Chapter Thirty Four

*Ariya*
“You know, Ariya. I was going to be nice about all of this. If you’d only just behaved. But you messed up. So I guess now you’ll never know where your Mother is.” Boss said as he left the room.
Boss mentioning my Mom had my head spinning. I was trying desperately to remember something. Something, anything about my Mom. Boss had left the room. It felt as if my heart was shattering into pieces. My breathing picked up and the panic was setting in. I pulled at my restraints and let out a scream. Hot tears ran down my face. I couldn’t remember anything about my Mom but my body did. I sobbed uncontrollably. I hadn’t thought about my Mom at all.
When Caleb and I left, I never thought about asking. I never asked about my Mom or my Dad. Or Keo. I don’t know if it was because of Drake’s lock that he put on my mind. But I didn’t cry about them. I never thought about them. I didn’t even think about the fact that they even existed. Caleb never mentioned them and I never asked. The first time I thought about Keo was when Boss had mentioned that he was the one that set the attack.
I wanted my memories back. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know more about my ability and I needed to learn more about everything. I was running on only a piece of the picture. I felt like my heart was breaking into 2. I continued to sob, wishing I could curl up in a ball.
Justin walked in and clicked his tongue at me, “You really pissed Boss off.”
I looked up at him, shocked to see anyone even here now. Justin stopped moving and looked at me. The faintest look of concern popped up on his face when he saw my tears streaming down my face. I looked away from him quickly, trying to get control of myself.
“What happened? Why are you crying?” Justin asked, turning my head to look at him.
“Nothing…” I whispered, keeping my eyes closed, refusing to look Justin in the eyes.
Justin clicked his tongue at me, “What, can’t look at me now that you almost killed me?”
I opened my eyes and looked at Justin, “I’m sorry.”
“You care to tell me what happened?”
“Like you said, I pissed Boss off.”
“Ariya…you’re crying and I’m pretty sure that’s not because of your injuries.”
“Why do you even care?! Are you just here to be a good cop?! Boss roughs me up and now I’m fragile so they send you in?! The one who trained me when I got here?! The one who confuses me the most?! The one who I thought cared at one point?! I’m supposed to just tell you everything right?! Well guess what, I don’t know ANYTHING!” I shouted at him, the tears threatening to fall once again.
Justin narrowed his eyes at me, “That’s the whole reason I care. You were the one I trained before you became a leader. I trained you to where you are at. This whole time, you just lied to me. You lied to me about who you really were. You. Of all people! You! You lied to me, Ariya. Then you tried to kill me! You’re one of them. You don’t think I’m confused right now?! I did care, a lot. Now. You disgust me!”
I flinched at his words. Justin and I were never particularly close, but I knew he cared on some level. I was his first student. His only student. When I started with Boss, I didn’t know how things worked and Justin trained me when I got there. Shortly after finishing my training he got promoted and no longer had to teach anyone. He took over as the head of the tracker team. He had taught me most everything I knew about the operations here. We mostly focused on the job. We didn’t get into personal stuff. Justin was a workhorse. He didn’t stop until the job got done. But he was private. I realized that quickly so I didn’t try to pry into his life. I didn’t know much about him.
“We never talked about any personal stuff. You know that.” I said softly.
Justin clicked his tongue at me, “I thought I could trust you.”
“What if I had told you, Justin? Would that have made the situation better? You would have had me locked up and I wouldn’t have activated my ability. Then what? I just died because I was honest? At least this way, if you are going to torture me, you’re going to have to live with hurting someone who is an actual person to you.” I scoffed.
Justin’s expression softened, “Do I know you though? Everything I knew was a lie.”
“If that’s what you think, that’s on you. I didn’t hide who I was as a person. I just hid what ability I would have one day. That’s the only thing you didn’t know. That’s the only thing I ever hid from anyone. My ability. I hid it for good reason too. Look at where I’m at now.”
“Don’t put this on us, Ariya! You are the one that lied. You attacked ME…”
“Oh no you don’t! You can’t try putting this all on me! Yes! I lied. I withheld the truth of my ability and where I belong! But when you guys found out, instead of talking to me about it, YOU attacked me! You electrocuted me and then cuffed me! YOU held me in place while they cut my shirt off! YOU held me in place while they shoved a sword through my chest! YOU let that happen! So take some responsibility for the actions you took and the choices you made! It’s not all just on one person here! It’s on both of us!” I glared at Justin angry, I could feel my eyes change color from my anger but my fangs didn’t come out.
It was Justin’s turn to look at the ground, “I was under orders…”
“Doesn’t change what happened.”
“I know it doesn’t change it. But just like you didn’t want to torture that guy, you did. Because YOU were under orders. I did what I was supposed to do because I was also under orders. Ariya,” Justin looked up at me, “I didn’t want to do that to you.”
I looked at Justin, wide-eyed, “What?”
“I didn’t want to do that to you. I’m sorry.”
“Didn’t you just say a bit ago that you were disgusted with me?”
“I’m just confused. You went through the same teachings growing up. Well mostly. How am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to go against everything I was taught? You know as well as I do that we were taught that the Navi were monsters. I saw the bloodshed from the 2 locations. How am I not supposed to see them as monsters?” Justin said. I could clearly see his inner turmoil he was going through.
“You’re supposed to believe that you know who I am, Justin. I’m not a different person. I just activated my ability. I need to drink blood now. But I’m the same person. I’m still Ari…Ariya.”
“Ari?” Justin said, raising an eyebrow at me.
I blushed, “That’s what my family used to call me…”
“Cute.” Justin giggled.
I stared at him, blushing, my eyes wide, “So now what happens?”
“You tell me what happened with Boss. Why were you so upset?”
My breathing picked up, and I looked at Justin with fear in my eyes, “We had a questioning session, then I made him mad, he beat me up, and then he left telling me I’d never know where my mother is.”
Justin narrowed his eyes at me, “Why is that freaking you out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“What do you mean you don’t remember?”
“I don’t remember my mother. I don’t even know what she looks like or who she is. I don’t remember a thing about her. But for some reason thinking about her, it stresses me out. A lot.”
“You really don’t have any memory of your past?”
“I remember some things. Not a lot. I remember that I’m a Navi. I remember my grandfather. What I do know is extremely limited.”
“Huh. So how do we get your memories back?”
“There’s only 2 ways. The first way is you guys could let me out of here and Drake can unlock my memories for me. We both know that’s not gonna happen. So that leaves the only other way. Ivan needs to remember first which will trigger mine to unlock.”
Justin narrowed his eyes at me, “Who the hell is Ivan?”