Read me: Unchained memory

 A woman  with terrifying memories of an alien world and a psychiatrist willing to  risk everything to protect her find themselves on the run from black  ops kidnappers with a sinister interest in UFOs. 

 --Part political thriller, part sci-fi, part romance, Unchained Memory is an exciting read full of unexpected twists and turns highlighted by Donna Frelick’s excellent prose. –Linnea Sinclair, Author, The Dock Five Series 

The afternoon had turned gray and cold by the time we pulled up in  front of the lake house, and a gusty wind was blowing off the water. I  shivered in the kitchen, putting on water for tea while Ethan got a fire  going in the fireplace and threw another couple of logs into the  woodstove. Soon enough, though, the fire was snapping bravely against  the draft and things were starting to warm up. Outside, the wind had  blown up a rattle of raindrops against the windows. I was glad to curl  up with my mug and microfleece on the bed and watch the flames dance in  the fireplace.

Ethan stretched out on the bed beside me, propping  himself up on one elbow and balancing his own mug of brew in front of  him. He wasn’t watching the fire, though. He was watching me.

I turned to look at him and smiled. “Okay. I guess I’m ready to talk about it.”

“Only if you want to.”

“I  don’t think this bed is big enough for the two of us plus the great big  elephant we brought with us back from the doctor’s office.”

Ethan smiled. “You have a point.”

"So. No alien probe. No proof.”

“Right. But that’s not the only problem.”

 I sat up and stared at him. “What do you mean? Brainwashing?”

“Well,  yes, in a word. Drugs, electroshock, psycho-manipulative techniques.  There are any number of means to the end. No doubt a more advanced  culture would have a few I’m not aware of.” His jaw tightened as his  gaze fixed on the fire.

I started to shake again, though the room  was thoroughly warm now. “My memories of the time I spent there . . . I  was empty, blank, unable to feel anything until Dozen . . . I thought  it was drugs. Are you saying they did something to my mind?”

Ethan  sat up, set down his mug and grasped my trembling hands in his.  “Whatever it was had no lasting effect, Asia. Your mind is whole and  strong and fully intact now.”

I searched his eyes. “How do I know  that? Just this morning something else came back—a memory of being  examined when I was first taken. That’s why I jumped when you touched  me. How do I know there’s not more—worse—still in there?”

“There  may be pockets of memory still protected by your healthy mind, Asia.  That does happen.” Ethan had slipped into professional mode. I should  have been annoyed, but I found myself clinging to that reassurance  instead. “Once you feel completely safe, you’ll release them, and I’ll  be here to help you through it. I have a feeling you’ve already  acknowledged the worst of it. The narrative stream is complete. The only  gaps are the actual abduction and return and your recovery from the  shoulder injury, perhaps because you were unconscious during those  times.”

I wanted to believe him, God knows I did. But the sense  of violation that had begun with the knowledge that I had been taken was  now complete with the knowledge that they had rearranged my mind. To  make me forget. As if that was even possible.

The tears pooled in  my eyes and began to roll down my face. “Why would they do that to me?  Who were they that they could do that?” Even as I spoke, I knew: I  hadn’t been the only one. I’d simply been one of an uncounted number of  those Taken and somehow returned.

Ethan gathered me in and  wrapped his arms around me. I pressed my face to his warm chest and gave  in to what was left of my grief for the life I had lost, for all the  lives lost.

“They can’t have been human to hurt you like they  did.” His hand stroked my hair. “My Asia, my sweet, beautiful Asia.” His  voice became a magical murmur, a soft, warm salve for my aching heart.

And  I know, if I were Taken again today, I would cling to that one moment  so strongly they could never take it from my mind—that memory of Ethan  holding me in the firelight as afternoon turned to darkest night and  whispering my name so it sounded like love.