ᴍᴏᴏɴʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴀꜱꜱᴀꜱꜱɪɴꜱ「 ˢᵒʳᵘʸ ᵛˢ ˢᵒᵏᵉᵉᶠᵉ 」

11 [oblivious]

Sophie and Tam shared an intense stare for a few minutes before a new, different voice broke their staring contest.

"That's because you weren't, witch."

Scared of the voice that snuck up on her, she threw her arm back and whacked the person as hard as she could.

"Ow!"

Turning to see who she hit, she saw dark hair and a bulky, muscly body bending over in pain. Ruy.

"That fucking hurt!"

"It was bloody supposed to!" She raised her voice in disbelief. "You're not supposed to scare a girl who just came out of a heavy sleep!"

"How was I supposed to know you just woke up? Tammy Boy barricaded himself into this room with you and didn't open the door—you could have woken up days ago for all I know, Nyx!" Ruy rolled his eyes like it was so obvious, but she didn't care about how obvious it was because she was hooked on the name he called her—Nyx.

"What do you mean Nyx?"

Sophie was met with silence.

Ruy looked over at Tam as if in a 'what the fuck' expression, but Tam was also looking at her in a 'what the fuck' expression.

"What?"

"I'm not fucking paid enough for this shit." Tam muttered and sat back on the bed she rolled out of.

"What?" She demanded.

"Oh my gods," Ruy guffawed, "she's serious."

And her best friend just gave him a solemn nodd. "Maybe she should just keep her cover name, Sophie 'Oblivious Elizabeth' Foster—it sure sounds better than fucking Oblivious Nyxen fucking Pyren!"

She stood there staring at him weirdly for a beat before it dawned on her. "Those were my memories." She breathed, "I'm Nyxen. Pyren—Fintan's daughter. Nyxen Pyren."

Ruy tore through his hair and scoffed, "No. Really?"

Her eyes widened. "I am! I am and I have a birthmark that's the same as the lady I saved Linh from!"

She extended her left arm and stared super hard at her inner bicep—and the most astonishing thing happened, it started tingling and her once clear skin transformed into a reddish snake birthmark.

"Holy shit! Holy bloody hells!"

"Wait, Soph," Tam began, "super cool, but can you go back to the part about my sister?"

Sophie looked at Ruy—because he was there, he was in Raynne Day Glimmers—and he nodded. Tam should know that someone tried to kill his sister.

Pushing the memories to the front of her mind, she was prepared to transmit them all to him with his permission—because these memories weren't pleasant. And when he nodded, she sent them to him and watched as his eyes teared up and his breathing became labored.

"This makes no sense," he started and pointed to his mind, "that's the exact same as I remembered, but it wasn't supposed to be you. Wylie saved Linh—that's why she has a thing for him."

He was getting snappy, but she didn't know how to respond to him.

"But nothing in this world makes sense anymore." Ruy quoted what he told her when she said the exact same thing. "But it will, sort of, if you follow me—like you were supposed to fifteen minutes ago instead of having this conversation because Miss Oblivious Elizabeth over there was so oblivious—also thank you for that nickname, I'm going to steal it."

She glared at the azure eyed menace as Tam began shoving past them to get out the door—he needed the answers.

And she was about to follow him, when Ruy grabbed her arm, gazing deeply into her brown eyes. "You need to promise that you won't tell anyone about anything—even if you have another memory and seize again. You can't trust anyone, Nyx, please."