The Lost Days (Prairie Town Book 3) Read Free

that when you hit your head and lost your memory, you somehow forgot the beliefs you were raised with.  The man you once were has been buried deep inside your mind, along with your memories.”
    “Beliefs I was raised with? Why do you keep saying that?  That’s all I’ve been hearing since I got here.  What was I, Doctor? A hardcore Catholic?  An atheist?  Was I involved with the KKK or something?”
    It sounded wrong.  It all sounded wrong.  Devin couldn’t imagine he had ever been involved with anything as ghastly as the KKK.  Hell, there were several African American patients in the institute with him and not once had he felt disgusted with or threatened by them.  They were just people—lost people just like him.
    However, he did get the feeling he was cut from the same cloth when he was around his so-called ‘family’, and that really bothered him.
    “I’ve been told you were quite the troublemaker.  You used to get into fights with people all the time, Devin.  Do you ever have violent urges around other patients here?”
    “No, of course not.  That’s ridiculous.”
    “And what about when you see a pretty girl?  Do you ever have...urges?”
    “What kind of urges?” He frowned.  “What do you mean by that?”
    “Nothing.  I’m just asking you a question.”
    “Well, my answer is no.  I need help, Doctor.  I’m trying to remember who I was and all anyone can seem to do is bring up the bad things about me.  Is there nothing good you can tell me?  What about the night I saved Laney and Benji, huh?  Surely Laney had good things to say about me.”
    Laney visited him once a month.  He looked forward to those visits.  She was kind and pretty.  She didn’t treat him like a bad person.
    She feels sorry for me.   His jawline tightened and pain struck his chest.
    It sucked not knowing who he used to be.
    Do I really want to know?  That person was a monster.
    “Mr. Rose? Are you listening to me?”
    Blinking and glancing up at the doctor, he sighed.  “No, I’m sorry.  What did you say?”
    “I said that I’d like to give you another series of tests and make a decision afterwards.  To be quite frank and sincerely honest, I am not comfortable with having you sit in here and being punished for a crime you cannot remember.  It doesn’t seem fair, Mr. Rose.”
    “But there’s nothing you can do about it.  There isn’t a law for this, Doctor.  If the old me was guilty then...well, maybe I should be punished.  The law doesn’t care if I remember doing it or not, they only want justice.”
    “I agree with that, but only to a certain extent, Mr. Rose.  The young man I see here doesn’t seem to be capable of hurting a fly, let alone kidnapping a young woman—Miss McIntosh, and her boyfriend.  Nor do I feel you’d be the type of person to hold them for ransom.  Even if you could remember it, don’t you feel that perhaps Mia...”—he glanced at his notepad—“Amelia Carpenter was the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Miss McIntosh and Mr. Palmer?”
    “How do you expect me to answer that, Doc?  I can’t tell you whether she was behind it or not.  Who is to say I wasn’t behind it?  What if it was all my idea?”  It was horrifying to even consider it, but Devin didn’t really know the truth.
    What if the person he used to be was more than capable of such atrocities?
    “When Laney visits me, the way she looks at me tells me all I need to know, Doc.  She pities me.  She feels bad for me, but at the same time, I can see it in her eyes.  That’s a girl that doesn’t trust me and I must have done something to lose her trust.  I hate...”—he sucked in a deep breath and sighed—“I hate how people look at me.  I hate what I see in their eyes when I look at them.  Whoever I was, he sucked.  I don’t want to be that person, but I can’t change the fact that that’s who I used to be.  All I can hope for is a better future.”
    “As far as I’m