31. Ava
AVA
I chewed my lip as I sent my texts to Scáth, waiting in the dimly lit corridor of one of the campus buildings.
After hours it was silent, the staff having all gone home. Except for one.
Me: I knocked on your door. You weren’t home.
I would have preferred that he come with me, that he could have at least waited in the car. It would have made me feel less alone.
But I had no choice. If I wanted to follow this lead, I had to do it now .
Because tomorrow, we’d be gone.
Me: I’m just going to stop at my therapist’s office. He knows something.
His reply was instant.
Scáth: I’m coming. Don’t go in there without me.
The heavy oak door opened in front of me with a creak, the sound echoing down the corridor behind me.
Dr. Vale’s lined face appeared and a gentle smile tilted his thin lips. “Ava, do come in. ”
He stepped aside and held open the door to his campus office.
Scáth would be pissed, but I didn’t want to wait.
Besides what would I say to Dr. Vale? That my boyfriend slash overprotective rottweiler didn’t want me doing anything by myself?
Even as my phone buzzed with a call this time, I slipped it into my bag as I stepped inside.
I walked across the familiar office to my usual armchair, the floorboards under the overlapping rugs groaning beneath the weight of my steps, the wood warped and uneven.
The air was thick with the scent of old leather and dust, mixed with the faint trace of his lavender plants.
Despite the radiator, it always felt chilly in here and I rubbed my arms as I sat in the patient’s armchair, in the chair I’d sat in every week for the last two years.
Had it been two years already since I’d started therapy?
I always had the sense of time standing still in here.
The low light from a brass desk lamp illuminated the room in an amber glow, but it left the corners in deep, unsettling darkness.
Bookshelves lined the walls, the rows of worn spines broken only by his display of old medical instruments, a rusted bone saw and a tarnished clamp, a porcelain Victorian phrenology head with lines and numbers marking different sections of the brain, and what I was sure was a real human skull.
I ran my fingers over the velvet armrest of the patient’s chair, the fabric threadbare and rough. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. ”
Dr. Vale poured us both tall glasses of water from a crystal pitcher before he lowered himself into his leather armchair, the creaking breaking the oppressive silence. “Of course, Ava. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
My bag buzzed in my lap but I ignored it.
I licked my lips which had gone dry and took a sip of my water before placing it back on the low table between us. “My nightmares are back.”
Dr. Vale pursed his lips as he tapped his fountain pen against his notepad resting on his thighs. “We’ve spoken about this. Nightmares are just—”
“It’s not just the nightmares.”
Dr. Vale’s pen stopped tapping. “Go on.”
“I’m seeing… flashes. Memories.” I rubbed my face, feigning distress but watching Dr. Vale closely through my fingers.
Dr. Vale’s bushy eyebrows furrowed together. “You mean… you’re having hallucinations again.”
I gritted my teeth.
Gaslighting bastard. I knew I had buried memories of abuse. I knew Liath had them, too.
He was calling them hallucinations on purpose. Trying to confuse me like he’d tried to confuse Liath. What was he hiding? Who was he covering for?
“They’re not hallucinations,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “These are fragments of memories. Real memories.”
Dr. Vale slipped his pen into his notebook before closing it. He folded his arms in front of him and sighed. “Ava, are you taking your medication? ”
I ignored his question. I wasn’t crazy. My bruises were real. My missing time covered up something bad .
I didn’t need antipsychotic pills. I needed answers.
For me.
And for Liath.
I scooted forward in my chair and pinned Dr. Vale with a serious look. “I want to remember.”
“Ava—”
“No,” I cut off his protests. “I am ready to remember. I need to know what happened to me. What happened to—”
To Liath.
I needed to know what happened to her.
Who took her? And why?
But I couldn’t tell Dr. Vale that. He’d refuse to help me. He’d call Ebony, perhaps even the chief of police, and tell them that I was interfering in an investigation.
I pushed the hair back from my face that’d fallen forward in a mess. “Dr. Vale, I want you to use deep memory revival therapy on me.”
At the name of the therapy Aisling had said Liath had tried, I saw a flash of surprise in his eyes, in the way his brows pinched together and his shoulders hitched up to his ears.
But the next moment, he was straightening his pressed pants and brushing invisible lint off the lapels of his two-piece tweed suit.
“That’s an unusual request. Where did you hear about DMRT?”
“You’ve used it before, haven’t you? Liath said you did.”
Dr. Vale froze, just for a split second—long enough for me to catch the flicker of something in his eyes. Was that… fear?
My pulse quickened. He knew . He knew something about Liath’s abuse, something he wasn’t willing to admit.
I had to get it out of him. Tease it out, piece by piece.
Dr. Vale cleared his throat before he reached for his glass of water, gulping it down as if his throat was parched. “I used it once on Liath at her insistence.”
“Then I insist on it, too.”
“Deep memory revival therapy is an experimental treatment, Ava.” Dr. Vale set his glass aside and once again he seemed back in control. “I don’t recommend it.”
“Liath started to remember though, didn’t she?” I pushed, clutching my bag so hard that my nails dug into the leather.
Dr. Vale tilted his head and gave me what I could only describe as a pitying look. “DMRT gave Liath false memories. It made her so confused.”
“But what about her bruises? Her missing time? They weren’t fake.”
Dr. Vale pursed his lips, tapping the tips of his fingers together. “Ava, you and I both know that Liath developed… unhealthy ways of coping with her problems in the last few months. Drugs. Alcohol. Parties.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Liath’s missing time and her bruises can all be explained by her late nights on illicit substances. Her so-called memories were mere figments of her imagination.”
I shook my head, gripping my bag in my fists to stop myself from physically throwing myself at Dr. Vale and punching his face in .
Liath was a typical fucking college student. Yeah, she liked to party, but we all did. It didn’t mean she was crazy or delusional the way Dr. Vale was suggesting.
My phone buzzed again, the noise muffled by my bag. But I ignored it.
“I know you don’t want to accept this about your friend, Ava. But Liath was a troubled girl. She’d convinced herself that someone was stalking her, convinced herself that there was something nefarious going on in her life.”
“But—”
“ That is what happened with Liath.” Dr. Vale’s voice hardened. “And that’s what might happen to you if you insist on being put through a DMRT session.
“Liath was convinced the images she saw during DMRT were real . It set her therapy back months. It sent her spiraling to a point where I could not help her and eventually, she ran away.”
Dr. Vale inhaled sharply. He straightened and brushed his vest down with his hands, fixing his collar.
He cleared his throat, his eyes fixed on me with such concern that it made me pause.
“I cannot in good conscience put you through a DMRT session, Ava. I made a mistake with Liath. I indulged her too much. I gave in to her whims. I let her imagination run wild without checking it.
“I torture myself every day with what might have happened if I didn’t let her spiral. If I said something or did something differently. That she might still be here with us. This is something I must live with.”
Pain and guilt tightened Dr. Vale’s voice. He glanced away, his eyes shiny, and with measured movements, he cleaned his glasses with a maroon handkerchief.
A knot lodged in my throat, a silence descending upon us, thick and sticky, except for the steady tick of Dr. Vale’s antique clock on his bookshelf.
Was Dr. Vale right?
Had Liath been spiraling into paranoid insanity? I knew she’d been partying more than usual the last few months. But had her DMRT session really tipped her over the edge? Had she just… run away, unable to cope anymore?
Dr. Vale set his glasses back on his nose and faced me, his demeanor composed once more. “Are you taking your medication? Every morning without fail?”
“I…” I tried to think back to this morning. Had I taken my meds today? I had a vague memory of taking my pills, but… it was fuzzy. I couldn’t tell if that memory was from this morning or another day.
Fuck, what did I even do this morning?
Dr. Vale let out a sigh. “Ava, I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.”
“I’m taking them! I just… maybe I missed a day or two.”
Dr. Vale tilted his head and stared at me for a long moment. Then he set his notebook aside. “Maybe we should try a higher dose for your medication, Ava.”
My phone rang this time, the continuous buzzing breaking through my thoughts.
Dr. Vale glanced down to my phone, annoyance bleeding into his pursed mouth.
No phones was a strict rule in his sessions.
“Sorry,” I muttered as I pulled my phone out. “I’ll turn it off. ”
Before I could switch it off, a text notification came up from Seamus. Earlier, I’d given him Liath’s and my pills to test.
I shot Dr. Vale an apologetic look and opened it.
The first message made my breath hitch.
The second message stopped my heart.
Seamus: These aren’t antidepressants or antipsychotic pills.
Seamus: They’re memory suppressors.