Betrayed

back to him after wiping my face and blowing my nose, but he smiled and said, "Keep it.”
    I stood there, just gulping air and letting the throbbing in my head go away as I stared across a field of untouched snow to some distant oaks that grew along a massive stone and brick wall. And with a start of surprise, I realized where we were.
    "It's the east wall of the school," I said.
    "Yeah, I thought I'd take you the back way—give you more time to collect yourself, and maybe restore some of that memory.”
    Restore ... What was it about that word? Tentatively, I thought hard, trying to remember while I braced myself against the pain I was sure would come. But it didn't, and into my memory came the vision of a beautiful meadow, and the wise words of my Goddess … the elements can restore as well as destroy.
    And then I understood what I had to do.
    "Detective Marx, I need a minute here, okay?”
    "Alone?" he asked.
    I nodded.
    "I'll be in the truck, watching you. If you need me, call.”
    I smiled my thanks, but before he'd turned to go back to the truck I was walking toward the oaks. I didn't need to be under them—to actually be in the school grounds, but being near them helped me center myself. When I was close enough to see how their branches entwined like old friends, I stopped and closed my eyes.
    "Wind, I call you to me and this time I ask that you blow clean any dark taint that has touched my mind." I felt a gust of cold, like I was being battered by my own personal hurricane, but it wasn't pressing against my body. It was filling my mind. I kept my eyes tightly closed and blocked out the throbbing ache that had returned to my temples. "Fire, I call you to me and ask that you burn from my mind any darkness that has touched it." Heat filled my head, only it wasn't like the hot spear that I'd felt earlier. Instead it was a nice warmth, like a heating pad on a pulled muscle. "Water, I call you to me and ask that you wash from my mind the darkness that has touched it." Coolness flooded through the warmth, soothing what had been overheated and bringing incredible relief. "Earth, I call you to me and ask that your nurturing strength take from my mind the darkness that has touched it." From the bottoms of my feet, where I was connected firmly to the earth, it was as if a faucet had opened and I imagined putrid darkness running down and out of my body to be consumed by the strength and goodness of the earth. "And, spirit, I ask that you heal what darkness has destroyed in my mind, and restore my memory!" Something snapped within me and a white-hot familiar sensation shot down my back, dropping me heavily to my knees.
    "Zoey! Zoey! My God, are you okay?”
    Once again Detective Marx's strong hands were shaking my shoulders and he was helping me to my feet. This time my eyes opened easily and I smiled into his kind face.
    "I'm more than okay. I remember everything.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

    "You're sure this is how it has to be?" Detective Marx asked for what seemed like the zillionth time.
    "Yep." I nodded wearily. "It has to be like this." I was so damn tired I thought I could fall asleep right there in the cop's ginormic monster truck. But I knew I couldn't. The night wasn't over yet. My job wasn't over yet.
    The detective sighed, and I smiled at him.
    "You're just gonna have to trust me," I said, sounding a lot like he had earlier that day.
    "I don't like it," he said.
    "I know, and I'm sorry. But I've told you everything I can.”
    "That some homeless kook is responsible for Heath and the other two boys?" He shook his head. "Feels wrong to me.”
    "Are you sure you're not a little bit psychic?" I smiled tiredly at him.
    "If I was, I'd be able to figure out what feels wrong." He shook his head again. "Explain this—what happened to your memory?”
    I'd already thought about my answer for this one. "It was the trauma of tonight. It made me block what happened. And then my affinity for the five elements helped me to overcome the block and remember.”
    "That's why you had all that pain?”
    I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess so. It's gone now anyway.”
    "Look, Zoey, I'm pretty sure that there's more going on here than what you're telling me. I want you to know that you really can trust me," he said.
    "I know that." I believed him, but I also knew that there were some secrets I couldn't share. Not with this really nice detective. Not with anyone.
    "You don't have to deal with whatever it is on your own. I can help