Anger, Azriel said, and the woman's past has not been erased. It simply does not exist.
I raised my eyebrows. How can her past not have been erased if she has no memory of it?
That I do not know. He rose and held out a hand. But you will get no answers from her, because she has none.
I placed my hand in his and let him pull me upright. He didn't release me immediately and I can't say I was upset about that. Something strange goes on here.
Which was definitely an understatement. Do you think it's worth attempting to talk to any of the others?
He shrugged. We could try. I suspect the result would be the same.
So did I. Still, we had to try, if only to tell Hunter that we had. I pulled my hand from his, but curled my fingers to retain the heat of his touch a little bit longer as I walked across to the door and knocked on it. It opened immediately.
"So," Marshall said, "find out anything useful?"
"You knew we wouldn't." I paused. "How long have you been erasing their memories? And why are you doing it?"
Again that oddly familiar darkness stirred in his eyes. "It is not common practice." He hesitated. "Although most of our current stock have experienced it at one time or another. I'm afraid it is easier to treat physical wounds than mental ones."
"So you simply erase the memory of the physical trauma and push them back into the feeding pen?" I kept the anger out of my voice, but only barely.
Azriel rested his hand in the middle of my back. Energy flowed from it, somehow calming me.
"These people are junkies. They will do anything—agree to anything—in order to get their next fix. What we do, we do with consent."
I wasn't believing that. Not after what I'd seen in the room behind us. How could anyone who had no real idea what was going on from one hour to the next consent to anything? I glanced down the hall. "Can we talk to the person in the room second from the end?"
"If you want," Marshall said.