Chapter 382: Hiding Out

It must have been the intensity of my emotions that made the old history surface, like a short in my brain that carried me to the most horrifying and terrifying experience of my young life. Since I'd only recently recovered the memory, it had equally more and less impact on me than had it been with me my whole life. More, in the sense that it was still fresh enough feeling I was continuing to gather details and less because, I think, if I'd been forced to suffer through it for more than the length of time I had now, as an adult, it might have driven me mad.

Still might. Jury was out at the moment.

But, it did mean I was able to get control over the images and smoosh them down. My mind was used to doing it, after all, spent a little over two decades hiding it from me and as I inhaled a shaking breath, anxious nerves clenching around my throat, Robert spoke, dispelling the last of the return to childhood and that terrible day.

"I'm here," he said. "What do you need?"