If Only She Knew

20. Group Amnesia

If so, she didn't even remember it...

"Okay, thanks. Please try to describe those snippets you were talking about. Take a deep breath and try to focus." The Colonel instructed gently and Amèlie's mother was rubbing the girl's arm continuously.

"I remember a lot of darkness..." she started.

Ariana was scribbling notes single-handedly amidst her teammates, sustaining Mike's strange looks.

She was trying too hard, his look seemed to be saying, and it made him envious that he didn't feel like trying that hard.

Suddenly, the door of the viewing room opened and the blonde guy with cold grey eyes and many tattoos, Archie Carolan walked in.

"Oh, Michael's team! Fancy seeing you here." The blonde shook hands with Michael then turned to wink at Ariana.

She scoffed. The guy was irredeemable.

After Amèlie Brandon Miles, the 45 year old man who never returned home to his wife, was brought in.

He seemed pretty calm but somehow sullen, as he explained how he didn't remember anything.

While Amèlie claimed to remember darkness, being force fed and left to starve, and a hooded dark figure, Brandon Miles seemed to remember the door through which the murderer came in, as a rectangular of light in the darkness, and two distinctive male voices, one cocky and young, the other darker, thicker.

The third one was the youngest victim, 16 year old Virgo Styles who was originally believed to be the 8th to go missing, but he actually vanished a day and a half later after Haron Ride, so he was the ninth victim.

At the time of his disappearance he was in his hospital room where he had spent a lot of time because he suffered from epilepsy.

He was accompanied by a nurse, a friend of his mother's, just for good measure in case he experienced another epilepsy attack.

"You claim you don't remember anything, right?" the colonel asked the taciturn guy, as he had done with the rest.

The curly, light brunette guy wore a blank face as he gazed at a spot behind the Colonel, failing to make eye contact.

"Yeah."

Meanwhile, in the viewing room a debate had arisen:

"Do you think they could be lying?" William wondered as he gazed at his teammates.

"It's a possibility. Maybe the killer threatened to come after them or their families if they talk," Archie shrugged out a curt comment.

"Yeah, it's pretty convenient to just forget a few months from your life. Many victims suffering of PTSD would like to be able to but it's unheard of," Carla intervened.

"True," Jacob paced around the room. "Amnesia isn't unheard of, but not like this and group amnesia... It's kinda surrealistic."

Ariana was unusually silent as she focused on the guy. There was something about him that she couldn't put her hand on.

"Is there anything you remember at all?"