Sixty Five. Amnesia Girl Suspects Her Savior Might Be Working with Her Kidnappers, but Still Lets Him Take her Home to His Crime Scene

I do my best not to leer at Jase as we walk for hours through the deserted woods. I keep my arms crossed to keep a handle on my shivers, because it is unusually cold for the first week of October. My breath is clouding the air even now in the middle of the day and I can feel frost on the leaves crunching under my bare, blistering feet. “How are you not freezing to death?” I ask Jase, daring a glance over at him to check.

He shrugs. “The men in my family, we run pretty hot.” Hell yeah, you do. “Not that I wouldn’t like a sweater right now.” He looks to my shaking shoulders as he says that, and with a flash of sudden certainty I know that if we did find ourselves a hoodie, he would drape it over me without hesitating.

He even catches my arm when I stumble, my numb, battered feet and exhausted legs having finally betrayed me. “I’m sorry I can’t…” He bites off the admission, quickly pulling away from me.

“Can’t find me some sensible boots?” I fill in, but he shakes his head.

“No, I was actually going to offer to…”

“You can say it. I won’t judge.”

“You don’t look like you can keep going for much longer, but I could… I could carry you. But with the no clothing that’s probably like a crazy uncomfortable thought for you.”

Actually, I can most happily picture you scooping me up into those arms. And why the hell am I the naked one in that fantasy? And why the hell is it set in the stairwell of a place that smells like meds and wet dog?

I’m blushing bright red, and Jase quickens his pace to pull out in front of me and escape that balking stare that he must have interpreted as the look of someone most seriously offended. “Please just pretend I didn’t say that. We are almost there. I promise.”

We come to the dirt path of an official hiking trail, and it quickly takes us within sight of a little gravel parking lot. The only car parked here is that freaking black Bentley though, and I quickly turn on Jase with fists raised.

He seems just as tense as I am at the sight of that car, eyes scanning every corner of the lot. “Mike was not parked here when I pulled up. And where the hell did he move my car? How did he move it?”

I’m backing steadily away from Jase, not sure that I believe him. Then his eyes lock with mine, and my terror irrationally ebbs. “Please do not go bolting off into the woods,” he implores. “I get that seeing the car that abducted you parked here, it might look like I was lying to you. But I--”

“You did not kidnap me,” I offer. “I… I know. I can kind of remember the face of that other guy, Mike, and I remember the face of that witch.” But why the hell don’t I remember much of anything else?! “There are… holes in my memory though,” I rephrase, “so I can’t help being a little bit uneasy being stuck out here, alright?”

“Yeah, and I don’t blame you. But if Mike did steal my car...” Jase sighs, starting over toward the Bentley. “It’s only right that I return the favor.”

He smashes out the window with a rock, then sets to hot-wiring the hundred thousand dollar vehicle. “Very ghetto, Galanis,” I joke, and Jase blinks, looking over at me warily.

“How do you know my last name?”

My eyes widen. “I… I don’t know. Jason Galanis? That’s really your name?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

“Well then… Lucky guess on my part,” I shrug off, not wanting to think about it too hard. “Take a guess at my full name. Maybe you’ll have the same intuition.” Maybe he’s known who I am all along and this projected confusion is all one big act.

“Cassandra?”

“Yep, that is the legal long form of Cassi.”

“Cassandra… Brody?”

I cock my head. “What the hell kind of last name is Brody?”

“A real last name, and I don’t know. It was just… a wild guess. It’s not like you’ve given me any hints.”

“Well, you got one letter right.”

“Which letter?”

“The first one.”

“So you are… Cassi Bradshaw?”

“No, Banks.” I laugh, not sure why I’m enjoying this so much. I should be wary of him getting to know more about me, now shouldn’t I? I shouldn’t be aching to tell him like every detail of my life. “My name is Cassi Banks, college dropout and...” I swallow. “Girl who compulsively overshares apparently. So now that I’m no longer a mystery to you, you can stop staring at me all puzzled and like… maybe put on some clothes?”

He clears his throat, seeming to just now remember his fully exposed state. He pulls open the back door of his brother’s car. “I’ll, uh, see if Mike has any spares.”

There is a wrinkled Armani suit jacket and dress pants in the trunk of Mike’s car, which Jase slips into with a shake of his head, as I curl up in the passenger seat and start blasting the heat.

Then I notice the clock on the dash.

**November 1**. Almost an entire month since the morning I was kidnapped. “What the hell?” Maybe this car clock just has the wrong date display inputted for some reason…

Mostly dressed at last, Jase climbs behind the steering wheel, and instantly asks, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I point to the date, and his own eyes widen, seeming just as shocked as I am. “That can’t be right.”

“Unless we both somehow lost track of like 30 days?” I try to keep a cavalier tone, but I can feel myself starting to panic a little.

“That witch…” Jase mutters, and my anxiety spikes. Then he censure himself and catches my hand, an act of instinctive reassurance. “Forget it. It’s fine. You’re feeling yourself right?”

“I-I guess,” I stammer. I am more worried about my sweating palm right now than this frightening loss of time, but that’s a typical wrong-priorities worry coming from yours truly. I always fall for the wrong type of guy and start obsessing about his opinion of me. Did this guy maybe kidnap me this morning? Yep, still a strong possibility. So am I freaked out to have him sitting in this car with me, holding my hand?

Nope, just anxious I might provide a gross hand-holding experience for him with my clammy ass skin.

He follows my stare and quickly drops my hand, seeming embarrassed to ever have made that grab in the first place and making me feel all the worse. “Anyway, let’s just focus on getting home. Getting you home, I mean. Or, to work. Your work. Right.”

“Or we could like focus on how hilarious that outfit of yours is,” I prod, unable to help but stare at his bare chest. This suit jacket is a perfect fit for him, but it’s a little tacky with no shirt on.

“Yeah, this looks ridiculous,” he agrees, trying to button up the jacket to cover up more of his chest.

“It’s not* ridiculous*. It’s just an entertaining fashion choice,” I correct. “You could still pose on the front cover of Vogue in that ensemble and make them a hell of a lot of money on that issue.”

He grins, such a self-conscious little smile, as his eyes dart over to lock with my own.

You have no idea how badly I want him to kiss me, and I freeze up, petrified by the strength of that feeling.

Seeing that fear in my eyes he turns quickly away again, setting back to work with his bundle of stripped wires. “I should, uh… get us moving already.”

I do my best to fill the awkward silence as we pull out from that parking lot and start heading back into the city, asking Jase, “So is, uh, naked werewolf superhero your only pastime or...?”

“No. I work with this vet as a kind of intern/research assistant. I also handle all the difficult rescues. I’m good with animals, especially dogs.”

“You got that werewolf charisma?”

He smiles. “Yeah, I guess you could phrase it that way.”

We keep talking, and I feel like I sound like a critical spaz with half these comments, but they keep making Jase smile or even full on laugh sometimes, and that makes me feel so warm inside, so I keep at it, awkward as it is, until it’s time to give him directions on exactly where we’re headed.

“It’s a coffee shop on fifth, but…” I hesitate, looking down at my absurd, archaic dress. “I really shouldn’t show up there dressed like this. My shift’s almost over now anyway, so you could maybe just… drop me off at home?”

“Yeah sure. Of course.”

We pull up outside my apartment building at noon, and I just stare at those glass doors with growing anxiety, even as I hear the lock of the car doors click open in expectation of my departure. “This is it right?” Jase prompts, and I nod.

Though I feel like I’m not safe here for some reason.

But I’m probably just on edge after last night and all this talk about that witch. And I’m probably only anxious now because… “Shit,” I mutter, patting at my nonexistent pockets.

“What is it?”

“I think I’m starting to remember it now,” I breathe, and Jase straightens in clear interest.

“Remember…?”

“Your psycho brother, throwing my phone out this very car window somewhere along the highway, right after he grabbed me. And I think his witch still has my purse, and my keys…” So basically I am broke and locked out of my own home with no way to contact my landlord, or call in to work, or anything.

“I can lend you my phone, and some cash,” Jase unhesitatingly offers, reaching into his own pocket then freezing up just as fast. “Except… this isn’t my car, and I’ve got nothing in here. But my apartment’s not that far…” He trails off, turning bright red. “And that’s not a trap! Or a trick! And I mean, I will take you wherever you want if you don’t feel comfortable--”

“Going home with the full-frontal flasher who tracked me down in the woods?” I do feel comfortable with that actually, bizarre as that is, and as Jase drives us over to his place… I’m not even surprised to hear he lives above this sketchy, dilapidated animal clinic.

This all looks weirdly… familiar.

Though the police tape blocking off the doors is seriously alarming.

“What happened here?” I ask, but Jase looks far more surprised and concerned by the sight of the closed, taped-off clinic than even I am.

“I don’t know.” He gets out of the car, and I follow right after him.

He doesn’t have his keys either, but he breaks down the back door of this place with ease and strides right inside. ‘Your confidence is so sexy.’ I almost sigh that aloud, and it turns me bright red with embarrassment, my hand just itching to whip up and crack against my cheek to maybe slap some sense into myself.

“Nick?” Jase calls out, as he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

There’s no answer, so Jase keeps barreling forward and shoulders open the door of his loft.

“Maybe I should have just asked you to break me into my place,” I joke, and he shrugs, a self-conscious deflection.

“I really expected Nick-- my roommate, he should be home today. He should have been here to let us in. But then there’s all that police tape and… Nick!”

No answer, and no one else inside this cozy loft, decorated with a bunch of new age crystals and hand knitted throw blankets. I can already imagine myself living here with Jase.

Yeah, maybe I’m the psycho stalker.

But whatever, there is nothing wrong with appreciating a man’s decorating tastes.

Though there is an unfortunate, stale weed smell to the entire main room. Maybe Jase isn’t perfect. I’m not a fan of making out with smokers. Not that I haven’t made exceptions to that rule…

The rumble of an engine pulling up right outside tenses Jase up suddenly, nose turning and leading him right over to the window.

“Your roommate?” I guess, trailing along at his shoulder. Then my breath catches, and I back away from that window just as quickly.

It’s not a stranger stepping out from that black truck. It’s psycho Mike, my kidnapper, staring right up at us and giving a savage smile.