Trista stood in her kitchen with a glass of water in her hand. She looked at the bottle of pills on the counter. She was supposed to take one before going to work. She took two everyday, one every 12 hours. She had skipped the one last night after what Roman had said.
"What will happen if you stop taking those pills? Do you even know what they do?"
She thought she knew until he questioned her about it. She knew it wasn't smart going off her medication cold turkey but she needed to find out. She couldn't ask Cody about it in case Roman was right with his warning about not trusting Cody. Cody had been the first one to visit her when she woke up in the hospital a year ago. It had been a very weird and surreal moment waking up to a face she didn't recognize at all.
"There you are," he smiled. "Welcome back to the real world, Trista."
"Who are you?" She asked.
His smile dropped and he sighed.
"You don't recognize me?" He asked.
"No," she answered.
"I'm Cody Rhodes. I'm your partner," he said.
"Partner?" She asked.
"Not like that," he chuckled. "We work together. You're a police officer. You must remember that."
She blinked a few times and then tears showed in her eyes.
"I don't remember anything," she said.
She started crying and he leaned over her to hug her.
"Ssh! It's okay, Trista," he said.
"Is my name Trista?" She asked.
He broke the hug, smiled at her, and grabbed her hand.
"Trista Bryce," he said. "You really don't remember anything?"
"No," she said.
"Let me call a doctor in here. It's gonna be okay. We will all help you remember. You'll be back in the force in no time helping me take down bad guys and demanding coffee every lunch break," he said.
She never got her memories back. She only remembered what had happened this last year. Cody had personally trained with her again to get her back in the force. She went with everything she had been told without ever questioning anything. If it hadn't been for Roman yesterday, she still would have done that. Roman had a way of finding out whatever he wanted to know, and of course he had somehow found out that she had been shot in the head a year ago. The bullet caused amnesia and her only choice was to move forward and start living again. Cody had been a solid rock. He never gave up on her. She knew he wanted more but she couldn't let him in. She had become a master in changing the subject and pretending not to notice when he tried flirting.
"Motherfucker!" She growled.
She placed a hand on her head when a sharp pain went through it. She had gotten these flashes of pain all night, and those few times she managed to fall asleep, she had been having the weirdest dreams that she couldn't make any sense of. She knew there might be some sort of withdrawal when she stopped taking her medication like that but she needed to know if there was any truth to Roman's words. She could deal with the headaches for now. They were only flashes of pain. She emptied the glass of water and left the bottle of pills untouched. She put her hair up in a ponytail and went to work.
"You don't look too well," Cody said.
"I didn't sleep well," Trista said.
"We'll get him next time," he said.
"I know," she nodded. "I just need some coffee."
"I'll get you a cup," he said.
"Thanks," she said.
She sat down at her desk and rubbed her temples. He came back a couple of minutes later and handed her a cup of coffee.
"Thanks," she said.
"My pleasure," he said. "Speaking of coffee. How about after work..."
"Any news about Roman?" She asked.
He sighed and shook his head.
"You always do that," he said annoyed. "It's like you know I'm about to ask you out, and you cut me off and change the subject. Would it be so bad to go out with me?"
"It wouldn't be bad but I don't want to," she said.
"Why not?" He asked.
"We shouldn't date people we work with," she said.
"There's no rule against it," he said. "But okay, what if one of us gets work somewhere else? Will that do?"
She sighed and his eyes turned angry again.
"If you don't wanna go out with me, just fucking say no. Don't make excuses because you think it will somehow make me feel better," he said.
"I don't wanna go out with you," she said.
"Why not?" He asked.
"Do I need a reason?" She asked.
"I think you do," he said.
"I don't wanna go out with anybody, Cody," she said. "My life is a shitshow. You know that first hand. I have no memories of anything before I was shot. All I have are my feelings and my guts, and everything inside me is telling me never to date again. I don't know who but I have a feeling that at some point I had someone that I loved and lost. Did he break my heart? Maybe. I don't know. I just know I don't wanna put my heart in the hands of someone else ever again. Don't make me explain it further because I can't. I simply can't, Cody. Please, respect that."
He gritted his teeth and nodded.
"Cody," she tried.
"It's fine!" He snapped. "I get it!"
He grabbed his laptop and walked away from their shared desk.
"I'm gonna work closely with Brock today since he's in charge of the evidence from the farm. We still gotta try and solve that case," he said.
"Okay," she said. "You do that. I'm here if you need me."
He pressed his lips together and walked over to Brock's desk further away. She watched as he sat down and said something to Brock. Brock laughed and looked towards her for a brief moment. She turned her eyes to her own laptop and started working. She worked for hours while looking over at Cody every once in a while. When Cody's preferred lunch time rolled around, he got up and walked away without asking her to join him. The moment he was gone, she opened her own file on the computer. She looked through it once again but nothing had been changed. She had no memories of the years before she was shot. No matter how many times she read her own profile, it was as if she was reading about a stranger. According to it she had been a cop for 11 years but she couldn't remember anything of what she had done.
"What was that name?" She whispered. "Sarah? No, that wasn't it. Sera? Yes, Sera Reigns."
She put in the name and hit enter. She gritted her teeth and made a sound as another flash of pain shot through her head. She closed her eyes and placed her fingers on her temples. She rubbed them for a few seconds and then opened her eyes again.
"What the fuck?" She whispered.
Whoever Sera Reigns was, there wasn't anything coming up in a normal search. She seemed to have been wiped clean from the normal side of the internet. There was one locked file with that name though. A file that needed a password to enter. She had heard of such files before. Files only certain people higher up in the system were supposed to see. Somehow it seemed important that she unlocked this file.
"You can't trust Cody," she mumbled.
She put Cody's full name as the password but the file remained locked.
"It's got to be him," she said lowly.
She tried Cody's birthday and birth year but the file still remained locked. She didn't have much time and she couldn't go ask him about it. He would deny knowing anything about it but her guts told her he knew exactly what that file was hiding.
"What's his dog's name again?" She mumbled. "Pharaoh!"
She typed in Pharaoh as the password and the file unlocked. Her jaw dropped when she stared at pictures of herself. Some of them even had her and Roman together. There were also pictures of her hospital stay.
"No, no, no," she whispered. "I'm not her."
She started reading and saw a whole other picture of herself than she had been told. If this was true, she wasn't a cop. She had been brainwashed and shaped into this Trista person over the last year. The bullet to her head was real. The amnesia was real. It was everything else coming after that that had been created, and Cody was the leader performing this task. He was sent from another division so no one at this station knew anything about them before Cody arrived here with her. This was a special task and so far they were succeeding.
"Why?" She asked herself. "What's in it for them?"
She tried reading further. There was too much for her to figure out in that short amount of time. She looked up and to her horror saw that Cody was back at Brock's desk. Cody was looking at his laptop and his face gave everything away. He knew her real file was open. He raised his head and locked eyes with her.
"Fuck!" She hissed.
"Trista!" He yelled.
She did the only thing she could do. She bolted out of there. She heard Cody run after her and scream her name. He had to come up with a lie fast to make everyone chase her but she knew it wouldn't take long before everyone was out on the streets chasing her around.
She ran out of the station and down the road while tearing off her police jacket. She ran into a garden that had laundry hanging outside. She grabbed a pair of black sweatpants and an orange t-shirt and continued running until she found a safe spot to quickly change out of her uniform pants as well. She kept the gun on her and continued forward through gardens. She kept low to avoid being seen.
She made it to the school and kicked in a window for the basement. She was lucky that it was Sunday and the school was closed. She made her way into the basement and found herself in the janitor's office. She could remain hidden there until nightfall while trying to figure out what to do. She couldn't go home. They would be all over her place already. She needed to find somewhere else to go. She grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off her ponytail around her shoulders. Hopefully that change would be enough for them not to notice her if she was unlucky that one of them came too close. There was a cap hanging on a hook in the wall as well. She grabbed it and put it on.
"Motherfucker!" She hissed.
She placed her fingers on her temple as another flash of pain shot through her head.
"Stop it!" She hit her head with her fist. "Just give me back my memories already! Tell me who the fuck I am!"