Feathers and Carnations

Chapter Four

Jisung stared at him. "Progress?"

Minho held his hands up. "Hang on-"

"No, what do you mean?"

Minho paused, meeting his eyes. "You have made progress, haven't you?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about."

"You remembered something."

The words on Jisung's tongue died. That sentence ground into his bones and pinned him in place. His silence was answer enough.

"What did you remember?"

Jisung's heart was waking up, trembling and ready to fall. "I don't know," he whispered. "I've had dreams, unclear, confusing dreams."

Minho had an unusual desperation in his eyes and flowing out of his body. "Do you remember any details? Anything?"

"The mark. There's a strange mark on my back. But that's all I know."

"You mean like this?" Minho turned and lifted his shirt. There, carved in the center of his lower back, was a mark exactly like the one Jisung found on himself, except it was red rather than blue.

Jisung nodded. "What can you tell me?"

Minho dropped his shirt and raked a hand through his hair. "Out of all the things to remember," he murmured, more to himself than the room. He looked at Jisung. "When did you start having these dreams?"

"The night after you and I... met. At the hotel."

"That same night?"

"Yes, why?"

Minho released a short laugh. A relieved laugh. "So it worked."

"What?"

"Is that the only time you've had a dream like that?"

"No, I had one last night. It's how I found the mark."

Minho was smiling now. "So there is a way. Thank everything good and righteous," he breathed.

Jisung was low on patience. "Can you tell me what's going on, or not?"

Minho strode over to the cabinets left of the fridge. "Your memory was taken from you, he explained, digging through a large box.

"I have amnesia," Jisung said, trying to see what he was doing, "I figured out that much."

"No, it's different. You didn't lose your memory, it was taken from you."

The first dream flashed through Jisung's mind and he flinched, rubbing at his throat where that needle had pierced him. "By who? How?"

"Like I said, I can't tell you much. Not yet. You need to remember more on your own."

"Why can't you just tell me everything?"

"Because you'll drop dead."

Jisung's gut roiled and he rubbed his eyes. Calm down. Stay calm. "Fine, I'll take that for now, but what are you doing?"

"Here it is." Minho stood, holding a small plastic bag filled with an odd, orange power. "This is a stimulant a member of my team concocted. It's meant to keep you alert and enhance your senses, but when it's blended with a drug that will put you to sleep, it makes you dream vividly."

Jisung raised an eyebrow at it. He thought it was something to make a flavored drink or a cleaning product when he found it earlier. "So you want me to... take it?"

"That night at the hotel, I laced my knife with it. You dreamed, you remembered something that same night. And last night I mixed it into your tea with a sedative."