Left In The Fire: I Am Reborn

Left with Nothing, I Am Reborn

Five years ago, a car accident took away every memory I had of my family and my fiancé.

They treated me. They encouraged me. And every time a memory came close to the surface, it vanished-until this time, when I told no one, and all of it came back.

It turned out I had not been the only one in that crash. While I lay trapped in the flames, my fiancé peeled my fingers off him one by one. Simply because their adopted daughter had suffered a trivial fright, they abandoned me without hesitation and left me to be swallowed alive by the fire.

To bury that filthy crime, they bribed doctors, again and again, to wash away my memories-molding me, stroke by stroke, into an obedient, hollow shell.

For five whole years, I apologized like a criminal for being a "burden."

At that moment, the last humble flicker of longing for family and love inside my chest died completely.

So when they dragged me back to the clinic by force for one final memory wipe, I calmly met the psychologist's terrified gaze.

"Begin. But leave the painful wounds untouched-what I want you to erase is every last scrap of love I hold for them. Not a shred of it may remain."

Chapter 1

Five years ago, a car accident not only robbed me of all my memories, it also left me with a severe traumatic brain injury.

My mother, Belinda; my brother, Derek; and my fiancé, Damian, told me that the violent impact of the crash was why I had forgotten everything.

Month after month, they paid a steep retainer-more than a million dollars in all-to retain a private psychiatric specialist: Dr. Robert Evans.

Every two weeks, Dr. Evans would put me under hypnosis in his private clinic.

He said he was helping me rebuild the damaged neural pathways in my brain.

Whenever the faintest hint of a memory surfaced in my mind, a thick fog would roll over my thoughts, and my brain would plunge back into blankness in an instant.

For five whole years, I lived like that, wrapped in layer upon layer of fog.

Belinda pressed several thick photo albums into my hands, filled with pictures of my childhood.

She pointed to a photo of me and my adopted sister, Jocelyn, nestling together and laughing.

"The two of you were inseparable growing up," Belinda would recite every Sunday afternoon.

"Jocelyn was born with a congenital heart condition, Danica, and you always protected her. Every good toy, every new dress, the tastiest snacks-you gave them all to her."

I stared at those glossy photographs, straining to feel the deep sisterly devotion she described.

But I felt nothing.

Every Saturday morning, Derek took me to the local tennis club.

He handed me a carbon-fiber racket and directed me to my position on the court.

"Before the accident, tennis was your favorite thing," Derek said as he fed balls to my forehand.

"You always threw the second set to Jocelyn on purpose, because the doctors had warned that her heart rate couldn't rise too high. You were the best older sister in the world."

I swung that racket until my palms blistered.

Yet in my memory, I had never once held a racket before the crash.

Every Friday night, Damian took me to an upscale restaurant downtown.

He ordered a dry-aged steak for me, and across the table with its white linen cloth, he would gently cover the back of my hand with his.

"It was your patience and your forbearance that I fell in love with," Damian said, holding my gaze.

"You never asked me for expensive jewelry. Instead, you always urged me to put the money into Jocelyn's medical trust."

I listened to him and nodded obediently.

I believed every word they said.

I believed I was a devoted daughter, a selfless sister, a loving fiancée-only a brutal car accident had stripped away my past.

Until three days ago, when I woke to a sharp, stabbing pain in my temple.

A fragmentary image flashed through my mind.

A twisted, crumpled black car body. A windshield shattered into a spiderweb. The acrid sting of gasoline flooding my nose.

I heard my own voice pleading desperately, begging someone to drag my legs out from under the crushed dashboard.

Then the image cut off.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I did not tell Belinda, Derek, or Damian about that flashback.

Because in the past, the moment I mentioned even a scrap of memory, they would stuff me into the car and rush me to Dr. Evans's clinic for emergency treatment.

They claimed it was all for my own good-that a surge of returning memories would destabilize my mind, and that I needed a doctor's urgent care.

But after every one of those "emergency sessions," my head would throb violently for twelve full hours, and afterward the memories would be gone without a trace.

This time, I wanted to keep this one.

On Monday morning, I took a taxi alone to the municipal public hospital.

Under a false name, I paid cash out of pocket for an independent brain scan.

The on-duty neurologist clipped my MRI films onto the light box.

With a black ballpoint pen, he pointed to the shadows on the film.

"Going by these images, the brain contusions from your past injury have healed completely," the doctor said.

"No active edema, no hematoma, no structural deficits of any kind. From a purely neurological standpoint, the neural pathways for your memory are perfectly intact."

I stared hard at those black-and-white films.

"Then why does every memory of the accident vanish the moment I try to recall it?" I asked.

The doctor frowned and adjusted his glasses.

"Are you currently taking any psychiatric medication?"

"No," I answered. "I only receive hypnotherapy from a private specialist."

"Pharmaceuticals-or deep psychological suppression-can absolutely block the retrieval and reactivation of memory," the doctor said bluntly.

"If someone has applied targeted cognitive suppression to a patient, the brain develops an artificial barrier. This is not an organic condition at all."

I walked out of the hospital into the harsh glare of the afternoon sun.

When I reached for my handbag, my hands would not stop trembling.

I kept reassuring myself that the doctor must be mistaken.

I told myself that a family who loved me so much would never lay violent hands on my mind.

Today was once again one of our biweekly visits to Dr. Evans's clinic.

Belinda drove the Mercedes SUV.

Derek sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through market reports on his phone.

Damian sat beside me in the back, wrapping my right hand tightly in his, resting it on his knee.

"Dr. Evans says your recovery is very stable," Damian murmured, his thumb brushing gently over my knuckles.

"Soon we can set a wedding date, Danica. Don't think about anything right now. Just rest."

Belinda glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

"Your sister Jocelyn wanted to come today too, but her heart started palpitating again after breakfast. You'd better get well soon, Danica. Jocelyn worries about you every single day."

"I know," I answered softly.

The car pulled up to the clinic on Oak Street.

The building was hidden behind a row of tall, neatly trimmed hedges.

Dr. Evans's assistant led us up to the executive suite on the third floor.

"Dr. Evans is reviewing the latest neuroanatomical atlas," the assistant said. "Please wait in the consultation room."

After five minutes, I stood up.

"I'm going to the restroom," I said.

Damian smiled and let go of my hand. "Don't be gone too long, darling."

I walked down the hushed, carpeted corridor toward the restroom.

As I passed Dr. Evans's private office, the heavy oak door stood ajar-a gap two fingers wide.

Dr. Evans's voice drifted out from inside.

I stopped dead.

"You can't keep doing this," Dr. Evans said, his voice low and urgent.

"The combination of multiple psychiatric drugs plus targeted cognitive suppression is already pushing her brain to its limit. If we run Wednesday's full purge on top of another session today, there is a real chance of permanent retrograde amnesia. She could lose her speech, or even basic motor coordination!"

An icy chill seeped through my skin.

I drifted soundlessly closer to the gap in the door.

Derek stood by the window with his arms crossed.

Belinda sat in the leather armchair facing the desk.

And Damian stood right beside the doctor's desk.

So while I was gone for those few minutes, they had all slipped inside.

"We have no choice, Robert," Belinda said, her voice flat and cold.

"Yesterday, Jocelyn saw Danica staring at that old van in the garage. Danica even asked why the passenger-side door had been replaced. If Danica ever remembers what really happened on Route 9, she will go after Jocelyn without a second thought."

"Jocelyn's heart cannot take that kind of blow," Derek snapped.

"The cardiologist said her ejection fraction dropped to forty percent last month. The moment Danica regains her memory, she'll raise hell and confront Jocelyn to her face-and Jocelyn's heart will give out. I will not watch my sister die just so Danica can get her memories back."

"Danica is your biological sister, Derek!" Dr. Evans struck the patient file on his desk, arguing with everything he had.

"Jocelyn was only adopted when she was four! You are sacrificing Danica's sanity-completely-for an adopted daughter!"

"Jocelyn is frail!" Derek cut him off roughly. "Danica is tough. What hasn't she survived since the day she was born?"

My breath caught in my throat.

I pressed my back hard against the wall outside the door.

Every muscle in my legs coiled tight.

Then Damian spoke. His tone was calm, rational-and laced with a heartless cruelty.

"The accident was five years ago, Robert. If Danica goes to the police, the statute of limitations on negligence and abandonment will become a very thorny problem."

"You left her in a burning car, Damian!" Dr. Evans tore the mask away without mercy.

"Simply because Jocelyn had a panic attack, you, Belinda, and Derek pulled Jocelyn out of the back seat. And at that moment, Danica was pinned under the steering column with a fractured skull and massive bleeding in her chest! You sped Jocelyn to the ER in the sports car and left Danica alone on the highway to live or die on her own! If a passing truck driver hadn't hauled her out before the gas tank exploded, she would have burned to ash!" A thread of anguish ran beneath Dr. Evans's voice; he had seen me writhing in pain over these memories before.

The corridor beneath my feet seemed to tilt and heave.

Twisted metal. The reek of gasoline. A voice begging for its life. That was never a nightmare.

That was the raw, bleeding truth.

They never saved me.

Because Jocelyn was hyperventilating, they left me-gravely injured, dying-in the wreckage!

"So she must never remember," Damian said, his voice dropping very low.

"If Danica ever remembers that I was the one who let go of her hand to carry Jocelyn, she will never marry me."

"But this marriage must be her, and only her. The Spencer family trust locks thirty-four percent of Spencer Development's equity with the trustee bank. The old man-her father, two years dead-wrote the terms himself: only the marriage of his blood daughter, plus a voting-alignment agreement signed by her husband with the trustees, will release that thirty-four percent. Without it, the merger doesn't count."

"As for the easier option-if she dies, that thirty-four percent passes straight into the Spencer Foundation under the deed, and we don't see a dime. So I need her alive. Alive, and signing."

None of this had existed five years ago. The old man had rewritten the deed three years ago-after the crash, after he had decided Danica was the only one worth tying the money to.

Damian went on, cold as steel. "Robert, I pay your clinic $200,000 a year. Follow protocol. Purge everything she remembered this week. All of it."

"Keep this up and she'll become a walking husk," Dr. Evans warned.

"Then let her become a husk," Damian said without a flicker of hesitation.

"As long as she signs the marriage register and keeps quiet at the family dinners, I don't care. Worst case, I'll hire caretakers to look after her for the rest of her life."

"Do it, Robert," Belinda ordered, her voice ice.

"The wedding gift Damian has prepared for Jocelyn hangs entirely on this merger. Once the merger is settled, Danica the rubber stamp goes back in the drawer, and Jocelyn will have a wedding worthy of her."

"That heart of hers couldn't survive the Clark family board meetings, let alone the endless galas and camera flashes." Belinda smoothed her cuff. "Let Danica carry the dirty work. Besides, Danica's life is one we gave her-we raised her for twenty-five years, after all."

"Belinda, she is your own daughter," Dr. Evans said, his voice shaking with horror.

"But Jocelyn is the child who needs me," Belinda replied, unmoved.

Only years later would I understand the arithmetic behind that sentence. As long as I stayed a husk who signed whatever was placed in front of her, Belinda kept the house, the accounts, and every dollar the trust released, and Jocelyn kept her wedding. A daughter who remembered was a daughter who could refuse.

I stood alone in the dim corridor.

The air stank of disinfectant and lavender air freshener.

Not a single tear fell from my eyes.

Deep in my chest, the warm little ember that had spent five years craving their approval died out completely.

For five whole years, I had apologized, humbly and constantly, for being their "burden";

I swallowed whatever they put on my plate;

Jocelyn wore couture silk while I was allowed nothing but the cheap plain clothes they bought on a whim;

And every time Damian kissed my cheek, an unspeakable, physical revulsion rose in me-a reaction I had stupidly blamed on the aftermath of brain damage.

Nothing was wrong with my brain.

What was broken was my family-a family that had lost every shred of humanity.

Behind the door, Dr. Evans let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Fine. But this is the last time. If her brain suffers irreversible damage today, you will sign a full liability waiver."

"Draft the waiver," Damian said. "We'll sign."

Footsteps moved toward the door.

I turned without a sound and slipped back down the corridor.

I pushed open the door of the waiting room and sat down on the beige sofa.

I folded my hands quietly in my lap.

I kept my spine perfectly straight.

My face was calm and unreadable.

The office door opened, and Belinda, Derek, and Damian walked out together.

Belinda wore her signature expression of gentle concern.

"There you are, sweetheart," she said, hurrying over to sit close beside me.

She took my cold hands and wrapped them in her warm ones.

"Dr. Evans says he has a breakthrough treatment today-one that will finally clear away the last of that fog in your head."

I looked deep into this mother's eyes.

At the fine wrinkles at their corners, at the dazzling diamond studs in her ears.

This was the woman who had left her own flesh and blood to die in a burning car-just to soothe an adopted daughter's panic attack.

"Really?" I asked softly.

"Of course it's true, Danica," Derek said, coming around behind the sofa to rest his heavy hands on my shoulders.

The weight of those hands was suffocating.

"You've suffered so much. Your mother and I only want the old Danica back-the sunny, bright girl you used to be. You trust us, don't you?"

"I trust you," I said.

Damian knelt on one knee before me.

From inside his suit jacket, he drew out a small gold bracelet with a heart-shaped charm.

He fastened it gently around my wrist.

"A little gift-for being so brave today," Damian said tenderly.

"After today's treatment, we'll go pick out wedding rings. I promise I will take care of you for the rest of my life."

I looked down at the gold heart resting against my skin.

Cold. Cheap. Hollow with falseness.

"Thank you, Damian," I said with a smile.

Belinda patted my knee. "Danica, remember how much this family has paid for your treatment at this clinic. A good daughter never forgets what she owes."

"Every cent of the debt is written clearly in my ledger," I answered evenly.

Dr. Evans walked into the waiting room holding his clipboard.

His gaze drifted in midair, dodging mine for three full seconds before it finally dropped to my face.

"Danica," he said, clearing his throat. "Please come into the treatment room."

I rose from the sofa.

Belinda, Derek, and Damian all watched me, their faces crowded with eagerness and relief.

They thought I was walking into that room to have my mind erased all over again.

They thought I was still the docile scapegoat, slaughtered at their pleasure.

I turned my back on them and stepped straight through the heavy double doors.