Merciless Union by Faith Summers

30

Aria

We turn off a road I don’t recognize and drive down towards the woods. I know we’re close to home, but this isn’t anywhere I’ve been.

At least not since I awoke from the coma.

It’s only when I see the field and the river ahead that I remember, and I only do because I’ve been to this place many times in my dreams.

Every time I dream about this place, Lucca is here too, but he’s my Peter.

As we park, I gaze ahead and see the small building ahead. I don’t remember what it is, but I know that’s the music school. It has to be. It was near the field.

“You recognize it, don’t you?” Lucca says, noting my expression.

“Yes. I’ve dreamed about it, but I don’t actually have any memories of coming here.” I gaze at him.

“Come on, let’s go walk around for a little bit. I’ll have you home in time for Dr. Belmont.”

“Okay.” I’m not sure what he has planned in bringing me here, but it feels good to be somewhere I recognize.

We get out of the car, and we walk toward the field.

I stopped having the dreams of us as kids after I realized I was dreaming about him. It was odd that they stopped after playing through my mind for so many years. Then again, maybe they stopped because there was more to shock me about the boy I was dreaming about.

He walks a few paces ahead and stops to face me.

As I look at him, I still can’t believe it’s really him. The only thing that resembles that boy is his eyes and high cheekbones. He was only handsome back then, but now his face is a hand-carved masterpiece God himself took his own sweet time creating.

“What?” He eyes me with that sexy smile.

“Nothing.”

“That’s still a music school,” he points to the building. “The lady who ran it, though, died a few years back, and it sat empty after that. Because of the space, my father rented it for the birds, and I bought the place.”

My eyes widen. “What? What do you mean?”

He motions around our surroundings with his hand. “I bought it, the school and all.”

“Really?” A bubble of excitement lifts inside me.

“Yeah. The school runs daily classes here like they used to. There’s one going on as we speak, and the guy who helps me with the birds still uses the space to prep the birds for sale. They come here a few months before so they can get used to the surroundings and practice.”

“Practice what?” I chuckle, and he gives me that fascinated look he used to give me a few weeks ago.

“My birds are used for falconry. That’s why we raise them. The birds at the house are the fourth generation of the birds we would have seen when we were kids. The third generation came here a few months before we got married. Do you want to go see them? It might jog memories.”

“I would.” Maybe it will jog my memories.

He reaches out his hand to me again, and when I take it this time, I don’t feel that angst. I just feel him.

We start walking through the field, and as we head down to the river and walk into the woods, I feel like I’m walking around in a dream.

Everything looks exactly the way it does in my dreams, which means the place couldn’t have changed that much. And, my memory, or rather the dream memory, is pretty darn good.

“What do you dream about?” Lucca asks, breaking the silence.

“Us running through the field and the woods. I dream about you showing me the birds and teasing me about my little legs.”

“Your legs are still little.” He smirks.

“Only to a giant like you.”

“Point taken.” Suddenly he releases my hand and stops walking so he can crouch down. “Hop on, and I’ll give you a ride. Don’t you fucking dare tell me no.”

I wasn’t going to.

I hop on his back, and that closeness I feel to him encroaches my mind the same way it does in the dream world when we do this.

He stands with me and rests his hand on mine as he walks with me on his back.

How can I tell myself not to fall deeper for him when he does things like this?

This could be fifteen or so years ago when my heart wasn’t damaged. My body was destroyed after Pasha’s abuse, but I still managed to fall in love with the same guy.

Ahead are the cages, just like in my dream. Nothing has changed much here, either. The cages look more sturdy. .

The birds are all here, and they don’t look any different from the ones at the house.

Lucca sets me down, and we walk closer to the first cage, which had a bird sleeping with one eye open.

It straightens its head when we approach and twists around to look at us.

Lucca opens the cage door, and I smile when the bird hops onto his finger.

“No matter how long it’s been since they last saw me, they still do the same thing like it was just yesterday,” he states.

“That’s amazing.”

“It’s about getting them to trust you,” he replies, and it feels like he could be talking about me.

That’s the biggest thing missing from us. Trust.

I felt like I could at one point. It was the day we got married. He asked me to trust him to be my husband, and I did.

I did so, knowing there was so much I still didn’t know. But hearing he set out to kill me in this carefully concocted plan he has with Damien blew me away.

“Here, you try.” He holds the bird out for me to take, but I shy away.

“I probably shouldn’t.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Those are more déjà vu words from the dream world.

I put out my hand, and the bird hops on, securing its feet around my thumb and forefinger.

“This isn’t too bad.”

“It’s not. Hold your hand up.”

I do, and the bird spreads its wide wings and takes off high into the sky. I gaze up at it in awe at its speed and beauty. Then I find myself smiling.

“Keep your hand up.” Lucca states and whistles.

As the sound of his whistling carries on the edge of the wind, the bird swoops down and comes back to me. It goes right back on my hand where it was before and tweets.

“Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I just did that.”

“You used to do that all the time. Pretty much every day.”

My lips part, and my shoulders sag. There’s no point even searching my mind; I know I won’t remember.

“I’m sorry I can’t remember.”

“You can’t be sorry for that.”

“I know, but I just wish I could remember. It feels like it was a happy time in my life.”

“It was.” He nods and puts out his hand for the bird to hop back on. It does, and he places it back in the cage.

When he looks at me again, I notice a dullness in the glint deep in his eyes.

“Aria, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you again or that I didn’t think to try; I wanted to. I just couldn’t,” he says, holding my attention.

He’s not the guy to explain much about anything, so I’m intrigued to hear what he’s going to say.

“It’s okay; it’s in the past. I shouldn’t have said what I said the other night. I’d be a jerk if I didn’t understand you had the grief from the loss of your family to deal with. And you had to fit into a new life.”

He explained that to me weeks ago, and it’s understandable. What got me is he didn’t go into details of the missing years. He just jumped from my tenth birthday to our reunion three years ago.

“That’s true, but I didn’t tell you how much of a mess I was for years after. I also blamed myself for not being there with them.”

It never occurred to me that he would do that. “I don’t think you would have been able to do anything.”

“I know. I know that now, but the only thing I could have done with them was die. I should have been there that night, Aria. It was the only night I was supposed to be there because of the injuries your father gave me. I blame myself for living. When we parted after seeing each other three years ago, I promised to see you again. The next time I did, you were in the hospital in a coma.”

The blood drains from me. “You came to see me?”

“Every chance I got.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before.”

“Because it didn’t matter, not when I knew what was going to happen next.”

I see. Every time I get a spark of hope for us, something snuffs it away like darkness chasing away the light.

“See, there’s no redemption for me when I tell the truth,” he adds.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me then.” It hurts too much when I put the picture together, and it confuses me even more.

“I have to if I want to get what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

His answer shuts me down, and I just stare back at him. This is another moment where I could tell my own truth, but again it doesn’t feel like I can.

There’s too much of a clash of emotion stirring within me to tell him such a thing.

He looks away, breaking the stare, and when he looks back at me, the guarded wall is back over his eyes.

“We should get back before the traffic hits,” he says as if we were talking about the traffic before.

“Yes, maybe it’s best.” I nod.

We walk back in silence and drive back in the same cloud of quietness.

* * *

When we get back home, I head straight out to the courtyard, where I wait for Dr. Belmont. Lucca went inside to work, and I’m assuming that’s where he’ll be for the rest of the day until he decides to leave the house.

The tension between us is so thick I can feel it from all the way out here. I doubt I’ll see him again until tonight, or maybe even tomorrow.

I’m thankful when Dr. Belmont comes a little earlier than planned.

He smiles when he sees me.

“Hello there,” he beams.

“Hi.” I straighten up when he lowers to sit in front of me.

“How are you feeling?”

“Near enough the same as yesterday. Marylin’s awake, though.”

He smiles at that. “That’s great news.”

“Yeah, and it released some of the stress.” I bring my hands together. “I haven’t spoken to Lucca yet.”

“That’s okay. Please don’t feel awkward like you have to check in with me on that either. Of course, if this gets into next week and we’re still the same, I owe you a duty of care to make sure you’re taken care of properly.”

“I understand.”

“Good, today we’re going to start on those techniques I mentioned and work through your dream. How are you feeling about talking about that memory?”

“I feel like I need to do it. I need to do something active toward getting an answer rather than waiting for it to come to me.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. The first thing I want you to do is those deep breathing techniques I taught you. Do them for a count of ten, then close your eyes, then repeat until you hear my voice.”

I nod and do as he instructed. The other day he said the techniques helped with anxiety and could be relaxing.

I agree with the relaxing part of the explanation, but it hasn’t helped yet with my anxiety. Perhaps the shit I’ve been through means I have to work a little harder than the average person.

I finish the fourth round with my eyes closed, and that’s when he speaks.

“Keep breathing but stop counting. The counting helps to get your mind and body into a synced flow. What I want you to do now is go through your dream and remember what happened to your mother.”

My breath hitches, but I push past the constriction and keep breathing.

I conjure the memories of my dream and what I remembered on my own.

“Tell me what’s happening, Aria,” he says again.

“I’m watching my mother and father argue.”

“Pay attention to their faces.”

I see their faces in my mind. Mom looks hurt and terrified, and Dad looks enraged. I then focus on those words Dad says that change everything.

Shoot her.

The same terror claws through me and the same disbelief as the man standing next to him steps forward with a gun and shoots Mom in her head.

As I see the image playing out clearly in my mind, I pant.

“Calm down, remember to breathe nice and slow. Go back to counting if you need to.”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

I clasp my hands together and screw my eyes tighter. “Yes.”

“Okay, focus on the shooter. You told me you saw him shoot, and you said it was a man. Think about what you can see and your father’s order to shoot your mother. Focus on that.”

I focus and see Dad turn to the man quickly as he gives the order.

The man steps forward, and I try with everything inside me to push past the glare of the sun and fog in my mind shielding his face from me.

I focus on that image alone, and as it clears, true fear fills my soul, and I realize why I didn’t want to remember. It was because this was the person who actually killed her—Mom.

He was a different kind of monster. Pasha hurt me, and I survived. This man, though, took the life of the only person that mattered to me. He took her away forever.

The sordid thought forces his face into my mind, and it becomes visible the same way Pasha’s did when I’d first seen him.

As I see his face, I stop breathing. Shock consumes me, and my heart speeds like it might jump out of my throat and run forever until it disintegrates.

Who I see is Damien!

Damien Mikhailov.

At the realization, my eyes jolt open, and I jump to my feet.

“Aria,” Dr. Belmont gets up too and tries to steady me by placing his hands on my shoulders. “Did you see him?”

I nod frantically and place my hand at my heart as the memories start to flow like a busted pipe.

I remember Damien watched Dad burn Mom. Then Dad tells him to make sure everything is secured, and nothing leaked.

Damien walked away, and that’s when the horror hit me of what happened and who made it happen.

Why the hell didn’t I remember before?

My God, that man killed my mother. And he was working with Dad?

How does that make sense?

From what I understand, he and Lucca already came up with a plan to get the company. Unless if him being there wasn’t about that.

Dad said to make sure everything was secured and nothing leaked—like the secret.

“Who was it, Aria?” Dr. Belmont asks.

I have to blink to refocus on him.

“I have to tell Lucca. I … have to tell him now.”