Damien held her closer if possible, unlike previously his hands were much gentler on her which weren’t holding her wrists but her entire self. It wasn’t just his actions but also his voice which was surprisingly calm and quiet as he asked her. Penny shook her head quickly, wanting to free herself to be pulled back, “Tell me, Penelope. Do you find it daunting to let yourself or your feelings be entrusted to someone else?” he asked her, “You do know I won’t let you go until you tell what is going on?”
He was sure something had happened, she had been fine until a while ago. Her eyes dilated and her breathing slightly erratic previously had stopped suddenly where he was able to hear her heart thud and her eyes turn almost hollow as if she were experiencing something. There was only one thing he could conclude at the moment, for her to change her reaction suddenly with the change of place and the way it had been, Damien wondered if someone had molested her.
“It is nothing serious,” came her voice. He slowly let her go from his arms but made sure to keep her where she sat on the bed right now.
“Didn’t seem like nothing,” came Damien’s voice, both their eyes meeting each other, where Penny was the first one who broke the gaze. Instead of getting angry on her, or pestering her, Damien sat looking at her as he leaned himself back and placing one hand of his behind him.
“It is just some nightmares that surfaced up…”
“What kind of nightmares?” questioned Damien in a heartbeat. His passive-aggressiveness trying to claw and get the information out.
Penny could feel Damien’s burning eyes on her, waiting for her to speak. Truthfully, it wasn’t anything big but something that had happened before her mother had passed away during the time she had gone in search of the doctor. It was just bad timing and her dream had exaggerated things that she had woken up with sweat on her body. She didn’t even know why the memory surfaced.
“Months ago when my mother fell ill due to the sickness…I had left the village to walk on foot. The carriages there had been stopped due to the riots that had existed with the humans trying to burn the newly turned vampires,” said Penny, her voice two level above the sea’s waves that made noise outside the room. It was a difficult week to a lot of them as the routes were closed and the trades had been closed by the guards which had lowered the profit of the sellers, “By the time I reached the town where the doctor resided it was the time of noon,” Damien intently heard the story she said, “Before I could reach the doctor’s house, I met some people who were drunk.”
“Did they do something?” asked Damien.
Penny didn’t know how to phrase it, and taking in her silence Damien’s eyes narrowed, “They only tried to corner you.”
“And?” And, thought Penny…
“It’s not what you think. I should have-”
“I am listening,” Damien insisted to hear what was going on in Penny’s head. He was curious to know what it was that got her so scared and worried.
It was a dark cloudy day, one of the most common weather of the land of Bonelake. With her mother sick, she had gone on foot to meet the doctor her mother had recommended. Hoping he would come to see her and wouldn’t refuse to see her sick mother. The town itself was shady to look at. It wasn’t like other towns she had seen before. The path was covered with patchy mud slumps as if it hadn’t been fixed for a very long time. The clothes that once used to be clean and hanging out now look tattered.
The walls appeared to be stuck with the mud, not one house clean which made her wonder about the magistrate who was in charge of this place. She was only trying to find the house when she came across an alley street that had a group of four men who were drunk. They had seen her coming and had stopped her from going forward.
“Look who is here,” said one of the men.
“It’s been so long since we have seen one with such good clothes. Wonder how she slipped in,” commented the other for the first one to reply.
“Who cares about that. Let’s have her.” The other two men hadn’t bothered to get up from where they sat with a bottle in their hand which looked like they were drinking something from it.Places like those weren’t meant to be ignored and left alone. If it weren’t for her mother she wouldn’t have gone and now it made her wonder. Her mother wasn’t in the grave and she was alive…somewhere she knew she was. Though Damien hadn’t told it to her in words, she knew it. She wasn’t naive about how this world worked.
They had cornered her, the smell of their breath which smelt nothing less to a dead man’s body. The very place looked shady which was why Penny had avoided getting in the spotlight or under the light of anyone. Though she had managed to move away from them before she could get too far, she had heard screams in the back alley.
She should have gone on her way than go back to see what had happened. And her first instinct was to go search the doctor but on second thought she had gone back and now she wished she hadn’t.
“Truthfully it is not even related,” Penny said exhaling out looking at Damien looking at her, “I went back after meeting them to see two men who were with them. One of the drunk men’s head was being ripped out. The head dangling in the other man’s hand and it was the expression and the whole atmosphere which reeked of death and something very evil.”
Damien ran his hand through his hair listening to this. Was she traumatized with it? But then she should have felt it the day when he had killed the maid. Why did she remember it today and especially now?
“Wait when did you meet the doctor? I thought you brought the doctor to see your mother right away,” he frowned remembering what she said last time to him.
“I did?” asked Penny.
“At least with what I remember. The way you told it,” he said before trying to understand the current situation, “Why did you not tell me this before?” something just didn’t add up in Damien’s mind. Something seemed to be off.
Penny then frowned, “I just didn’t-” she stopped abruptly with her eyebrow furrowing deeper than any time before, “I didn’t remember it until now,” it wasn’t because of trauma, no that couldn’t be, thought Penny to herself. She had seen Damien with dead people at his feet and also seen him tear the maid’s head until it feebly attached itself to the rest of the body. And she hadn’t forgotten it then why this? It was as if it had not been part of her memory at all.
Had her memory been erased…?
