I made my way to the top of the bed and pulled my legs to my chin.

Hayden turned to face me. “The directions Liz gave us were to the exact intersection of the accident. We knew right off that something was very different with this. We hung around a few days. Then we saw a newspaper article about the accident that… killed a local doctor, and how one of the passengers had miraculously survived. The article listed the intersection Liz sensed. It got us curious, and we started watching, but we only ever saw you, then Olivia.”

“Never Mom.” I remembered how despondent she’d been. Mom had gone home, locked herself in the bedroom with Olivia, and shut me out. The last thing she’d ever said to me had been in the car, right before the accident.

“It took us a while to figure out what happened, that you were what Liz sensed. But my father thought that since your Mom was alive, we shouldn’t step in. It was the day you went to the bank that I knew something wasn’t right.”

I blinked. “You guys didn’t realize my mom…wasn’t right until then?”

“You’ve heard Kurt say it.” He looked away then, his eyes downcast. “I kept checking in, even though they’d stopped. I knew something wasn’t right, and when I told my father how you’d acted afterwards, he asked around.”

And the rest was history, but it didn’t answer one thing. “How do you know the accident wasn’t… wasn’t an accident?”

Hayden pushed off the bed and came around to where I was huddled. He placed his hands on each side of my legs. Candlelight danced across his features, softening his mouth. “After I drained your powers, Kurt found your mom. That was what he was trying to do when you came home. Once he saw her, he knew what’d happened.”

Dread from earlier resurfaced, and suddenly, I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to hear this.

“Your mom had been wiped, Ember. It had to have happened right after the accident, and it was a really bad job. It damaged her mind, destroyed her ability to process things properly. Kurt thinks whoever did it was interrupted, because she remembers Olivia, but she thinks you’ve… passed away.”

And then it hit me. The day Adam had been wiped, the blank stare he’d given mewhy it’d been so heartbreakingly familiar. The look had felt like a punch in the gut, only worse. Numbness settled over me.

“Ember, I’m sorry.”

I scooted across the bed, but Hayden followed. “No.” I held up my hand, holding him off. My whole arm shook. “I need a moment.”

Hayden backed off, but I felt his gaze on me.

“Can it be undone? Can my mom get her memories back? Can someone… fix her?”

“No.”