Chapter 210: False Memories
Enzo
On the morning after I upset Selena and slept on the couch for talking to Nina, I woke up feeling foggier than usual. Selena, much to my surprise, was already awake and was cooking pancakes in the kitchen.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she said with a grin as she flipped a pancake on the stove. “Hungry?”
I managed a slight smile as I stood and walked over to her. My body was sore from my night spent sleeping on the couch, but at least Selena seemed to be in a good mood now; in fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t quite remember why she was mad at me to begin with. I remembered talking to that girl named Nina, but I didn’t know why I was talking to her.
Either way, it didn’t matter. The most important thing on my mind was keeping my love happy, and I would have done whatever it would take to make that happen.
However, as the day went on, the fogginess in my brain continued. I felt out of it all day, and chalked it up to a head cold or exhaustion. But when the foggy feeling still didn’t go away two days, I started to wonder if something was wrong. aftér
Everything changed when I went to a party with Selena.
We were having a nice time, drinking and dancing together. She seemed happy, which made me happy, and made me forget about the strange feeling in my head. But when I got separated from her, and suddenly felt someone grab me by the hand and yank me through the crowd, I knew that something fishy was going on.
Nina pushed me outside and had one of her friends guard the door for us. All I could think about was Selena – was she okay? Nina was staring at me with a confusing amount of intensity, and it only made me more uneasy around her.
“Um-What’s going on?” I asked, trying to look over her to see if Selena was inside. “Do you need something?”
“Enzo, look at me,” Nina said. “Please. Look at me.”
“Sorry…” I shook my head and took a few steps backwards, but she only closed the distance between us again. How did she even know my real name? To everyone else here, I was known only as Eli. “Do I know you?”
Nina didn’t answer. She just kept staring at me with an odd amount of concentration, like she was trying to see into my soul. I was uncomfortable in this situation and only wanted to get out and make sure that Selena was okay. “I have a girlfriend,” I said. I sidestepped around her in an attempt to get to the door, but suddenly Nina jumped in the way again and grabbed my wrist, taking me by surprise.
“Enzo!” she shouted. Tears seemed to be welling up in her eyes. “Please. It’s Nina. Please remember me… Selena put a spell on you!”
I furrowed my brow. The air between us went silent as I puzzled over what she meant. Selena hadn’t put a spell on me. And what did she mean about ” remembering” her? There was nothing to remember; sure, she looked a bit like Selena, but that didn’t mean anything.
Was this some sort of prank?
Finally, I decided that I had enough. I needed to know if Selena was okay, and without a word, I ripped my wrist away from Nina and stormed back into the party.
Her friend, who I recognized from the hockey team, tried to stop me.
“Hey, Enzo,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulder and turning me back to face him. But this time I was prepared, and I swung at him. He ducked, but it didn’t matter; it gave me time to get away.
When I found Selena, she was crying. Apparently, Nina’s two friends had cornered her in the bathroom and were questioning her on her true identity. I could only hold her and comfort her as I fumed over the sick prank Nina played on us. I wasn’t sure, however, if I could bring myself to tell her what Nina did to me just then, so I decided to keep it to myself.
But that night, as I walked home with Selena, I couldn’t deny the sudden, intense scent that traveled across the air to me.
It was tantalizingly sweet, and I instantly recognized it as my mate’s scent. And it wasn’t coming from Selena.
The next morning, I was walking to meet Selena when I suddenly bumped into Nina again.
This time, I picked up her scent instantly.
She was a werewolf? How was it that her scent was so sweet to me? It simply didn’t make sense, and I immediately brushed it off as another prank before walking away from her again to see Selena.
Even then, however, as I held Selena and comforted her over being kicked out of class by Nina’s doing, I still couldn’t deny the strange scent that was drawing me to this strange girl. All along, I had always thought that Selena was my mate. And yet… This new scent was so familiar, so sweet, so perfect. I felt as though I had known it for a long time, even though I didn’t remember this girl at all. Somehow, it made me want to investigate.
That afternoon, while Selena sulked in our dorm, I went out under the disguise of going to get her some coffee from the cafe. And of course, I would do just that- but first, I felt too compelled to follow Nina’s scent and see what was going on. Maybe I could get some sort of explanation or proof that it was a prank.
I followed her scent across campus, past the hockey arena and into the infirmary. And there she was; through the window, I could see her. She seemed to be mixing large quantities of some sort of strange, blue liquid.
I watched her for a moment, unseen by her as I peered around the corner of the building. Her scent was tantalizing, but beyond that, there was something else.
That blue liquid… I swore I had seen it before.
In fact, the longer I looked at it, the more I realized that I actually had seen it before. And suddenly, as I came to this realization, a memory suddenly flashed through my mind; a memory of Nina holding little vials of that blue liquid, and using it to save the campus.
Somehow, I knew I was there. That memory wasn’t false; it was the memory of some “great battle” against the Crescents that was false. But how? Why? I couldn’t make sense of it. All I knew was that I knew that blue liquid, and I knew Nina in some strange way.
As I watched her working, so many
questions flashed across my mind. Was
this some sort of antidote? Why was she making so much of it? And, more than anything else… Why was she so beautiful to me as she worked? I felt my heart pounding in my chest the longer I looked at her, and even Fio began to awaken and become drawn to her.
Suddenly, as I watched her, she stopped; she must have felt my eyes on her. And for some reason, I didn’t feel compelled to leave, even when she jerked her head up and stared right at me with wide eyes.
In fact, it was quite the opposite.
As I looked into her eyes, I felt more compelled now than ever to go to her.
