A spike of pain shot through my temple as the images replayed behind my eyelids. It was this same room, and I was standing in exactly the same place, but the room wasn't bathed in lamplight, instead it was the bright light of day.
I touched the books in front of me and another image fired through my mind. This time it was of a shelf, just like this one, packed with flawless books. Each one stacked side by side without so much as a crease or a crinkle. Unread and untouched.
I pulled my hand from the shelf as the unusual truth spilled from my lips, "I've been here before."
The words sounded like a question but the feeling in my chest held no sense of uncertainty.
I turned with slow steady steps to look at Atticus. He was watching me with the same expectant gaze but now his eyes narrowed with concentration as they searched my expression.
"You have," he uttered. His words triggered some internal domino effect, and I felt the room start to spin, lights and colours rushing into place. With them came the radiating pain creeping across my skull as it had the day in the bar when I fainted, sparking from my temples and creeping through my brain like worms burrowing through mud.
My palms pushed against my temples in a futile attempt to stem the ache. "Fuck's sake, not again."
As my vision started to sparkle, I felt strong arms guide me across the room until my legs hit the softness of the sofa.
While Atticus lowered me onto the cool soft fabric he murmured, "You have to let yourself remember."
I scrunched my eyes shut. The pain and the nausea swirled and with them my aggravation grew. "Remember what?" I ground out through gritted teeth. "How do I know this place?"
His hands held mine, his thumbs drawing soft circles on the back of my palms. With each pass the heat of his touch washed over my skin.
"The memories are there. They want to be found. The glamour's doing all the work keeping them hidden."
"Now you're just saying words," I snapped at his riddles. "Did you do this to me?"
"No... but I can help make it stop."
I whimpered as another spike of pain brought a series of images into my mind. Now I could see Atticus and me standing in this very room arguing about something. I couldn't figure out what, but I could remember the feeling of rage and betrayal. It was like a memory, except it couldn't be. Could it?
I felt the sofa shift beside me, but I refused to open my eyes. I wasn't sure if it was right or not, but I'd convinced myself that keeping them shut offered me some reprieve from the ache the light caused.
A waft of sweet spices and musk drifted through my senses.
"Just relax, let your mind wander," Atticus murmured, his voice warm and rough and distracting now it was combined with the masculine scent of him. I didn't think I could relax even if I wanted to. And worse still, I worried what I might do if I did. He was so close, I could almost feel his breath tickle the nape of my neck, almost taste him on my tongue. Almost...
I snatched my hands from his as I growled in frustration, "You're going to have to be a bit more specific here, Atticus."
"Let yourself remember. You already know the memories are fake, you can feel it. Focus on that feeling and let the real memories come through." If he was offended by my actions his voice didn't show it.
Despite the itch wriggling under my skin— the one asking questions of the man sitting quietly on the sofa beside me— I did as he asked. My shoulders rose and fell as I focussed on taking long steady breaths. With each one the images racing around my mind started to slow, until finally they fell into place. Memories with sparkling edges burned away, usurped by the truth.
I watched like a spectator in my own skin as Atticus and I talked about the books on his shelf and the lies they represented. I saw myself follow the same old pattern of storming out and drinking myself to sleep, bitterly berating myself for giving the time of day to a charade.
Then the memories shifted, and with that shift came a sense of dread. Like watching a horror movie that been seen a thousand times, I tensed, gripping the supple fabric of the sofa. I knew what happened next. I knew why this place made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and my limbs tingle with the urge to run.
The memory of Olivia dragging that man up the stairs outside filled my mind, each moment playing out in sickeningly slow motion. The limp lifeless movement of his feet bouncing off the steps. The way his sagging body leant against the railings and his vacant eyes stared at me.
I rushed through the memory, unwilling to suffer the fear of trying and failing to hide from her. Before my eyes snapped open, all I could see was her face before me. Big green eyes, the soft shade of dried kaffir leaves, staring in my own as her feminine hands lay flat against my face. The heat from her skin seeping into my own and with it the realisation that the Watchers were more dangerous than I'd let myself believe.
My eyes snapped open as the memories fell back into place. Icy blue met Atticus' cerulean gaze as he crouched in front of me. The warm lamplight made his eyes glitter and the wild strands of his hair take on a subtle sheen. The curiosity and relief painted across his face should have been endearing, but all I could think was what a beautiful liar he was.
"What the fuck?" I whispered before the world went black.
I don't know how long I was out for but soon the soft murmurings of voices pulled me toward consciousness. I registered the way the sofa hugged me as I lay stretched across it. It still smelt of freesias and fresh cotton, the artificial deodoriser furniture shops used.
With stiff lids I opened my eyes.
Atticus stood closest to me, his back facing me as he acted as a barrier to the other two people behind him while they debated.
"It appears you were right, Atticus." Olivia's voice slid through the air, a nonchalant whisper. I recognised her instantly with her angelic blond curls and dancer's poise.
"I don't think I've ever seen a glamour fail," a man said from where he propped himself on the sofa's arm rest. Thick shoulders sloped into tanned thick arms and balanced effortlessly on top of heavy denim clad thighs.
Atticus twitched, shifting his weight. "I have, once or twice."
"Do you expect me to believe she just remembered on her own?" Olivia commented, her voice devoid of emotion.
"How else could it have happened, Liv? We all know a glamour's a one-way street," the man on the sofa countered.
I blinked for a moment as I took him in. There was something about his face and his build that I recognised but I couldn't place his demeanour and his expressions.
He had sandy coloured hair. Not the soft white sands found in far-away islands, but the rough gritty kind I used to build sandcastles in when I was ten. It looked just as coarse too, with the back and sides clipped short while the longer top spiked this way and that. Wide knuckles rested against a strong square jaw as he watched the exchange between Atticus and Olivia.
I scrabbled back on the sofa as I figured out how I knew him. Three sets of eyes landed on me in an instant.
"What the hell?" I gasped with my eyes fixed on the man. He was the one Olivia had been dragging home that night, yet he was standing here alive and well.
"Aslo Finch," he said in a deep voice as he offered me a large hand. "Former dead guy of your dreams," he finished with a wink. His grey eyes twinkled as he watched me cower in the corner of the sofa.
"Try nightmares," I hissed. "You're a Watcher too?"
"Last I checked." He smirked, flashing a dimple in his left cheek.
I looked at the three faces before me. "For a secret supernatural race there's a ridiculous number of you living here."
"Orders are orders," Aslo replied in a bored tone while he fiddled with the thick cropped hair on his chin.
Olivia shifted behind Atticus, and I was reminded of who did this to me in the first place. My eyes narrowed as I glared at her, the itch making my fists clench.
"Looks like someone's in trouble," Aslo joked like a schoolboy taunting his friends.
Slowly I unfolded myself from the ball I'd been huddled in. "What gives you the right to do that to someone?" I spat as I glowered. Now I was standing I could see she was shorter than me. Not by much, only an inch or two, but somehow the height advantage bolstered my confidence. Watcher or not.
I expected some kind of reaction to the venom in my voice, but she didn't flinch. Instead she just looked at me with an impassive stare as she replied, "It is not a right, it is a duty."
"You wiped my memories!"
She continued to stare, her head tilted slightly as she observed me. It wasn't the look of a person engaged in conversation, more a vacant stare of someone being polite.
Atticus glanced between the two of us. His two worlds staring each other down. One the ever -stoic Watcher and the other a whirlwind of rage. "Olivia was just doing what any Watcher would if they'd been discovered," he offered in an attempt to mediate.
"You would be no wiser had the glamour not failed," Olivia said with a placating tone of voice. It did nothing to pacify.
"Oh, so you can do whatever the hell you want as long as no one remembers you've done it."
"Did any of it even happen if there is no memory to stand as evidence?" she replied, tilting her head to the other side with the vague interest of a scientist watching a rat scurry around a maze.
I turned my focus to Atticus.
"Is this what you do? You watch, you listen, you learn, you remember, and you make sure no one else ever does?"
He scratched an unsure hand through his hair. "Not always, but yes, there are times when we have to erase ourselves."
His face twisted as he spoke, and I wondered what was making him more uncomfortable: my reaction to the truth, or his own realisation of how fucked up it really was.
I pressed my palms to my temples, wishing on some level that I could squash these new memories out of my head and just go back to the false ones instead. "I don't believe this."
I saw Atticus reach for me, but I dodged his grasp and grabbed my coat from where it lay folded over the end of the sofa. As I pulled it on, I headed for the kitchen door. To my relief neither Aslo nor Olivia moved to stop me.
"Anna, wait," Atticus pleaded behind me as I fumbled with the kitchen door.
I wrenched it open, pulling my coat around me to ward off the winter wind.
"Not a fucking chance," I snapped, slamming the door behind me.