us had been brought back together. Had Clinton orchestrated it?
My thoughts drifted back to the vision that I now knew was a memory. My father had been responsible for Donavan’s death. I knew it as certain as I was standing in a room inside a hotel owned by the man who’d likely vowed revenge. My God. I’d been living a lie my complete life, not just because of an accident I still couldn’t remember.
All the times my father had traveled. The tight security. The absence of family and friends. My mother not wanting me to come to Chicago. It all fit together in a nice, bloody package of lies and secrets.
As a chill coursed through my body ever so slowly, the ache in my head suddenly disappeared.
I held my arms as I climbed off the couch, grabbing my phone from the bedroom. Then I dialed my parents’ number.
When I reached my mother’s voicemail, I ended the call and tried my father’s. Then a smile crossed my face as I knew what I needed to do. One more call to make. Only then would I find the answers. “Yes, I’d like to book a flight to San Diego.”