He Forgot He Kidnapped Me

My boyfriend lost his memory—and forgot he'd ever locked me in his basement. His sister found me down there.

She screamed, got me out, then pressed a huge sum of money into my hands and begged me not to call the police.

I took the million dollars and left, thinking I could finally live a quiet life. Then, at a mixer, I ran into him again.

He was cold the whole night, like he had truly never known me. Weeks later, he caught me on a rainy mountain path and tilted his umbrella over my head.

He leaned in, his breath right at my ear. "Hey, be my girlfriend. I fell for you at first sight." Me: … Well done, Dorian Stratton. The exact same plot, all over again.

Chapter 1 Dorian had lost his memory. When I got the news, I was still lying on the big bed in his basement. The basement had climate control.

Under me was a thick velvet mattress pad, and right next to the bed was a snack cabinet crammed with all my favorite chocolate and chips. SpongeBob was playing on the tablet.

Other than the chain on my ankle being a little short, I was pretty satisfied with everything.

Dorian's sister came by the house to pick something up and stumbled onto me in the basement. She was so shocked she dropped her ice cream.

She turned into a shrieking kettle on the spot. "Aaaaah!

What did that little bastard Dorian do to you?!" She screamed and rushed over to unlock the blackvelvetwrapped iron chain for me.

Her fingers shook so badly she could barely fit the key into the lock.

She hugged me and cried until her face was soaked. "Please don't call the police, please don't call the police.

My brother's sick in the head, and he's already gotten what he deserved. He was in a car accident.

He's half dead." "Honey, he's pathetic enough as it is, so please don't call the police, okay?

Whatever compensation you want, I'll give it to you!" That was how I found out Dorian had hit his head. And lost his memory. He hadn't forgotten anyone—except me.

At the hospital, his best friend brought him a fruit basket and hesitated. "Dude, you really forgot Abigail?

You went to crazy lengths to get that girl." Dorian had thick gauze wrapped around his forehead, bruises showing at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and a neck brace on.

His face was cold and ruthless. "Who is she?" "If I don't remember her, I don't have feelings for her.

Tell her for me that I'm breaking up with her." His friend pulled a face, looking spineless. "I'm not doing it.

Once you get your memory back, you'll beat me to death." Annoyed at his friend's dithering, Dorian grabbed his phone from the bedside table and texted me himself. [Let's break up.

I lost my memory. I'm not going to like a woman I don't know.] [Take the money and go. Don't let me see you again.] I was standing in the hallway when my phone buzzed three times.

Two were his texts, each dumber than the last. The third was a deposit alert from my bank. A transfer from Dorian. Five hundred thousand dollars.

My foot, about to step into his room, stopped. I stared at the screen, blinked, and quietly slid the baseball bat, already halfway out, back into the bag of oranges.

Add the five hundred thousand Dorian's sister had given me, and that made one million dollars. A million dollars. A fortune.

That meant I could not only pay off the loans I'd taken out just to survive after my parents died, but also get through four years of college without a care in the world.

I pinched my own cheek, which, instead of looking haggard lately, had actually gotten a little rounder. Chapter 2 Ow. It hurt. Not a dream.

I pulled out my phone and typed fast. [Thanks. Never see you again. Want the oranges?] The second I hit send, a glaring red exclamation point popped up on the screen.

I went quiet for a moment.

From inside the room came Dorian's rather smug, cold laugh. "As long as I block her fast enough, she can't cling to me." I angrily opened the bag, squatted right outside his door, and ate eight big, juicy, sweetandsour oranges in one go.

Maybe it was all the oranges, or maybe it was something else, but my chest suddenly felt tight. Old memories bubbled up like acid, soaking my heart until it was sour and soft.

I took out my phone and booked a seat on an Amtrak train to Boston. Hmph. Never see you again, Dorian. I met Dorian junior year of high school.

He was the new transfer student—pale, handsome, rich. In a crowd, he stood out like a swan in a duck pond. He was very much the swan. And me?

A dirtpoor smalltown testtaking machine. Just a perfect SAT score, that's all.

The only reason I got into that elite private high school was a full scholarship I'd earned on grades alone.

On top of the daily grind of practice problems and memorization, I had endless parttime jobs on the weekends.

We were never supposed to cross paths. —Until one day, I realized a creep was following me.

The place I rented, on a lease my guardian had signed and promptly forgotten about, was in a rundown lowincome apartment building. Bad security, few cameras, plenty of weirdos.

Every night around midnight, downstairs sounded like a war zone. A middleaged couple screamed at each other like banshees, and teenage boys on soupedup motorcycles roared past.

Worse, the old geezer next door was a lech. Every time I came home, it took me a minute or two to get the rusty lock open.

That was when the old lech would poke out his head, bald and shiny as a boiled egg.

His eyes would slide greasily over my waist and legs. "My son just sent me a whole box of crabs, sweetheart.

Come on over and have some." I gave him a cold "Ha." Once I was inside, the old lech would tiptoe up to my door, press himself against the peephole, and squint in.

Even though he couldn't see a thing. Still, having a giant black eyeball plugging up my door was pretty gross.

I dug out the firecrackers my boss had given me when I worked at a fireworks stand before the Fourth of July. Lit them, opened the door, and tossed them out.

Instantly, outside came a festive cracklecracklepop and the old lech's howling. Life was plain and cozy. But all of it went up in smoke once the creep showed up.

I don't know exactly when it started, but when I walked home from work at night, a pitchblack figure was always trailing me.

He was bundled up head to toe, tall and hulking, like a black bear on its hind legs. The moment I turned around, he'd nimbly vanish.

When I got home, I'd turn off the lights, hide behind the curtain, and look down at the street. Sometimes he stood in the shadows the streetlights didn't reach.

Sometimes he crouched by the trash cans. I admit it—I was a little scared. Scared that if he ever wanted to hurt me, my baseball bat wouldn't be enough to take him.

I pulled out my phone to take pictures so I could call the police. But my hundreddollar phone's camera lived up to its budget price.

The photos came out looking like they'd been taken in the Stone Age. The creep was getting closer. At first he only followed from far away. Later, the distance shrank bit by bit.

Sometimes I could even hear his heavy breathing carried on the wind. At night I lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

The next day I went to class with raccoon eyes, and I couldn't even focus in math, my favorite class.

With no other choice, I went to find Dorian and asked if he'd walk home with me after school. Ten dollars a trip. A fortune.

Chapter 3 I picked him because his house was in the same direction as mine. And the kid who sat next to me told me he'd trained in martial arts and was in ridiculously good shape.

It was an autumn afternoon. Dorian was sitting by the window. The window was open, and the wind rushed in and billowed the white curtains. He glanced up and looked at me coolly.

Just when I thought he'd say no… The corner of his mouth suddenly curved, and the ice in his expression melted. "Sure." From that day on, I had company on my way home.

He was tall and lean, in a white buttondown, his backpack slung lazily over one shoulder as he walked beside me.

He looked at me and said, "Abigail, your hair's kind of unique." "Like a golden snubnosed monkey." I looked up from my vocab notebook, smoothed down my soft hair, which had gone yellowish from years of bad nutrition, and gave him an awkward yet polite cold smile.

Thank you so much for comparing me to an endangered species. I forget which day it was, but Dorian ended up at the urgent care clinic near school with a stomachache.

As it happened, I'd picked up an errand gig taking a classmate to see a doctor, and I heard the clinician say Dorian's chronic gastritis had flared and that he needed to stop skipping meals.

Dorian brushed it off. The very next day, I saw him heading for the food truck by the school gate. Sure enough, he landed back in the clinic.

In a moment of madness, I figured I couldn't pull off the grand, dramatic kind of repaying a debt you see in stories, but I could at least bring him a clean breakfast every day.

After all, with him walking me home, the creep really hadn't shown up again. I started bringing Dorian breakfast every day.

My parents died when I was young, and with nobody to raise me, I'd learned to cook early. And I was pretty good at it.

To keep His Royal Highness happy, I rotated through breakfast burritos, bagel sandwiches, and homemade pancakes.

Eventually he just started swinging by my apartment building in the mornings too, so we could walk to school together. Half a semester went by like that.

One day on the way home, Dorian—who knew what had gotten into him—confessed to me. I stared at him, then quickly scooped up a black dog from the side of the road.

Dogs can sense evil, right? "Whatever you are, get out of Dorian right now." Dorian looked thoroughly exasperated and took a deep breath. "Abigail, I'm serious.

I like you." "You might not believe this, but for me, it was love at first sight." I panicked. Because the black dog opened its mouth and almost bit my hand.

I jumped and dropped it fast, but it bared its teeth and chased after me, barking. I ran a whole mile without stopping before I finally lost the dog.

When I looked back, I'd lost Dorian too. I touched my burning ears and sighed. Looked like I was about to lose my walking buddy.

Sure enough, after that confession fizzled out, Dorian stopped talking to me. He wore a cold face that said stay away. Nobody walked home with me after school anymore.

I told myself it was fine. The creep who'd been following me hadn't shown up in ages anyway. I never expected to see him again that very night.

This time he followed me right into the stairwell. In the middle of the night, the old lech next door couldn't sleep and got up to wander around.

The moment he stepped out, he got scared half to death by the creep standing in front of my door.

I called the police, but they just stepped up patrols in the area for a few days and caught nothing.

After a week of showing up to school with dark circles, Dorian finally couldn't take it anymore.

He extended a gracious invitation. "Miss Pruitt, would you like to walk home together after school?" I was moved to tears.

On the way home, the black dog shot out again and barked at me. I was so scared I jumped onto his back. By the time I opened my eyes, he'd already chased the dog off.

Chapter 4 Dorian carried me on his back, his long legs taking one step after another toward home. In the sunset, his loose strands of hair glinted in the wind.

His lashes were long, and his jetblack eyes were washed in gold, rippling with a deep, gentle light. Something seemed to bump softly against my heart.

Dating someone… might not be so bad. I said yes to his confession. The first time we kissed, before I'd even done much, he was the one who ran out of breath.

The corners of his eyes flushed a wet red, and he panted. His lips were red and pretty, parting as if to tempt me. "I want more…" I went up on my toes and kissed him back.

Until his lips were red and swollen. His pupils went unfocused. He leaned on my shoulder in a daze, a pink flush spreading over his skin like a shiver.

At school, the minute class let out, he'd corner me in the supply closet and hold me tight against him, coiling around me like a snake, clinging hard, sighing and breathing heavily. "Abby…" He always murmured my name like that. "I love you so much…" High school graduation came in a sweltering summer loud with cicadas, and I'd turned eighteen.

My Kingsbury acceptance letter had come ages ago, just like I'd hoped. With it in hand, and under Dorian's relentless pestering, I moved into his little apartment.

All night long, he held me, sweaty, nuzzling against me cheek to cheek. When I woke up, he was in the kitchen cooking.

Propping up my sore back, I went looking for a change of clothes. And deep in the closet, I dug out a black outfit that looked familiar.

It was exactly the same as the one the creep who'd followed me wore. Once I figured it out, I was so furious I went numb