Inextricable: A Divergent FanFiction (Book Three) ©

Chapter 20

A stupid smile pulled across my face, and I did nothing to suppress it as I turned to face the source of the sound. I already knew who it was.

"You know," I said in a tone of nonchalance. "My mom warned me never to wander over to a person that started a conversation off with psst."

From a dark corner Lyla emerged and jogged over to me, grinning as she shook her head in amusement.

"Did she?" She asked, getting close enough that I could smell the scent of flowers that seemed to follow her everywhere. "What else did she warn you about?"

"This and that," I shrugged. "But, please, if you've got a lost a puppy or have free candy you need to get rid of in the back of a sketchy looking van, feel free to lure me closer."

She laughed, and it was a sound that seemed to make everything around me suddenly seem unimportant.

"I don't have any candy," she replied, holding her hands out as if to say –See? Nothing here. "Or a puppy. What else could I possibly use to steal you away?"

You already have. I chuckled; amazed that she was seemingly blind to all my unabashed flirting. Couldn't she see that she already had me wrapped around her little finger?

"A smile," I replied softly, drawing closer even as I spoke. And when she did just that, I found my hand rising of its own accord. I was inches away from her face, and when she didn't back away, I gingerly caressed her cheek. "It's not fair."

"What?" She asked, her voice sounding oddly roughed with emotion. "What's not fair?"

"These," I replied, tracing a finger over one of her dimples. "They're completely and utterly disarming." To my surprise, she didn't laugh or even giggle. Instead, she grew starkly serious, closing her eyes tightly as she leaned her face deeper into my touch.

"I thought you'd be mad," she said without looking at me, "because I didn't show up before."

"No, not at all," I shook my head. "If anything, I was worried. I asked around but couldn't find a trace of you." When she still wouldn't open her eyes, I craned her head up so that she'd be forced to see me. "Where'd you go?"

Instead of answering directly, she sighed and stepped back enough so that my hand fell away. "I don't work at the clinic."

"Did you quit?" I asked, and at the shake of her head I almost asked if she'd been fired because she'd snuck me out. Instead, as I read the troubled look on her face, I decided to let it go for the time being. "What happened?"

"Let's just say that there were a couple of inconveniences that kept getting in my way," she replied cryptically. "Anyway, I'm here now, and still determined to help you get your memories back."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I have a lot of theories, but the one that seems the best to me would be a form of physical therapy."

I blinked, and then made an awkward gesture at my chest. "But I'm all good and patched up. You saw for yourself. And I can assure you that aside from the occasional hunger pang, I don't suffer from any kind of physical problem."

"It isn't therapy like that," she explained quickly. "In a book, I read that amnesiacs can benefit from reeducating the left and right hemisphere of the brain by repeating movements they once practiced. So it's possible that we could pull some of your memories to the surface by working on the body-mind connection that allows body-cell memories to integrate with the brain."