Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater_Rhodes

Author:Amelia Atwater_Rhodes [Atwater_Rhodes, Amelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440240044
Amazon: 0440240042
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 2010-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

ONCE AGAIN, ERIN FOUND HERSELF awake in darkness.

Squinting, she could barely bring into focus a single shaft of light falling beneath a curtain across the room, and she couldn’t roll over. Her hands were tied together and attached to the headboard, and someone was spooned

against her back.

She didn’t feel injured, though her body was heavy and

sore and her mouth was cottony. She closed her eyes again, trying to remember how she got here and, for that matter,

where and when “here” was. She had gone to dinner with

Sassy on Wednesday night. They had been by the car. . . .

That man.

Adjila. Oh, god, was she with him?

She couldn’t stop the small panicked sound that came

from her throat at that moment and woke her bedmate.

“Erin?”

106

“Sassy?” The name came out in a relieved rush of breath.

“What happened?”

Instead of answering, he leaned over, tilted her head

back, and kissed her.

“Hi to you, too,” she replied when he pulled back. “But

I’m not liking the tied- up thing.”

“Just checking,” he said as he reached to release her

wrists.

She kisses differently than you do, he had said. Well, that was one way to figure out who she was. That he needed to

check was what had her concerned.

“Where are we?”

“My apartment,” he answered. “I didn’t want to take

you home, because I was worried you might end up back

in the hospital.”

“Sassy, my dad is going to call the freaking police—”

“Yeah. He nearly did. I called him, told him you had a

panic attack and took some pills and were sleeping on my

floor for the night. Then I promised you would call in the morning, and tried to sound puzzled when he said things

like ‘drive her home this instant.’ You might want to call him now, before the police do show up.”

“Where’s my phone?” She stumbled out of bed, rolling

her shoulders, which were sore from the position in which

they had been tied. Sassy snapped on the light, making her squint and cover her eyes for a moment as he retrieved her cell phone from his kitchen counter.

“What did happen?” she asked as she dialed. “And did it 107

occur to you that maybe, given my record, it would have

been better for me to wake up in a hospital?”

“You’re not crazy.”

“Bull— Hi, Daddy,” she said as her father picked up the

phone halfway through the first ring.

“Erin? Are you all right?” She smiled a little, because his voice held less of the fear she would expect if he had believed Sassy’s story about the panic attack, and more of the fear that made sense in the voice of a father whose daughter had never come home from a date.

“I had a bit of an episode last night,” she answered.

There was silence on the other end, perhaps as her fa-

ther decided whether he wanted to believe that any more

than he did his suspicions.

“Sassy took care of me. He was a perfect gentleman.”

As much as he ever was, at least. “Given the way I feel, I think I took a double dose of pills and passed out.” She

saw Sassy nod.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.