Falling – Book Two – By HelloKitty

Chapter 1

As the moonlight shone down upon the water, John stood by silently and
watched Marlena as she stood in the surf searching out into the dark
canvas before her. The ebb and flow of the tide pushed the milky white
foam between her legs. Back and forth the foam rose as the tide slowly
came in.

For the last month Marlena’s pattern had been the same and tonight was
no different. John woke to the sound of Marlena crying out against
some unseen force. Knowing that she needed physical space to get her
bearings, he knelt beside her on the bed and gently and lovingly
caressed her hand.

“Marlena, you’re okay….you’re safe,” he whispered to her, not loud
enough for anyone else to hear, not that it mattered. Sweat forming on
his brow from the humid night air, he held her hand and tried to
softly coax her back into reality. Absently pulling her hand out of
his grasp, she rolled over on her side, her back to him.

“Marlena, it’s okay…I’m here for you,” he tried once again to reassure
her. With furrowed brow he watched as she tossed and turned in the
queen sized canopied bed, grasping and pulling on the white linen
sheets. Unable to stop himself, the need for physical contact too
great, he slowly touched her. Fingertips tracing along the lines of
her vertebrae through the thin silk of her pale blue nightgown, he
willed her the calmness and serenity she so deserved.

“I love you Marlena…I’m here for you,” he told her once again. Up and
down, with the gentlest of touches, he caressed her skin.

“It wasn’t me,” she whispered to some unseen force. “Not me.”

“Marlena, you’re just having a bad dream….you’re safe.”

“I told you the truth, why don’t you believe me….please.”

“Marlena, wake up honey.”

“Please, you don’t have to do that…I don’t know the number, I told you
that….NO,” she screamed as she sat up in the bed gasping for air,
clutching the thin sheet against her body. Wildly she looked around
the room trying to figure out where she was.

“Marlena, are you alright? ” John asked her tenderly, concerned by the
confused and panicked look on her pale face. She heard John’s voice
but couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.

“No,” she whispered softly, chin dropping to her chest. Feeling the
tears forming in her eyes and the lump in her throat, she tried to
clench her eyes tightly shut to ward off her tears. She hated when
this happened to her, not wanting John to see her as a weak woman all
the time. John watched helplessly as she swallowed several times
trying to lubricate her throat and abate the swelling.

“I’m not okay John,” she finally admitted as she lifted up her head
and sought solace in his strong arms.

“It’s going to be okay,” John reassured her as he held her tightly in
his arms and slowly caressed her back. She snuggled further into his
chest, listening to the faint beat of his heart; the only thing that
she knew was real anymore.

“I wish you were right,” Marlena said as she closed her eyes and
breathed in his masculine scent. “How I wish you were right.” Slowly
she raised her right hand and gently played with the soft hair on his
chest, needing a distraction from what she was feeling.

“Trust in us, trust in me,” John whispered as he kissed the top of her
head. He so desperately wanted her to see herself the way that he did;
an amazing woman so full of strength and capable of doing anything.

“I do,” she said as she pulled out of his embrace and found the inner
courage to look him in the eyes. The enormity of the love, faith and
trust behind his blue eyes was overwhelming, but gave her the courage
to share her true feelings with him, rather than hide them as been her
pattern for so many years. “John,” she tentatively said as she cupped
his chin with the tips of her left fingers,

“You are the only thing in this world that I can count on and trust
in…I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Well lucky for you, you’ll never have to find out because I intend to
be with you forever lady. You are my one true love and you aren’t
going to easily get rid of me, that I can promise…we’ll both be old,
racing our walkers down the hall in a nursing home some day,” John
joked, trying to bring some levity into a much too serious moment.

Marlena looked down shyly and laughed embarrassed by John’s obvious
devotion to her. After everything that she had been through in her
past she still didn’t believe that she was worthy of his love.

“How I wish that were true…” Marlena admitted before John interrupted
her line of thought.

“So, do you want to tell me about your dream?” John asked, knowing
that sooner or later Marlena was going to have to talk about her
dreams and work through her issues in order to start the healing
process. For the past five months in seclusion they talked about
everything but the real issues. Shane’s words to him in the car on the
way to the airport kept him awake at night searching his own mind for
answers.

“I’ll tell you all that I know, but this information is not to be
repeated to anyone…Too many lives are at stake if the Torres, Owens or
Dimera families find out that Marlena Evans is really Julie
Dimera…Agreed?” Shane waited till both men agreed to the terms before
continuing. “John Dimera was a drug dealer, no surprise….He was just
your run of the mill junkie, but not what you yanks call a player…As
you already know, John Dimera and his lovely common in-law wife were
not the best parents…Hit their kids, your normal abuse…The fourth
grade teacher turned them into child protective services and Julie and
Samantha were removed from the home…Here’s the initial report,” Shane
said as he handed it to him. The fact that it was stamped OFFICIAL
COPY was not lost on John. John quickly scanned the report, disgusted
by some of the allegations. “They were initially placed in foster care
while the parents went through court ordered parenting and anger
management classes…Six months later they were returned home.”

“A couple months later they were once again removed from the home…this
time because John was picked up for intent to sell…John Dimera was
going by the name of John Dixon, which is why no one caught who he
really was….Once the DEA found out that local PD had caught John
Dimera they really started investigating. Mysteriously, Mrs. Dimera
who was pregnant at the time was found floating in the family
pond….DEA wanted to pop Dimera and to send a message to the Torres
crime ring so they arranged for one of their operatives to be the
foster parents of the girls….Enter Frank and Martha Evans, formerly
known as Frank and Martha Smith.”

“Frank was to work on getting the information the FBI and DEA needed
from Samantha and Marlena about their father and his associates…by
this time the DEA got off their arses and figured out that he wasn’t a
low level player as suspected…both girls spent almost two years with
John Dimera before he was killed and they were permanently removed
from the home and adopted by Frank and Martha.”

“Assuming that Marlena did this to her father,” John said as he held
up the grisly photograph, “What was the connection to these people…why
were they killed?”

“Unfortunately only Marlena and I’m suspecting Alex North and Mason
Jones can answer that,” Shane said as he looked at his watch.

“What? How could you not have known?”

“John you have to understand that the circumstances surrounding John
Dimera’s death and Channing Owens death…”

“Who were Torres and Owens,” John interrupted.

“Rafael Torres was with the Torres crime ring. They controlled all of
the drug trafficking on the west coast…the family still does to this
day…Same thing with Owens…His family, although masquerading as law
abiding upstanding citizens controlled most of the drug trafficking on
the east coast….add a Dimera to that mix and you can see why the ISA,
FBI and DEA were very interested.”

“You have to understand that when Dimera was killed, the girls were
immediately placed with Frank and Martha who adopted and changed their
names…Some people in very high places went to great lengths to hide
the girls from the Torres, Owens and Dimera families….Why is the
unknown….Maybe the girls knew something? … Just pure speculation on my
part as its not in the record.”

“Someone wanted everyone to think that the girls died…in the sequence
of events, this occurred after the North and Jones family murders…ISA
knows that Marlena wasn’t involved in those murders…The Torres, Dimera
or Owens families took them out in an effort to find the girls….ISA
knew that if they allowed the girls to remain “alive” they would
always be in jeopardy….We worked with some informants to create the
illusion of their death, spreading separate rumors that Owens and
Torres murdered them….worked like a charm but inadvertently set off a
crime war between the three families that continues to this day.”

“Every trace of Julie Dimera and Samantha Dimera’s existence was
systematically erased…ISA gathered all original records including all
the paperwork relating to their placement with the Smith family….Frank
and Martha changed their last name to Evans and were relocated and
given a new identity.”

“Alex North and Mason Jones were nowhere to be found….after the Owens,
Dimera and Torres murders they went into hiding or were hidden, we
aren’t sure…North appeared years later, connected to the Owens
family…Jones appeared to be the smarter of the two and stayed hidden a
little longer….for some reason both men did go to medical school and
are doctors….ISA thinks that the boys weren’t taken out later because
they had some leverage over all three families and that they were
worth more alive than dead.”

“Fucking A,” Roman muttered. “North knew where she was all along…he
had to have known,” Roman stated thinking back to Alex’s initial
involvement with Marlena years before. She seemed to trust him
implicitly and now he knew why. “He was her psychiatrist a long time
ago Shane…maybe that’s why he came to town…she may have blocked
something subconsciously relating to the murders or something else and
he wanted to retrieve it.”

“John, has Marlena ever mentioned a man named El Diablo?” Shane asked.

“Not that I know of why? Who is El Diablo?”

“No way man…no way,” Roman exclaimed from the back seat. “You aren’t
suggesting that El Diablo was involved in this?”

“Who the hell is El Diablo?” John asked confused by the looks that
passed between Shane and Roman.

“They’re going to kill her Shane…OH MY GOD,” Roman exclaimed in shock,
trying to comprehend this information. “Oh god…oh god…oh god…”

“Who the hell is El Diablo?” John yelled, interrupting Roman’s muttering.

“El Diablo is the head of the Owens crime family…one of their more
elusive members….Interpol and ISA have been secretly working together
for years collecting evidence of his involvement…He’s what you yanks
refer to as Teflon….a lead comes in and the source is killed or the
papers connecting him to the crime disappear…nothing has been able to
stick. The only evidence we have of his involvement are fingerprints
taken from the Dimera house by the local PD after the murders….
Naturally, the originals turned up missing days later, but unbeknownst
to El Diablo, ISA had been provided with a copy of the prints…We know
he was there, but why?”

“And Marlena is the only one that knows why he was there.” Roman was
in shock. El Diablo’s involvement complicated the matter even more.
Marlena’s statement about not wanting this to go to trial all made
sense. She knew who El Diablo was and probably thought that if she
quietly pled guilty she’d have the best chance for survival.

“Who is this El Diablo?” John asked.

“Your president, Maxwell Owens.”

“John, are you okay,” Marlena finally asked John, after several
minutes of uncomfortable silence where he stared at her, a vacant look
in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” John said somewhat embarrassed that Marlena had caught
him, his mind clearly focused on something else. Several times a day
his conversation with Roman and Shane played in his mind as he still
tried to grasp what he had been told about his wife and her past. What
did at she have on President Owens that had him aggressively using the
NSA, DEA, Secret Service, Interpol and the FBI for his own purposes.
He knew that Marlena had killed Channing Owens, the Presidents
brother, but why such secrecy and urgency towards her capture? Why did
she kill Rafael Torres and Channing Owens? And John Dimera being her
father. The picture of her father that Marlena clutched to her chest
the night on the pier when she tried to commit suicide still haunted
him. His physical resemblance to her father had been bothering him
ever since but he didn’t know how to approach the subject with her
without setting her off. Sleek black hair, blue eyes, chiseled cheeks
and a strong roman nose, the picture of John Dimera could have been a
picture of him thirty years before.

He needed to stop thinking about her past and trying to solve the
mystery himself or he was going to drive himself crazy. Shaking his
head he asked her once again, “Do you want to tell me about your
dream?”

“No,” Marlena whispered, looking down, tears welling up in her eyes as
she recalled her dream with surprising and haunting clarity. “I want
to tell you but I can’t.” She truly wanted to tell him about the dream
she had been having night after night, but couldn’t. It had nothing to
do with him, and a lack of trust on her part, because she truly did
trust him, she didn’t trust herself or her memories.

“Marlena, you know that you can tell me anything,” John said tenderly
as he lifted her trembling chin with his fingers and looked in her
tear laden hazel eyes. “Anything you tell me is safe with me…It might
help you to talk about it.”

“I know that John…I do and I so appreciate that about you, especially
now,” Marlena whispered, not bothering to hide from him the tears that
so openly spilled down her cheeks in the pale moonlight. Mesmerized by
the incandescence of each drop as it slowly rolled down her cheek,
John reached out and captured a drop on his thumb, amazed that it
still held its shape. Putting his thumb up to his lips he tasted the
saltiness of the pain that she was feeling.

“I’m afraid that if I talk about what my dream is about, that it will be true.”

“What if it is true?” John asked, his thumb still to his lips. Where
the truth began in her mind wasn’t what was important anymore to him,
getting her to open up and confide in him all these deeply held fears
caught in the recesses of her mind was.

“Then you’ll leave,” Marlena whispered, her voice cracking. What she
wouldn’t give for him to see the pictures in her mind, not having to
verbally share and admit what she saw when she closed her eyes.
Explaining was difficult when she herself didn’t understand what she
was remembering.

“Why would I leave?” John asked as he willed himself to stay calm,
even though internally his mind was racing and he was starting to
panic wondering what she could have meant.

“The small piece that I remember, if its true, then we are never going
home John…I’m afraid that he isn’t going to leave me alone until I’m
dead.” There she said it, fear number 361 in her mind was out on the
table and there was no taking it back. Marlena looked up at John
tentatively waiting for his reaction, needing for him to make
everything all right. Not getting the immediate reaction and
reassurance from John that she so craved, as was her habit when things
got too intense and she wasn’t able to deal with it, Marlena ran.
Getting up off the bed she ran toward the door and down the hall, the
pale blue silk of her nightgown shining ethereally as the moonlight
caught it.

“Marlena,” John yelled as he followed her, knowing that she was
running towards the beach and whatever was there that she seemed to
find solace and comfort in.

As he stood behind her watching the foam from the tide rise higher and
higher, he knew that sooner or later he was going to have to force her
to confront the demons that occupied her mind at night and terrified
her soul.

“Why is this happening to me?” she asked John softly, sensing him
standing behind her. Images of the man in her dreams holding a knife
to her jugular demanding that she tell him the number flashed through
her mind. Concentrating on the feeling of the sand as it moved with
the tide between her toes, she tried to stop the memory from
returning.

“It might help to talk about what you are feeling Marlena,” John said
as he carefully walked into the frigid surf and stood behind her,
touching her shoulders lightly. “Sooner or later you’re going to have
to stop running from your past, running from your fears.”

“I know that but I don’t know how to stop,” Marlena admitted as she
closed her eyes and let the soft breeze from the ocean caress her
face. Although a psychiatrist by trade, she was unable to explain her
own complicated feelings to her ex-husband John. She was grateful that
he was here with her, and didn’t know what she would have done if he
weren’t. She cursed the day that she asked him for a divorce and he
went through with her request.

“Baby steps, that’s all I ask…like, what are you thinking right now?”
he asked as he looked up at the night sky, the full moon illuminating
the stars in the sky even more. Seeing a shooting star in the sky, he
closed his eyes and wished that his children back home in Salem were
healthy and happy. He would give anything to see them, but knew that
it was too risky.

“You really want to know,” she asked coyly as she looked over her
shoulder at him. His eyes held such sadness that she wondered what he
had been thinking that had put such a look on his beautiful face.

“Of course sweetheart,” John said as he massaged her shoulders. The
tide was now up to his waist and it wouldn’t be much longer before it
would be over his head. He hoped that Marlena would receive her solace
from the sea before it got to that point. The humidity of the air
along with the coldness of the water made for an interesting
combination.

“All my life I’ve been told who I was, or wasn’t and who I should
be…Am I Julie, the abused and unloved child or am I Marlena, the
virtue of Salem…Professionally, I’m Dr. Marlena Evans, why not Dr.
Marlena Black? Why didn’t I take your last name? Was my subconscious
sending me a message not to for some unknown reason…Didn’t it bother
you at all?” When John didn’t answer her, she continued, “I don’t know
who I am anymore and I think that’s part of my problem.”

John nodded and continued rubbing her shoulders and back wanting her
to continue.

“My given name may be Julie, but I don’t want to be Julie…I can’t be
Julie. I refuse to define myself and live my life as a victim…Julie
was a victim, I’m not…But I’m not entirely Marlena, because she’s not
real…she’s an idealized version of what the perfect woman should look
and act like that I created, but she’s not me…I tried to be her for so
long but couldn’t…I don’t want to be perfect…I guess what I’m saying
is that I don’t want to be Marlena as I was before either….Does this
make sense to you?”

“Yes,” John said as he squeezed her shoulders in support. “With the
return of your memory you’ve had a lot to accept, some of those things
being extremely painful…It’s only natural that all of this would be
confusing for you.”

“Thank you John for that….It helps that you understand and don’t think
that I’m crazy.”

“Far from it,” John whispered before he placed a tender kiss on the
side on her neck. Leaving his lips on her neck for longer than was
necessary he breathed in her scent, thankful that she was alive and
with him. Regardless of what life threw at them, they would always be
stronger together than apart.

“Everything is so complicated now, yet so simple in a way,” Marlena
began, trying to gather her thoughts and present them to John in a
somewhat comprehensible manner. “As messed up as my life appears to
have been, its okay…I can accept that bad things happened…What
happened, what I did, I can’t change that, I can’t give myself a
childhood that I didn’t have….It is what it is.” Marlena turned around
in the surf and faced John, taking his hand in hers. All the love and
support she needed were evident in his eyes. Things were going to be
okay. Finding the courage in him, she continued. “All the experiences
in my life up until now were created by my own thoughts and words,
what I believed about myself, I became. Somewhere along the line I
became someone that I didn’t recognize, someone that I don’t really
like….But that’s in the past, its over and done with.”

“What are you going to do?” John asked as he reached out and took her
other hand in his.

“I need to find out who I am, I need to find Marlena.”
Edited by Tammy, May 2, 2015, 2:32 pm.

Chapter 2

“What do you see when you close your eyes?” the man in the sterile
white lab coat asked her as he held the hypodermic needle against her
upper arm. The green rubber band tourniquet wrapped tightly around her
arm was causing a numbing sensation in her fingers. Moving her fingers
back and forth, she paused to answer as she watched her arm slowly
start to turn a slight blue color.

“Nothing,” Marlena finally muttered as she looked up at the man
suspiciously. “I told you before….why don’t you people ever believe
me?” As the man tightened his grip on her am, she felt the tip of the
needle as it slowly penetrated her epidermis. Not wanting to look the
slight bit interested in what was happening to her body, she looked
over the man’s shoulder at the bare wall behind him, watching as the
setting sun behind her reflected on the bars on the window, casting
their shadow on the wall. The questioning was the same, never a
deviation in the questions themselves or the order in which they were
given.

“What do you see when you close your eyes?”

“What’s your given name?”

“Who are your parents?”

“How old are you?”

“Who are your siblings?”

“Where do you live?”

“Who is Rafael Torres?”

“Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Rafael
Torres, do you feel anything? Is so what?”

“Who is Channing Owens?”

“Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Channing
Owens, do you feel anything? Is so what?”

“Who is Mason Jones?”

“Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Mason Jones,
do you feel anything? Is so what?”

“Who is Alexander North?”

“Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Alexander
North, do you feel anything? Is so what?”

Thirty more questions always followed. Everyday for weeks they had
been asking her the same questions and patiently Marlena had given
them the same answer. She remembered nothing. Nothing. The more that
this charade went on the madder she became. They were simply wasting
their time and for what purpose? There was no point in this line of
questioning and she didn’t understand why they were asking her and how
much longer she was going to have to answer their questions before
they would be satisfied and let her go home. Who were these people and
why did they think that she knew them?

Having memorized the questions the third time she had been asked them,
on her fourth visit to the man she dubbed ‘monotonous Marvin’, she had
tried to be cute and gave her answers in the correct order without
waiting for the questions to be asked. Never again would she try that;
she was accused of lying and hiding what she remembered and was
subjected to more testing. No matter what answer she provided, she was
always given an injection of something at the end that made her
drowsy. She couldn’t recall how long she’d been in the facility or how
she’d gotten there. She only remembered waking up one morning in
incredible pain; her body battered and bruised. After the doctors
tended to her physical injuries, the tests began. First physical
tests, followed by mental tests, then what she referred to as memory
tests. Marlena had no idea how long she’d been there. Days? Weeks?
Months? Years?

“What is your give name?” Monotonous Marvin asked her as he pushed the
hypodermic needle further into her skin.

“Marlena Evans.”

“Who are your parents?” The needle slowly was making headway into her arm.

“Frank and Martha Evans.”

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.” The needle came to rest against her muscle and she felt
the burning sensation of the medication as the liquid was slowly
released and penetrated the surrounding tissues. It hurt like hell.
Clenching her eyes shut tightly she tried not to cry, refusing to show
any sign of weakness. She was stronger than that; nothing or no one
could hurt her.

Something was wrong. Monotonous Marvin always waited until question 27
to inject her. Feeling light headed she leaned back in the chair and
tried to focus on the wall in front on her. The shadow of the setting
sun was creating a vibrant but ever changing kaleidoscope in the room.
She clenched her eyes shut tightly and put her head down between her
legs to try to stop the room from spinning but couldn’t. Faster and
faster things moved in her mind.

“Marlena, what is the number?” the man aggressively demanded as he
grabbed her head and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. She tried
to focus on his spectacles, but couldn’t. Her inertia and the glare of
the setting sun off his glasses hindered her concentration.

“What number,” she mumbled as she felt the bile slowly rise up her esophagus.

“Don’t play dumb…All this will stop if you tell me the number.”

“I don’t know…please stop this?” she begged the man as she tried to
grab his hands and get him to let go of her head. “Please, I’m going
to be sick.”

“You’re a good little liar Julie….had me convinced,” the man said
cruelly as he pulled roughly on her hair. The bile rose higher and
higher as she fought to maintain her awareness.

Crying out in pain, Marlena yelled at the man, “You mother fucking
asshole I don’t know who the hell Julie is…My name is Marlena Evans. I
am fourteen years old. I have a sister named Samantha and we live in
Denver, Colorado. I have never heard of Rafael Torres, Channing Owens,
Mason Jones or Alexander North nor do I care to. The name Julie means
nothing to me, neither does the name John Dimera, Katherine Dimera,
Daphne Dimera, Stefano Dimera, Matthew Dimera or Suzanne Dimera. The
name Frank Evans should mean something to you though, because when he
finds out what you’ve been doing to me he is going to kick your ass to
the moon and you’re going to wish that you never were born,” Marlena
screamed out at the man before the drugs took effect and she slumped
forward in the chair, his hand still tightly clenched around her
ponytail.

“Her memory has been wiped clean…we can return her to Frank Evans, let
him know that she’ll be safe as long as he doesn’t expose her to
anything that will trigger her memory returning….he knows what those
triggers are…too bad about her sister though,” was the last thing
Marlena heard as she lost total consciousness.

“Marlena, Marlena, Marlena,” John said slowly as he waved his hand in
front of her face. For the past two minutes he had been trying to get
her attention.

“Honey, are you okay?” he asked as he finally got up from the table
and stood behind her, gently rubbing her shoulders. The muscles in her
shoulders were so tense.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marlena finally muttered, shaking her head. “I’m
sorry,” she apologized again as she put her hand to her mouth and
covered it, masking her yawn. “I don’t know what happened. Must not
have gotten enough sleep last night. I apologize for my rudeness
John…you were saying that you were in contact with Roman?’ She asked
as she looked behind her shoulder and up at him and smiled.

“We can talk about that later sweetheart…do you want to go back and
rest?” John asked, the concern evident in his voice as kissed the top
of her head and then took his seat across the table from her.

“No I’m fine…really I am,” Marlena said as she leaned into the table
and took his strong hand in hers. “I’m so glad that we came here for
lunch…I was tired of feeling like a criminal in hiding,” Marlena said
before she realized exactly what she had said. “Oops, I guess that I
am,” she laughed. Seeing John’s serious expression, Marlena squeezed
his hand. “John, its okay to laugh once in a while.”

“I know sweetheart…You’re not a criminal and it pisses me off to know
that those bastards are out there hunting you down,” John said as he
picked up his fork and stabbed a piece of marsala chicken with it.
“You of all people don’t deserve to be treated like that. You’re not a
criminal, I refuse to believe that,” John said as he put the piece of
chicken to his mouth and chewed on it.

“So what did Roman say?” Marlena asked as she looked down at her salad
and gently scooped a small piece of lettuce onto the tines.

“He figures we have a couple more days here until we need to move again.”

“Do they know where we are?” Marlena asked, trying to hide her panic.

“I asked him that,” John said as he picked at his chicken. “ISA intel
from Shane indicates that those looking for us are closing in on this
continent but don’t know what country we’re in.”

“I don’t want to move again,” Marlena complained as she put her fork
down and placed her hands in her lap, looking downward.

“You know that we don’t have a choice….” John started.

“I know, until Shane and ISA figure out what’s going on and I remember
my past we can’t go home,” Marlena said as she put her napkin on the
table, pushed her chair back and stood up.

“Marlena, please sit back down and finish your food,” John implored
her, slightly irritated by her mini tantrum. As was her habit, when
conversations turned serious or Marlena felt threatened in any way,
she found a way to remove herself from the situation. John
intrinsically knew that her actions were a result of behavior learned
and practiced as a child; instead of learning to cope, she ran.

“I’m not hungry…. You finish your food, I’ll be outside,” Marlena
stood next to the table, arms folded across her chest. She knew that
she should sit down and talk to John but didn’t want to. She was no
longer hungry, but John still had a full plate of food.

“No way…you know that I can’t leave you alone in the city,” John
replied, his voice rising.

“I’m not a child…please, finish your food…I’ll be fine,” Marlena
muttered, looking around the small restaurant, making sure that the
other patrons hadn’t noticed them.

“No,” John said as he put down his napkin, pushed out his chair and stood up.

“John,” Marlena warned him.

Not bothering to respond to a futile attempt on her part to gain some
much-desired independence, John took out his wallet and placed 40
euros on the table. “Let’s go,” he said as he deftly slid the wallet
back into the rear pocket of his black jeans.

“Finish your food John,” Marlena said stubbornly as she stood by the
table and refused to move.

“Come on Marlena, lets go” John said as he took her by the elbow and
started toward the door.

“Fine,” Marlena said following him, not wanting to make a scene.
Although she wanted some independence, she desired her freedom even
more. Making a scene would have drawn attention and the men after her
would be one step closer to finding them.

Once outside the restaurant, John carefully looked up and down the
street before stepping out of the sheltered alcove. Taking Marlena’s
arm and holding her close to his body, he led her quickly down the
side alley to his motorcycle.

Putting his helmet on, he sat down on the motorcycle and turned it on.
As the engine came to life, John watched as Marlena tried to tame her
wild blonde mane underneath the helmet. He never tired of watching
her, especially moments like this when she thought no one was looking.
Her mouth opened wide in concentration, tongue poking out between her
teeth; she fastened the strap under her chin and then adjusted her
jeans before climbing on the motorcycle behind him.

“Ready,” she yelled at him as she put her arms around his waist and
held on tight.

John guided the vehicle down the narrow cobblestone alley onto the
main thoroughfare. Marlena watched as the now familiar signs quickly
passed by. She was saddened by the knowledge that once again she was
going to have to leave a place she liked. She thought back to the
places that they had stayed over the last five months; Greece, France,
Germany, the Netherlands, England, Russia, Egypt, South Africa, China,
India, and now Italy.

Opening her eyes, she watched as John expertly maneuvered the machine
onto the isolated road at the end of town that led to the small house
that they had been staying at for the last three weeks. Since their
location changed so often, the only constant was the beach. John had
always managed to find a house on an isolated beach to rent and always
made an effort to make the house as comfortable as possible for her,
often arranging for familiar items to be delivered – pictures of their
six children and two grandchildren and pictures of other loved ones,
familiar bedding and pillows, favorite towels, perfumes, soaps and
lotions. Resting her head on John’s shoulder, she closed her eyes and
let the warm breeze wash over her face.

“The answers are in you…we just need to know where to look.” John’s
words to her last night ran through her mind. If only she could
remember who she was this nightmare would end, or at least start
towards a resolution. It seemed that the harder she tried to remember,
the less she did.

Who was Marlena? She remembered bits and pieces of her life as Julie
Dimera, but not all of it. As more time passed, her memories were
unexpectedly and randomly returning. Was something triggering the
return of her memory or was it the natural progression of her illness?
In the beginning days of her isolation with John she tried to use her
psychiatric and medical training to heal herself but had been largely
unsuccessful. John repeatedly told her to take her time and let the
memories return on their own. But she didn’t want to wait; every
moment that she didn’t remember was a minute that she could have spent
with her children.

Closing her eyes tightly, she tried to will the return of at least
another memory. As she thought back to the memory that had
unexpectedly returned during lunch she wondered what had triggered it.
Almost all of the memories that had returned were of her as a child,
yet in this one she was clearly a teenager. What did it all mean and
was it really a memory or her mind grasping to fill a void? She knew
the general sequence of events in her life based on what Shane Donovan
had told John and Roman on the way to the airport. Having the timeline
was helpful as little flashes of things returned; she had the context
into which to place them sequentially. Nevertheless, the gap between
what she last remembered; shooting her father, and what she remembered
next; moving to Salem as a psychiatrist, was huge. She didn’t remember
attending medical school, couldn’t recall her high school or college
graduations, and didn’t remember her prom or other teenage milestones.
Did she experience these things like other kids her age or had she
spent all those years in the facility?

“Hold on,” John yelled over the sound of the motorcycle, shaking her
out of her reverie. She felt the sudden breaking of the bike as it
moved side to side in a swerving motion. Marlena held onto John
tighter, eyes clenched tightly shut, afraid of an impending collision.

Once the bike was almost at a complete stop, she felt the gears shift
as John changed their course. Opening her eyes just enough to peek,
Marlena looked in front of them and saw what looked like three police
cars, lights on, heading toward them. Frightened and confused as to
why they were heading toward the police, she glanced behind her toward
the cottage. At the end of the road, she saw half a dozen police cars
parked in front of their beach cottage. Someone had found them.

“John,” Marlena panicked as she grabbed onto him tightly. She was going to die.

With the police less than a two miles in front of them and closing in
quickly, John was running out of options and surrendering wasn’t one
of them. Jerking the motorcycle to the right, he tried to maintain
control as he drove down the steep embankment toward the marsh.
Marlena felt the coldness of the water as the motorcycle came to rest
and started sinking.

“Come on,” John yelled as he shut off the engine and helped Marlena
off the bike. She was chest deep in murky water and having a hard time
gaining her footing. John kicked the bike over so that it was
completely submerged. Assisting Marlena to the shore, he looked back
to make sure that it wasn’t visible. Satisfied that finding the bike
wouldn’t be easy, he grabbed Marlena’s hand and briskly ran along the
edge of the marsh toward the sand dunes that rose up quietly behind
the marsh.
Pulling off her helmet and tossing it to the ground, Marlena wrapped
her arms around John’s waist and started crying. Removing his helmet,
he gently tossed it onto the warm sand and then placed his arms
protectively around Marlena.

“We’re going to die…I’m going to die…I’m going to die,” Marlena
repeated over and over again.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” John tried to reassure her
as he rubbed her back. He needed for her to remain calm if they were
going to make it out of town undetected. “Marlena we don’t have much
time, we need to get out of here,” John said as he removed her arms
from his waist and tipped up her chin so that he could see her eyes.
Although they were temporarily sheltered from view by the massive sand
dunes it would only be a matter of time before they were spotted.

“Somehow they know we’re here and we need to quickly get out of this
area undetected. You know this area and you know where to go,” John
said noticing that Marlena was shaking her head no. “Yes you do
sweetheart, the route will be the same one we practiced just
yesterday. You know the markers and the route. If anything happens you
know where to go. Whatever happens do not take your belt off…the GPS
device is in your belt. I activated the switch on the cycle once I saw
the police so Shane and his team should be looking for us now.”

“I can’t do this…I’m not ready for this,” Marlena cried out.

“You’re the strongest woman I know…you know what to do…you can do this
Marlena…I need for you to stop panicking though.”

“I’m trying not to John, but I’m scared, I don’t want to die,” Marlena
said, lowering her head. John noticed the slight trembling of her body
as she tried to keep her emotions together. Taking her into his arms
once again, he tilted her head so that he could look into her eyes.
“Honey, its okay to be scared. I’m scared too. But as long as we are
together and work smart, we should be okay. We don’t have time to
panic; the police are probably hunting us now. I know you’re cold but
a mile or so up the road is the place where we hid the dry clothes….
Things will be okay Mar, trust me.” John looked deep into her scared
hazel eyes trying to reassure her that was he said was the truth.

“I do,” she whispered as she gathered her strength from him. Leaning
down, he kissed her deeply on the lips, an indulgence of time that
they really couldn’t afford.

“Let’s go,” she said as soon as they separated, jogging down one of
the well-rehearsed escape routes. As John followed her, he looked
behind him and saw a dozen police officers, flashlights illuminating
their path as they made their way down the hill towards the marsh.

“Run Marlena…run.”

Chapter 3

After 20 minutes of running through the dark night, crisscrossing up
and down the sand dunes and around low-lying shrub, Marlena didn’t
know how much longer she could continue. John wasn’t jogging; he was
flat out running for his life. Putting one foot in front of the other,
she willed herself to follow him, knowing that being captured was the
alternative.

“Just a little while longer,” John whispered loudly behind him to
Marlena. Although rationally he knew that there was little chance of
anyone hearing him, there was still that chance. Marlena meant
everything to him and he wasn’t going to risk her capture by
carelessness on his part. He could see her out of the corner of his
eye struggling to keep up. Months on the run tempered with abject
social isolation hadn’t been good for Marlena or her body. She was a
thin woman before, but now looked emaciated. John knew that she
struggled to keep weight on since the twins’ birth, but slowly she was
becoming nothing more than a skeletal mass.

Marlena said nothing as she ran behind him watching his feet as they
slammed against the black soil, kicking up small amounts of fine dust
that obscured her path. She had no idea where they were or where they
were going, having long ago stopped paying attention, knowing and
trusting that John would lead them safely. She wiped the sweat off her
brow with the back of her hand, trying to concentrate on the feeling
of the warm liquid on her fingers against the cool night air.

“You’ve been a bad girl Julie,” she heard her fathers’ voice.
Frantically she looked around trying to find where the voice was
coming from. “You know what happens to bad girls.” His voice had
almost a lyrical quality to it, breathless yet sing-song like. Shaking
her head to try to clear the memory from it, she mumbled “No” to
herself, trying to abolish all thoughts of him. He was dead. She had
to let him stop controlling her. She was Marlena, not Julie.

“You can’t get rid of me so easily Marlena,” he taunted her. She saw
him running beside her, his black hair slicked back, red T-shirt
ringed with sweat.

Looking down, she followed John along the narrow path, trying not to
look over where her father was running beside her. The pale blue nylon
from his Nike sneakers shone against the moonlight. “I’m a part of you
and always will be. My blood runs through your veins, don’t you ever
forget that,” he threatened maniacally. “No,” she told herself once
again as she picked up her pace.

“Do you think you’re smarter than me Julie, just cause you’ve got a
some fancy degrees?” He laughed as he reached out and touched her. The
hair on her arms stood up from the contact. Suddenly she was very
cold. Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she felt his finger nails
scrape against her skin. She felt the throbbing on her skin where he
had touched her. Faster she ran trying to keep up with John.

Adrenaline rushing through her thin veins, she fought to outrun him.
Looking behind her, she couldn’t see her father; she could only sense
his presence. His warm breath against the back of her neck as he
placed his lips against the nape propelled her faster.

“No, this is not happening,” she mumbled as she passed John, sprinting
as if her life was in danger.

“Marlena, wait up,” John yelled, losing sight of her as she ran around
a tree covered bend. He was exhausted, but forced himself to move
faster to catch up with her.

“Marlena,” John yelled again as he started to panic. Coming around the
bend he slowed down as he saw Marlena standing in the middle of the
trail in a heated conversation with someone or something he couldn’t
see.

“No,” she yelled out. “No, this is not happening…this cannot be happening.”

“I told you I don’t know. Why are you doing this to me?” she cried as
she placed her head in her hands and wept. “Why can’t you leave me
alone?”

“Marlena,” John said as he stood before her and gently placed his
hands on her shoulders. She was trembling, a combination of her sweat
and the cold night air. “Marlena,” he said trying to get her to
respond.

“John,” she whispered as she looked up through her fingers at him. “Is he gone?”

“Is who gone?” John asked, concerned.

“My father,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.

“There was no one here honey,” John said trying to figure out what was
going on with his wife.

“He was here John,” Marlena insisted.

“Honey, your father is dead.”

“I know that. I don’t know how he did it, but he was here. I swear to
you John. I’m not crazy…He was here.” Eyes wide with fear, she looked
frantically around as she held her arms protectively around her chest.
Did John believe her?

“Maybe it was someone else that you thought was your father,” John
offered her as an alternative, concerned about Marlena’s mental state.

“Maybe,” she whispered, as she looked around him, frightened that her
father would reappear.

“Nothing to worry about though…just don’t run so far ahead of me… I
was worried,” John said as he checked his watch. They didn’t have much
time to get to the drop site before help arrived. As usual, he wanted
to be there early to make sure that they weren’t walking into an
ambush. “Are you okay to walk a little farther? We are almost
there…help should be here soon.”

“I’m okay,” she said staring ahead in disbelief, still shaken by her
encounter with her father.

Deviating from the well-marked trail, John abruptly grabbed Marlena’s
arm and pulled her close to him, leading her down the steep embankment
that led towards a small lake, not more that five hundred feet wide
and two hundred feet long. Leaning into John for support, she felt the
beating of his heart through her thin cotton shirt.

“John, where are we going?” Marlena asked in a panic as she tried to
calm her nerves hating the fact that she no longer had control over
her emotions. Everything was so raw and real. The defense and coping
mechanisms that she had developed over the years no longer seemed to
be working.

“Shush,” John said as he put two fingers to his mouth and motioned
above them towards the ridge where they just came from. His blue eyes
were as black as coal, making Marlena uncomfortable. She couldn’t see
or sense what he was feeling. She needed for his eyes to be blue; she
needed to be able to look into them and see that everything was going
to be okay.

John held onto her tighter as he led them towards the lake. The sun
had long since set, the dusk of the night barely illuminating the
lake. The sound of leaves being crushed under the weight of their
shoes was the only sound to be head, save their heavy breathing. Once
he reached a canopy of trees, he ducked behind a trunk, pulling
Marlena with him. Slowly he pulled her body next to him, mere
millimeters separating them. He could feel her gasping to catch her
breath. “Marlena, listen to me carefully and don’t talk,” John
whispered into her ear.

He felt her start to relax. “Something is wrong.” Marlena started
shaking her head and struggled in his arms. “Honey, you have to
relax,” he whispered trying to calm her down. A panicked Marlena would
get them captured.

“They’re onto us,” he whispered again, contemplating on how much to
tell her. Realizing that she was her equal, his partner, his soulmate,
he knew that she deserved nothing less than the truth. “I’m going to
reach down and undo your belt. Please don’t move and don’t panic,”
John said as he lowered his hands and skimmed them down along her body
till they came to rest at her waist. Slowly he undid the buckle and
tugged on one end of the belt. The sound of the leather belt as it
rubbed against the denim of her pants reverberated in Marlena’s ears.
She tried to focus on what was happening, trying to understand why
John was thinking that they were being followed, but couldn’t. She saw
her father in her mind.

She felt the final tug of the belt as John freed it from her waist.
She felt the coolness of the night air as her pants gaped at the
waist. “Stand here,” John ordered as he let go of her and calmly
walked towards the small lake. Leaning down, she saw him place the
belt in the water, watching it as it sank.

“I hope I made the right decision,” she heard him mutter as the belt
vanished from sight into the dark murky water.

Turning around, he slowly walked towards Marlena, noting the terror in
her eyes. Taking her into his arms once again, he whispered, “The GPS
device was on the belt…I couldn’t take the chance of being followed….
Something is wrong…I can sense it…. we need to get out of this area
now…It’s not safe to talk and we need to be very quiet…they are
expecting us at the safe house in a couple minutes…when we don’t show
they’ll be an all out manhunt for us….I figure we have about twenty
minutes to find a damn good hiding place for the night,” John
whispered as he looked down at his watch. He could hear the sounds of
dogs howling in the distance knowing that they were using bloodhounds
to track their scent.

“We need to wade through the pond to the other side,” John whispered.
Marlena tensed up in his arms and shook her head no.

“No,” she whispered as she backed away from him.

“We don’t have a choice,” John whispered as he grabbed her arm to stop
her. “This might buy us some extra time.”

“No,” she mumbled once again. “I’m not going in there…. Please let me
go. I won’t tell anyone,” she pleaded with him, not seeing John before
her, but the man she tried unsuccessfully to banish from her mind:
Congressman Channing Owens.

She slowly backed into the water, trying to get away from him. She
started moving herself backwards in the water, not knowing where she
was or where the other side was.

“Marlena, what’s the matter?” John asked as he followed her lead. Her
mouth was open and he could see her mumbling but couldn’t understand a
word of what she was saying.

“No, Marlena. You belong to me and I’m never going to let you go,”
Channing said as he started swimming towards her. She turned over and
started swimming as fast as she could away from him. She felt him grab
onto her hair and pull her towards him. She continued fighting him as
he grabbed her neck from behind and pulled her under the water. She
struggled to come up to the surface but he prevented her from doing
so. She kicked hard and connected with what she assumed was his shin.
He lost his grip on her and she made her way to the surface grasping
for air.

John watched helplessly as Marlena struggled in the water. Quickly
swimming over towards where she was, he tried to pull her body close
to his. He felt the sharp jab of her shoes as she connected with his
shin. “No,” she pleaded as she struggled against him.

“Julie, Julie, Julie,” Channing whispered into her ear as he held her
tight. “Don’t you know by now that any attempt to escape is futile.”

“Please let me go.” She wasn’t going to beg him, not this time.

“Never. You belong to me and always will.” She felt his hot breath on
his neck and felt his arousal poking into her backside.

“We’re going to go back to the house and you are going to apologize to
my guest for your rude behavior.” He ground his erection into her
buttocks.

“He was an ass. I won’t apologize.” She shook her head and tried to
escape from his clutches.

She felt him as he grabbed her face and squeezed her chin, “You will
or I’ll drown you right here in this lake.” She knew that he was
capable of doing it, but just didn’t know if she cared. Maybe death
would be an easier way out.

Summoning strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled out of his
embrace and swam towards the shore. Reaching the shore seconds before
him, she ran towards the forest as fast as she could, hoping to outrun
Channing this time.

“Marlena,” John whispered loudly as he furiously ran to catch up with
her. “Marlena.”

Slowly John started making a gain on her lead as she raced towards an
unseen target. He was thankful that she was moving so fast but
concerned by her behavior. He saw the vacant look in her eyes; she was
running from something else.

“Stop,” he ordered her as he grabbed onto her shirt.

“No,” Marlena cried out as she pulled out of her grasp. “Please leave
me alone,” she begged as she struggled against his tight hold on her.
She was dripping wet and shivering. John tried to hold onto her to
calm her down.

“I won’t tell anyone, please let me go,” she begged him once again. He
felt her small frame shake as she tried to hold her emotions in check.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to do it…I didn’t…please
let me go.”

“Marlena, it’s me John,” he said tenderly as he held her body against
hers. “It’s me John… I’d never hurt you…you have to believe that.”

“John,” Marlena said as she lifted her head. “John?” Slowly she turned
her head towards the sound of his voice.

“Doc?” John asked as his eyes made contact with hers. He was relieved
to see recognition reflected in hers.

“John…oh thank God its you,” she whispered in relief. “What’s
happening to me?” She asked him as she looked for an answer.

“What’s happening to me?” she repeated, this time with more fervor.
“What’s happening to me?”

“Doc…I’ve got you…you’re going to be okay,” John tried to reassure her.

“No, it’s not okay John…It’s not,” Marlena said loudly as she pulled
out of his embrace and turned around and faced him. “It’s not okay.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” John said softly as he leaned
down and looked into her eyes.

“There’s nothing you can say… Something is wrong with me John…. I can feel it.”

“When we get to a safe city we can have a doctor check you out…”

“That’s not what I need,” Marlena interrupted. “I saw him John… I saw
my father and I saw Channing…. I don’t know to explain it…. It doesn’t
make any sense, I know that rationally it can’t have happened John,
but I know what I felt and I know what I saw.” The tears in her eyes
and the obvious pain on her face pained John. Looking at her he felt a
tightening in his chest and lump in his throat. Taking her face
tenderly in his hands, John looked up in the sky for guidance. There
was nothing he could say to make things better for her. There was no
one there; everything was in her head.

“Tell me about Channing?” John asked, not wanting to waste the moment.
In the months on the run this was the first time that Marlena had ever
mentioned Channing Owens. All that he knew of Owens was from Shane and
ISA intel records. Maybe this was the opening into her mind that he
had hoped and prayed for, for months.

Marlena closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “I don’t want to talk
about him.”

“It might help you to talk about him,” John said softly as he stroked
her face. “Tell me what was happening with him just now….”

“He was chasing after me…” Marlena whispered barely loud enough for
John to hear. She tried to fight off the image of him in her mind. She
shuddered as she saw him chasing after her in the night; this time she
was no longer a child, but an adult.

“What else?”

“He was holding me under the water….”

“Do you know why?”

“Yes,” Marlena said simply as she looked down, signaling that she was
ending the conversation.

“Marlena, I can’t help you unless I know what’s going on in your
head…. You have to trust me.”

“I do trust you John…I do trust you,” Marlena said as she opened her
eyes and smiled at him. “I do trust you…. I trust you with my life.”

“Why was Owens chasing you?”

“Because I made him mad…. he tried to kill me.”

“Was this a memory? Did this really happen?” John wasn’t clear as to
what was real anymore. He knew that she was starting to remember
things from her past, even though she tried to hide it. Her actions
this time weren’t the same; he wasn’t convinced that she was
remembering.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes tightly as the memory of his violent death
at the hands of Mason Jones flashed through her mind. “Mason tried to
help me John…he saved me.” She needed for John to understand that
Mason wasn’t the enemy here.

“Marlena, do you know why Mason Jones and Alex North are after you?”

Marlena shook her head furiously. “They were my friends…they helped
me.” Mason wasn’t the enemy.

“Marlena, Mason tried to lock you up in the hospital and have you committed.”

“No,” she said as she shook her head and backed further away from him.
“He wouldn’t do that John…. I know him… He wouldn’t do that.”

“I saw with my own eyes Marlena…. he did it.”

“No…. I would remember that if it happened.”

“I’m telling you…. It happened. You trust me don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about something as serious as this Doc, I
wouldn’t…. We need to figure out why they are after you…we need to
figure out what’s inside of you that they so desperately want.”

“I don’t know John…. If I did, don’t you know that I would tell you?”

“I know that you would… I know that you would.”

“I’ve been seeing a number in my head…. I’m not sure what it means,
but its something that Channing Owens said to me.”

“What?” John asked as he took her elbow and guided her down the path.
Although this discussion was important, they had already lost precious
time.

“25… He told me the number 25.”

Chapter 4

“25?” John asked curiously, hearing the blood hounds barks nearing
closer with each step. Not wanting to waste a moment of precious time
that they didn’t have, John grabbed Marlena’s hand and pulled her
alongside him. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye noticing
that she seemed to be lost in her own world.

“I don’t know,” Marlena said as she tried to stop. She was so confused
right now; her head full of images and thoughts that wouldn’t end. She
hadn’t had this level of confusion in months; really since she started
remembering her past. John pulled on her arm to keep her walking.

“Come on Doc, just a little bit further,” John whispered, as he looked
around, hoping that the map that he’d memorized weeks ago of this area
was accurate. He recognized some of the landmarks from the map, and
was hopeful that the town was 2 miles away as charted.

“He said 25, I’m sure of it,” Marlena said, her mind flashing back to
the memory of him, laying on top of her trying to rape her when Mason
unremorsefully shot him in the head. She clearly remembered him saying
something else to her, but couldn’t conjure up what that was. A
feeling of uneasiness settled over her; she felt dirty and wanted to
take a shower.

“25….that’s a start…what do you think it means?” John asked trying to
act like they were having a normal conversation during a quiet walk in
the woods. In reality he wanted nothing more than to climb inside her
head and figure out what all these jumbled pieces of her past meant,
if they meant anything at all. There had to be a reason why President
Maxwell Owens was after Marlena, other than the fact that she
supposedly killed his brother Channing. Was that enough to make the
President risk everything to go after a private citizen?

“I have no idea,” Marlena muttered as she looked down at her arms.
Deep red gashes marred the pale white skin. Both of her arms had the
telltale sign of someone grabbing onto them and leaving the imprint of
their fingernails as Marlena pulled out of their grasp. The wounds
were starting to throb with each step she took.

“Are you alright?” John asked noticing that Marlena was absently
rubbing her arms and grimacing as they walked along the trail.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, not bothering to look up. She needed to be
strong for him.

“You don’t sound fine Doc,” John said, stopping in the middle of the
path and facing her. “Let me see your arm,” John demanded as he tried
to reach around her and grab hold of her arm.

“No,” Marlena said defiantly as she backed away from him. “I said I’m
fine….we don’t have time for this right now…okay…didn’t you say we
needed to find shelter?” She pulled the thin material as far down her
arms as it would gone, hiding her injury from John. She couldn’t deal
with his interrogation of her right now.

“Nice diversion Marlena…For now I’m going to let this issue pass, but
I can tell you that once we find some place to hide out I will be
looking at your arm whether you like it or not.” If she was hurt he
needed to know. It was better to treat her injuries as they arose
rather than wait until they were in a situation where there was
potentially no medical help available. Damn her stubbornness.

“Fine,” Marlena muttered as she took off ahead of him, leaving him
staring at her backside as she disappeared down the narrow path. She
wasn’t going to wait around for another interrogation. She hated that
he still saw her as a fragile person that needed to be protected. In
reality, she had more clarity as to who she was and what she wanted
than she’d had in the last ten years.

“Dammit…Doc, wait up,” John whispered loudly as he took off running
after her. She was so infuriating to him at times.

After twenty minutes of walking in almost complete darkness without
saying a word to each other they reached the edge of the small Italian
fishing village. Glancing down at his watch, John noted that it was
almost ten p.m.

“Doc, stick close to me and try to blend in like you live here,” John
whispered as he looked around and sized up their options. Marlena
snickered at the comment. With her long tangled hair, dirty and wet
clothes she looked everything but a local. John could hear the sounds
of police sirens in the distance. Unless they took cover now, they
were certain to be caught.

Grabbing her hand he ran across the cobblestone street to a house
whose lights were off. Looking in the lace covered windows John sized
up the occupancy. He was unable to tell if anyone was home or lived
there.

“Come on John,” Marlena muttered, starting to get nervous standing on
the darkened street when there was a manhunt out for her.

John tried to open the window to the house when an upstairs light went
on. Quickly dropping out of sight, John grabbed Marlena’s hand and
ran. Beyond exhausted, Marlena struggled to keep up with him.

Running down a narrow alley that ran behind the house, John pulled
Marlena behind a trash dumpster to rest. Leaning for support against
the filthy canister Marlena tried to catch her breath. “Lets find a
barn,” she suggested, not knowing personally how much longer she could
keep on running tonight. She needed something to eat; contemplating
rummaging through the canister before her.

“What do you think this place is? Jerusalem?” John joked, looking
around him for a barn. It wasn’t a bad idea; if only he could find
one. He could tell from Marlena’s stance that she was beyond exhausted
and hungry but was trying to put on a brave front for him.

“It sure as hell beats sleeping in an occupied house John,” Marlena
joked back, looking around for another house that didn’t look
occupied. Up and down the street almost all the houses were dark, save
for one of two with low watt bulbs illuminating corridors for children
who were prone to nighttime fantasies of monsters and other sea
creatures.

The sound of dogs barking grew louder and louder. Marlena pulled her
shirt tightly around herself, trying to draw comfort from the
closeness of the fabric. She looked up at John for guidance needing to
see some sort of confidence on his face that he believed that
everything was going to be okay. John had a determined look on his
face, biting down on his bottom lip as he looked furiously around him
for a good place to hide. Marlena felt the pounding of each second
that passed as her blood coursed through her veins.

“Just decide,” Marlena said loudly as she started to panic. She looked
around furiously trying to find a place to hide.

“Fine,” John said as he grabbed her hand and ran to the end of the
alley and turned the corner. A police car with its lights off was
slowly driving down the street towards them.

“Shit.” John grabbed on Marlenas top and pulled her back, pressing her
against the building so the police couldn’t see her. They needed to
find shelter now. Retreating back the way they’d came, John quickly
peered into windows and tried to open doors to find them any shelter
from the manhunt. John feared that their luck was running out.

“The pier John,” Marlena quickly suggested, pointing to the boats that
lined the shore five hundred feet in front of them. A low front was
moving into the area, causing not only a drop in temperature but also
visibility. Marlena stealthily ran towards the boats, paying careful
attention to staying out of sight. John followed silently behind her,
keeping track of the unseen enemies behind them.

Reaching the pier undetected, Marlena ducked behind an old fishing
vessel that had been dry-docked. John quickly joined her.

“Come on Doc, we can’t stop here,” he said as he grabbed her hand and
helped her up from her crouching position.

“Where are we going to go?” She asked, seeing the police cars
approaching the pier and marina. They were trapped behind an old boat
that had seen better days and wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“I have no idea, but we can’t stay here.” John looked behind them,
calculating escape routes and the probability of success.

“John, if they catch me promise me that you’ll keep on running,”
Marlena said as she grabbed John’s face with her hands and held onto
him. “Promise me.”

“No one is taking you,” John said, not meeting her eyes. This wasn’t
going to be how they ended.

“You don’t know that John…you don’t know that…. The dogs are
here…they’re onto our scent…they are going to get us,” Marlena said
with desperation in her voice as she forced him to look at her. “Look
at me god dammit…look down the street John….look over there at the
flashing lights….they know where are here….there is no where else to
go.” Marlena’s tears glistened in the pale light of the moon. John
slowly captured a tear with his thumb, knowing that he’d never seen a
more beautiful sight. Looking at her, he knew that he would risk
everything for her safety.

“I’m not giving up…I’m not giving you up Doc… Don’t ask me to,” John
said defiantly and with determination. “No one is going to take you
in…not if I have anything to say about it. I promised you that I’d
keep you safe.”

“John, you’re just talking foolishness now…you can’t promise me
safety…no one can.” Marlena looked over John’s shoulder at the sleepy
village in slight disbelief that this was where it was going to end
for them. How could she get John to see the seriousness of the
situation and get him to accept reality? “Promise me that if they
capture me that you’ll go back to the kids and make sure that they’re
safe,” Marlena whispered as tears welled up in her eyes. “Promise me
that you’ll find Eric.”

“Stop talking like this is the end for you Doc…. its not…this is only
the beginning for us…don’t you know that? If this was the end for us,
I would have felt it, and I don’t,” John said loudly, not caring
anymore. He continued looking around them for another way out. There
had to be another way.

“I know that you want to protect me…I know that John,” Marlena said as
she wiped the tears from her eyes. “We are stuck in this damn village
behind a boat that’s not even in the water. How the hell do you
envision getting out of this mess?” Marlena asked.

“Over there,” John said smiling as he pointed to a small fishing
vessel that was anchored 100 feet off the coast.

“No way,” Marlena said in disbelief, shaking her head no. John was
certifiable if he thought that there was any chance of escaping in
that vessel.

“Yes way, Marlena,” John teased, “It’s the only way.”

“Find another way,” Marlena demanded. She could hear the tapping of
the dogs’ claws on the cobblestone street. In a matter of minutes it
would all be over for her, for them.

“Come on,” John said as he grabbed Marlena roughly by the forearm and
ran for the pier. As fast as his legs would carry him he ran, pulling
her behind. As he reached the end of the dock, he jumped without
notice, pulling Marlena into the water with him.

Choking, she rose to the surface trying to catch her breath. John
silently held her body afloat while she became acclimated to the cold
water.

“Swim Marlena,” John whispered as he pushed her towards the boat. He
could hear the sounds of the dogs barking and the scratching of their
claws as they ran along the wooden planks of the boardwalk looking for
their target. “Don’t look back, just swim.”

As hard as she could, she swam towards the floating boat. Although her
side hurt like hell from the lack of oxygen to her muscles she knew
that she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t a coward and wasn’t going to drown
in the middle of this godforsaken ocean. She took comfort in the fact
that John was swimming behind her. After what seemed like forever, but
in reality was only a matter of minutes, she reached the side of the
boat.

Trying to catch her breath she held tightly onto the side of the boat
and waited for John to reach it.

Eyes wide with fear and excitement Marlena asked, “What do we do now?”

“You’re going to climb into the boat and lay low, look for something
to cover yourself with so that you don’t get sick….I’m going to cut
the anchor line.”

“I can do that,” Marlena agreed as she tried to lift her own weight
over the side of the boat. Lacking the strength to pull herself up
Marlena sank back into the water. “I’ve got you Doc,” John said
tenderly as he held Marlena from behind. “I’ve got you.”

Marlena could see the reflection of the red and blue flashing lights
of the police cars on the calm surface of the ocean. Looking to her
right she could see blood hounds perched at the end of the dock
barking down at the water.

“Marlena Evans Black, this is Interpol…you are under arrest for the
murders Rafeal Torres, Channing Owens and John Dimera. Come out with
your hands up now…We are authorized to use deadly force if we have
to,” a male voice with a British accent demanded over the loud
speaker.

Chapter 5

Trying to remain completely still, Marlena struggled to maintain her
grip on the worn wooden rail that ran along the side of the boat.
Frayed splinters worked their way into the surface of her fingers.
Biting down on her lip to keep from crying out she watched nervously
as the British Interpol agent demanded once again, “Marlena Evans
Black, you are under arrest….come out from where you are hiding with
your hands up.”

“John what are we going to do?” she whispered loudly afraid to look
away from the scene unfolding in front of her. She needed to see
John’s face, needed to see that he had this situation figured out and
that it was simply a little diversion that they would escape, but she
was afraid that if she looked at him she might lose track of the
officers and one would sneak up on her.

“We do nothing,” John whispered, his voice coming from somewhere
behind her and to the left.

“Nothing?” she whispered the frustration evident in her voice as she
watched the cadre of Interpol and local Italian police officers walk
up and down the wharf, flashlights moving back and forth over the
cobblestone street. Searchlights from the police cars shined upon the
water casting artificial shadows around the boats.

“Nothing.”

“That’s suicide John…You cannot be serious…They have guns pointed out
here at me…guns….they are going to shoot me if they have to,” Marlena
said quickly, each word she said harder and harder to get out. The
enormity of the situation was becoming more and more evident with the
arrival of each additional police car and each dog that ran up and
down the pier, paws scratching against the wooden planks of the
boardwalk. She estimated that there are had to be at least 20 police
cars and ten dogs out there. All looking for her.

John could hear the faint sound of her gasping and knew that she was
starting to have a panic attack. “Doc…Marlena…sweetheart…you need to
remain calm and hang on,” John whispered as he moved to where he was
behind her. He needed for her to hang on to the side of the boat where
she would make the least amount of noise. “Look around….there are
close to fifty fishing boats around here…I’d guess that they don’t
know for certain where we are in the water, only that we’re out here.”
John had a calmness about him as he treaded in place in the cold water
and calculated in his head their escape route. He didn’t want to tell
Marlena anymore than she needed to know as it would only cause her
further panic. They were in big trouble.

“We’ve got to do something John…its only a matter of time before they
come out into the water to come and get us, to get me,” Marlena
managed to get out as she gasped for air. John reached up and rubbed
her back slowly with one arm as he tried to keep his balance in the
water with the other while treading water.

“Do something,” she begged him as she started kicking her legs in the
water, desperation and panic overcoming her. The sound of her
splashing could be heard from the shore. Immediately a searchlight was
pointed in their direction. Blinded by the brightness of the light in
her eyes, Marlena instinctively let go of the side of the boat.
Falling backwards into the water, John caught her.

“We see where you are…Come out now or we will send some divers out to
get you. You cannot escape….If you try to escape we have orders from
the Interpol and the American government to shoot to kill….this is a
serious situation Mrs. Black or Miss Dimera, what ever you prefer to
be called as….I recommend that you come out now so the situation can
end peacefully,” the man with the British accent repeated.

“No,” Marlena moaned as she struggled to stay afloat in the water.
“I’ll drown myself before I let them take me in.” She closed her eyes,
not wanting to see what was happening anymore. She knew they had only
moments before the police entered the cold water and swam out to get
her. Would she fight? Would she go calmly with them and face a future
in jail? A future without John and her children. Would Rachel and Noah
be doomed as Sami and Eric were, growing up without the love and
support of a mother?

“Marlena, you need to stay calm,” John reminded her. She continued to
make lots of noise treading water. He was sure her gasps for air could
be heard from shore. Unfortunately the calmness of the sea at this
time of night didn’t offer much protection for them. The sound of
every movement they made seemed to ricochet across the surface of the
ocean. The searchlights on almost every police car were pointed in
their direction.

“I can’t,” she gasped. Not knowing what else to do, John grabbed hold
of her face and kissed her hard. Forcing his tongue through her
tightly clenched teeth, he felt her resolve slowly melt. Holding onto
her body as he treaded water for both of them, he felt the muscles in
her arms and legs start to relax. She was no longer resistant, but an
active participant. Losing herself to the soft feel of John’s tongue
as it gently probed her mouth, Marlena opened her mouth wider allowing
him greater access.

Unable to control himself John got lost in the feel of the love of his
life safely enveloped in his arms. Running his hands up and down her
arms he needed to feel closer to her, needed to make love to her,
needed to connect with her in a way where words were no longer
necessary.

Marlena smiled into the kiss as she felt John’s erection against her
stomach as he moved up and down in the water against her, treading
water for both of them. The darkness of the water behind the boat, the
calmness of the sea, the desperation that each of them felt that this
may be the last time they saw each other only added to the magic of
the moment.

“I want you,” Marlena moaned into his mouth as she reached down
between their bodies and unbuttoned his pants, freeing his hardened
member. Running her hand up and down his shaft, she was empowered with
a sense of calmness. Whatever was going to happen to them, would
happen. The future, their future was up to the fates, but what she
could control was this moment and she was going to make the most of
it.

John grabbed her chin and kissed her with every ounce of his being. He
needed for her to know and understand the depth of his love for her.
Every pull on this hardened shaft added to the passion of his
desperation and want for her. “I’ve got to fuck you Doc,” John said as
he pulled back from her, passion in his half-closed eyes. “I want you
now,” he whispered as he moved them towards the boat.

Marlena gasped as she felt her back roughly connect with the side of
the boat. John reached under her shirt and undid her bra in the front.
He needed to touch her, to taste her, like he’d never needed to
before. Looking around for a place for Marlena to hang on to while he
ravaged her, John spotted the anchor line out of the corner of his
eye.

Holding her in his arms, feeling her breasts as they rubbed up and
down against his shirt, her soft breath against her neck, John swam
backwards ten feet to where the anchor line disappeared into the black
sea.

“I need you now John,” Marlena purred. It was all about connecting
with John, feeling him inside of her. Desperate for closer contact,
Marlena lowered her pants in the water and took John in her hand.
Guiding him into her inner core, she grabbed onto the anchor line for
support as she adjusted to the tightness.

“Oh fuck,” John moaned as he felt himself slowly sink into her tight
channel. It had only been a couple days since he’d last made love to
her, but every time seemed like the first for him. He would never tire
of the feeling of entering her, connecting with her on a much deeper
and almost spiritual level.

“Until the end of time, you are mine,” John said possessively as he
pumped faster and faster into Marlena. “Mine….mine….mine.”

“Hurry John,” Marlena said wildly. “I’m about to cum,” she warned him.

“It’s too soon honey, hang on,” John pleaded with her, wanting this
moment to last forever.

“Come out with your hands up,” the Interpol agent demanded. “We know
that you are in the water behind a fishing boat.”

“Shut the hell up,” John whispered to the Interpol agent, knowing that
the man couldn’t hear him. “I’m fucking my wife,” John whispered as he
looked deeply into Marlena’s eyes.

“Marlena Evans Black you are under arrest.”

“We get that you fucking dolt,” John whispered as he pounded harder
and harder into his wife. Marlena’s eyes closed as she felt her body
releasing all of its built up frustrations and pressure. Wave after
wave of intense pleasure came over her body as her orgasm took her by
surprise. John felt the contracting of her vaginal walls, the
tightness of each contraction squeezing his shaft. Nanoseconds after
she came, he emptied himself into her.

“Oh fuck,” he moaned loudly as he pumped into her. “Oh fuck baby….oh
fuck….oh fuck.”

Marlena let go of the rope and put her arms around his neck for
support and softly started sobbing in his arms, unable to control her
emotions.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“Why are you crying MB?” he asked concerned that he might have hurt her.

“They’re happy tears John…happy tears… Thank you for reminding me of
all that I have to live for, to fight for.”

“Come on out with you hands up…you are surrounded,” another Interpol
agent yelled into the loud speaker in broken English. “It is futile to
try to escape…you are surrounded.” John could hear the barking of the
dogs, their owners making no effort to quell their loud yaps.

“Oh give me a break,” John moaned as he held Marlena in his arms. “I’m
having a tender moment with my woman…can’t you see,” he joked as he
slowly wiped the tears from Marlena’s eyes with the pads of his
thumbs.

“You goof,” Marlena said, smiling as she held onto him, seeking
comfort in his muscular arms. “Seriously, what are we going to do?”
Marlena asked as she breathed in his scent and kissed him softly on
the neck. Softly, she placed gentle kisses up and down his neck.

“I’m going to get you onto this boat and have my way with you, “ John
said not quite joking as he lifted her legs around his torso.

“John,” Marlena laughed as she felt his hardened penis poking at her
entrance. “Oh John,” she moaned as he adjusted her body for better
access, rubbing his penis up and down against her sensitive bundle of
nerves. With the first rub she felt an orgamism approaching.

“What? Surprised?… You know what you do to me…you know that I can’t
control myself around you,” John said as he steadied her hips and
entered her quickly.

“Oh god,” Marlena moaned loudly. Her body was so raw with feelings and
emotions that each thrust brought her closer and closer to another
orgasm. “John,” Marlena screamed out as she started to cum once again.
John quickly thrust his tongue into her mouth to quiet her screams,
but he was finding that he was having a hard time maintaining any
level of control.

“John,” Marlena screamed loudly. “I’m cumming…I can’t stop it,” she
yelled out even though he was right in front of her.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she screamed as her world went white
and she felt the sensation of falling.

Marlena thrashing in his arms, her vaginal walls convulsing
uncontrollably around his penis, with the look of complete and utter
serenity on her face was the most beautiful sight that John had ever
seen. Emptying himself into her, he held onto her floating form for
support.

“Are you alright Ms. Black?” the Interpol agent asked, concerned by
her loud cries. Although he had been given orders to bring her in dead
or alive, she was still a human and was entitled to medical care.

John laughed at the man’s questions as he held his wife’s limp body in
his arms. “Oh I’d say she’s alright,” he laughed as he pulled her
shirt back down so that it covered her chest.

“Marlena, as much as I’d love to hold you in my arms like this all
night long, we need to get moving. In a couple of minutes I’m going to
lift you onto the boat… I need for you to take cover under the tarp
and stay quiet,” John whispered softly, mesmerized by her angelic
face. She had yet to open her eyes, content to float in his arms. He
adjusted her body in the water and noticed that she was shivering.

“What do you have planned?” Marlena asked as she summoned the strength
to open one eye. She felt the water around her hoping to feel the
fabric of her pants.

“You’ll see…you’ve got to remain still though,” John said as he
watched Marlena. “Here let me help you,” he said as he grabbed onto
her T-shirt and lifted it up.

“John,” Marlena moaned as the coolness of the night air hit her
exposed breasts. Her nipples instantly hardened. “John,” Marlena
warned him noticing the look of lust in his eyes.

“What?” he asked sheepishly, staring at her exposed breasts.

“John,” Marlena warned him as she grabbed the sides of her bra and
fastened the clasp in the center of her chest. “There,” she said as
she lowered her shirt.

“Honey, you didn’t have to do that,” John said as he tried to lift her shirt.

“Marlena Evans Black….Julie Dimera, this is your last warning…you have
one minute to come out from behind the boat with your hands in the
air…. Divers are ready to come into the water and get you if you do
not comply…. Come out now….We know that John Black has been helping
you….If you come out now we won’t prosecute him.”

John quickly peeked around the side of the boat and noticed that the
man wasn’t lying. He could see the faint profile of three men in wet
suits with scuba tanks on their backs appearing to be adjusting their
face masks while a man in uniform seemed to be giving them
instructions.

“Marlena now,” John said as he grabbed onto her waist and lifted her
up as high as he could. He smiled and shook his head as her bare ass
stood out in stark contrast to the darkness around them. She did as
she was told and quietly crawled under a tarp and layed down, praying
to God for protection from what was about to happen.

Chapter 6

“Marlena now,” John said as he grabbed onto her waist and lifted her
up as high as he could. He smiled and shook his head as her bare ass
stood out in stark contrast to the darkness around them. The old song
“Blue Moon” started playing in his mind.

Marlena did as she was told and quietly crawled under a tarp and layed
down, praying to God for protection from what was about to happen. The
putrid smell of rotting fish permeated her nostrils. She tried hard to
breathe through her mouth, not her nose, as she was taught in medical
school, but the feeling of panic was starting to overcome her. The
rough hewn boards on the bottom on the boat scratched against her bare
skin with each rock of the boat. She sought to steady herself but was
afraid to reach out and touch anything on the boat. Silently she laid
on the floor, willing herself the resolve to remain calm.

As time passed at a discerningly slow pace, Marlena strained to hear
what was happening outside of the boat. She could hear the occasional
splashing of water but not where it was coming from. She hoped that
John wasn’t doing something stupid like sacrificing himself for her.

As John peered around the side of the boat, he watched as divers
started to enter the water. Calculating the time it would take for
them to reach the boat he knew he had mere minutes to make his move
before they were caught.

Grabbing onto the rear anchor line, John quickly untied the anchor
from the boat. Watching the line sink into the dark abyss beneath him,
he quickly swam to the front of the boat, taking his well used knife
out of its holster on his leg, he quickly sliced through the line
leaving about 15 feet of rope.

Keeping an eye on the divers as they made slow progress towards them,
John snuck a look at the low front moving in behind him, slowly
pulling on the line trying to move the boat with minimum attention.
After several hard tugs the boat started moving. Quickly trying the
rope around his waist, John took off swimming as hard as he could
towards the horizon.

Stroke after stroke he thought of nothing but his children and his
wife. No matter what pain his body felt, it was nothing compared to
the never-ending pain that they would all feel if Marlena was
captured, tried and jailed for the murders. No one was going to let
her go; she had become a pariah of sorts for the current
administration. She would be captured and punished for killing the
brother of the president. But why? Why the hell did she kill him?
There were still so many unanswered questions that John so desperately
wanted and needed answers to, but to date Marlena wasn’t talking.
Whatever happened in the past was either so traumatic that she blocked
it out or so frightening that she was afraid to talk. Not caring what
the reason, he just wanted his wife back.

Rachel, Noah, Belle, Sami, Eric and Carrie. He wondered how they were
doing. It had been weeks since they last saw a picture of Rachel and
Noah. From what they had been told, the twin’s condition was slowly
improving. Rachel’s condition was still questionable but she was
holding her own, so far. Belle, Sami and Carrie seemed to be bonding
in a way now that they hadn’t been able to in the past. The absence of
Marlena had inadvertently brought the girls together and helped to
ameliorate any differences they may have had in the past. Eric was
still the unknown. Shane had been working for months on locating Eric
but had been unsuccessful. Who had him and why was the big unknown and
no one was talking. John desperately wished that he was back in the
United States and part of the team of ISA agents assigned to Eric’s
case. The boy was his son and he felt awful not being able to help.

Once the boat was fully absconded in the thick fog and several
nautical miles from shore, John untied the rope from around his waist
and climbed on board.

As he pulled the covers off the boat, Marlena immediately got up off
the floor and rushed into his arms, thankful for a friendly face. “Oh
thank God you’re alright…I was afraid that you were going to do
something stupid like turn yourself in,” Marlena said as she tenderly
took his face in her hands. He was a miracle, her miracle.

“Never…never,” John said as he held onto her for support, looking
around the small boat. “I need your help….I’m not sure how long this
fog is going to provide us cover or how quickly it will take….”

“Anything, just tell me what you need for me to do,” Marlena
interrupted, still in disbelief over the fact that they may have
eluded capture once more.

“I need for you to look around the boat and see if you can find any
nautical maps of the area. While you do that I’m going to see if there
are any paddles that I can use,” John said as he let go of his hold on
her waist. Looking behind him in the direction he came from he was
relieved to see that the denseness of the fog had not abated, which
meant that they weren’t going anywhere, but at the same time no one
else was coming for them. Unless you were a trained seaman, familiar
with the rocky coasts of this area, it was simply too dangerous.

“Why don’t you turn on the motor?” Marlena innocently asked, not quite
aware that they weren’t out of danger yet.

“I don’t want to alert Interpol that we’re gone,” John said, thankful
that his excuse was valid. He was hoping that he had been quiet enough
that Interpol was still checking all the boats in the harbor now, not
aware that they were long gone. John assumed that he was able to pull
the boat a mile of so out of the harbor, but with the tide and
current, couldn’t be sure. If it was any less than that and he turned
on the motor, he risked the chance of Interpol hearing it and knowing
that they had left the harbor. Not a horrible situation, but it would
cost them a precious lead he thought that they had. “Hopefully I was
quiet enough pulling the boat out here that they can’t tell where we
are.”

“How can you tell where we are? It’s completely dark and foggy. How do
you know that we aren’t headed back to shore?” Marlena questioned as
she looked around, a feeling of uneasiness overcoming her. She moved
closer to him as all the unknowns of her environment encroached on her
mind. What else was under the cover of the boat? What was in the metal
drum in the corner? What was hiding and waiting for her on the other
side of the fog?

“Stop it,” she told herself as tried to shake the fears out of her
mind. “Stop it…You’re going to drive yourself crazy Marlena….there’s
nothing here to be afraid of…You’re a strong woman, use your training
to calm your fears.” Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, she
fought for control of her mind and body.

“Cause I never leave home without my trusty compass,” John said as he
held it up. “That’s a fact.” Once an ISA agent, always an ISA agent.

Marlena smiled before responding, “I love a strong, devastatingly
handsome, intelligent and resourceful man.” She slowly approached him
and gently kissed him on the lips.

“mmmmmmmm…..” John moaned into her mouth. “You’ve gotta stop that Doc
or we’ll never get out of here. You know what you do to me.” John
slowly placed both of his strong hands on her forearms and gently
moved her back so that mere inches separated them.

“John,” Marlena complained.

“Marlena,” John mimicked back. “You don’t have any pants on…Do you
even realize how tempting it is to just bend you over on that fish
tote and have my way with you?”

“John,” Marlena said in shock at the crudeness of his insinuation.

“Well, I am a hot blooded man and you are a beautiful and alluring
woman without any pants on,” John said as he tried to shake the visual
images from his mind of Marlena sprawled out naked on the fish tote
and him having his way with her. “Why don’t you try to find something
to wear,” John suggested as he snuck another look at her bare legs.
“Quick.”
“I can’t see anything and I sure as hell am not going to touch
something that I can’t see.”

“Mar.”

“Don’t Mar me, macho man. I’m a girl; I’m not supposed to like
disgusting stuff or want to venture out into the unknown of this boat.
I like candlelight baths, strawberries and cream served chilled, down
comforters, sheets with a thread count of 350 or higher….Do you get my
drift?”

“Nothing about you is girl like Doc,” John said as he continued to
stare at her bare legs.

“John Black you are a pig,” Marlena said as she playfully swatted him
on the arm. “Stop ogling me.”

“Can you blame me?” he asked as he continued to stare. He needed to
stop his line of thinking or they were going to lose more of their
precious lead. Taking the cover off the rest of the boat he proceeded
to open the hatch that led to the small galley below hoping that it
was clean and that there would be something that Marlena could wear
down there. If not, he was prepared to use the tarp to make a
makeshift skirt for her. The bareness of her shapely legs as she
carefully moved about the boat afraid to touch anything, her long
blond hair a curly mess blowing gently with the breeze, the shimmer of
the salt crystals that had long ago dried on her skin and the
playfulness of her laugh only added to her siren like allure. She had
no idea the effect she was having on him.

Slowly climbing down into the galley below John was surprised to see
that it was much larger than he thought. “Look for paddles,” John
shouted up to Marlena as he felt his way around the cabin. It appeared
to have a small stove and sink area, a small bathroom, and two small
bunks. John was grateful that the bunks appeared to have been used
very little. Pulling the blankets off of them, John brought them up to
his nose and was happy to find that they at least smelled clean.

“Got some blankets,” he said as he ascended the small staircase. He
spotted Marlena bending over, her bare ass once again visible to the
whole world. “Find anything?” he asked as he stood behind her admiring
the view.

“Yeah,” she said as she turned around. “Stop it John,” she threatened
as she grabbed one of the blankets out of his arm. The look of lust in
his midnight blue eyes was unmistakable.

“What did you find?” John asked as he approached her.

“No paddles, but it appears that at one time this boat had a mast and
a sail,” Marlena said as she pointed down to the large mast that was
attached to the side of the boat. “It looks like it would fit in
there,” she said pointing to the large hole in the floor that John
hadn’t noticed before. “The sails are in that large tote over there. I
can’t tell if they are intact or not.” She took the blanket and tied
it around her waist.

“Let’s pull them out and take a look, “ John said, optimistic for once.

“Let’s check the mast first,” Marlena suggested, knowing that it they
didn’t have a working mast, intact sails wouldn’t make a difference.
Working together, Marlena and John untied the mast from the side of
the boat and carefully hauled it over the side of the boat towards
them. After several minutes they were able to put the mast in place.
“Perfect fit,” Marlena said as she started pulling the sails out of
the tote.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” John hesitated to ask. In the more
than twenty years that he had known and loved Marlena Evans he had
never been sailing with her and she had never spoken of sailing.

“Of course….I’m about to rig the sail,” Marlena said as she quickly
and expertly unfolded the sail and attached it to one of the line that
ran to the top of the mast.

“Okay,” John said dumfounded, as he sat back and watched Marlena
quickly turn the dinky fishing vessel into an unequally unimpressive
sail boat.

“Attach this line over there,” Marlena pointed to John as she handed
him a line. She quickly attached the bottom of the sail to the rusty
boom, tying it off with a secure knot. She crossed her fingers and
hoped that it would work.

“Done,” John whispered loudly from the other side of the boat.

“Great…. Now we see if this old boat can still sail. Because it’s been
retrofitted, hence the outboard motor, it’s not going to work exactly
as a sailboat should and by that I mean, please don’t expect an
America’s Cup yacht racing performance out of this old boat. It lacks
a keel, so stability and speed we will not have. Have you ever sailed
a boat before John?” Marlena asked as she grabbed the end of line and
pulled it tight.

“Marlena, should there be another sail in front?” John asked, thinking
back to his limited experience with boats.

“Not necessarily. This set up looks more like a cat boat, or a una rig
to me,” Marlena said while looking for the in the tote for the
battens. “Found them,” she said triumphantly as she tossed them to
John. “Put them in the sails….it looks like some are missing, but
there’s not much we can do about that…Damn.”

“What is it?”

“There are no cleats or anything for the sail….we’re going to have to
improvise. See if you can find something that it attached to the boat
that can act like a cleat for the line. Neither of us have the
strength the hold the weight of the sail all night long.”

“Will this work?” John asked pointing to something on the side of the
boat that looked like it was used in commercial fishing.

“Perfect,” Marlena said as she inspected the makeshift cleat. “I’ll
need your help once we raise the sail. Cross your fingers and hope
this works.” John watched as Marlena expertly pulled on the long line
and raised the sail. He was amazed at her strength and knowledge, but
most importantly how competent she was under pressure. “Thankfully,
there is only a light breeze right now. I don’t think either of us
could handle a full force gale at this point,” Marlena mumbled as she
finished raising the sail, pulled it tight and secured the line on the
cleat. “Compass?”

“One compass coming up…To avoid risking crashing into the rocks at
this late hour I recommend a course due east,” John said as he took
out his compass and grabbed the handle on the outboard. He knew that
without a keel, the outboard was the only control they had over the
direction of the boat. “Ready?” He asked Marlena.

“Ready Sailor,” she joked.

“Back at you sailor,” he winked. Slowly the boat began to move through
the water. Watching the compass while at the same time controlling the
outboard, John watched as Marlena expertly controlled the sails.
Faster and faster the boat sliced awkwardly through the water. In
silence they rode each concentrating on the task before them.

After twenty minutes of sailing due east, John changed their course as
Marlena adjusted the sail. The low front had passed; a glimmering
ocean of tranquility surrounded them.

“It’s beautiful,” Marlena quietly stated as she put her hand over her
mouth as she yawned.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” John asked noticing how tired Marlena
really looked. He was exhausted as well, but would go without sleep
for days if it meant keeping Marlena safe.

“As long as the sail is up two people need to operate it. Unless there
is a stowaway below, I’m afraid that neither of us can afford to
sleep.”

“Did you find a map?”

“No, but if you look closely over there you can see the coast line.
Why don’t we head for it and find a deserted cove to anchor the boat
in for the night,” John suggested, visions of laying down in the bunk
below dancing through his mind.

“John, since you were raised on this continent, do you recall your
geography classes?”

John laughed as he thought back to what little he remembered as his
life of Forrest Alamain. “Honey, that was like forty years ago.”

“Well I was hoping…How about ISA training?”

“What are you thinking?”

“A deserted island seems more practical for us. The owner of this boat
is going to notice it’s gone once the sun comes up and Interpol will
have a description of the boat a short time later. All up and down the
coast of Italy they’ll be looking for us.”

“Well thankfully there’s a lot of coastline for them to search. You
know Doc, from flying over Italy on the way to my island off the coast
of Greece I do recall there being lots of small islands. I’m not sure
exactly where they are. Wouldn’t hurt to look for one of them.”

“Great, lead the way sailor,” Marlena said as she reached over and
took his hand in hers.

***************************************

“Mr. Donovan, I want to know where the hell they are,” he demanded
into the phone.

“I’m sorry, but know one seems to know right now,” Shane sheepishly
admitted into the phone, embarrassed that John and Marlena seemed to
have vanished into the thick of the night right under the watchful
eyes of Interpol, secret service and the ISA.

“Sorry isn’t good enough. I am paying a small fortune to keep them
safe, specifically to keep her safe. I want to know where she is,” he
demanded, his heavy diamond laden gold ring slamming against the
ornate wooden desk.

“Where are you my queen?” Stefano asked as he brought his fingers up
to his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose.

“Where are you?”

Chapter 7

Back and forth the small boat rocked as the tide ebbed and flowed in
and out of the deserted cove. For the past two hours had John sat
beside Marlena on her makeshift cot on the well-worn floor keeping a
lookout. Dawn was still a couple of hours away and there wasn’t enough
light to safely navigate the small island. Squinting, John peered over
the gunwale of the boat, trying to figure out where the safest place
to bring the boat to shore was. They were surrounded by rocky cliffs,
some 200 feet or higher and a rich lush canopy of trees. There was a
small beach, but John couldn’t tell from where he was sitting if an
underwater reef was lying silently below the surface waiting to claim
yet another boat. It was better to take their time and approach the
island in daylight.

Exhausted from the long journey, John gently picked up Marlena’s hand
and held it to his forehead and closed his eyes. He wanted nothing
more than to go below deck and grab a nap on the bunk but didn’t have
that luxury. Every waking thought was consumed by millions of
questions that he didn’t have the answer to or the faintest idea where
to start looking.

Had they been followed and the nightmare was about to start? Or were
his own quick thinking and Marlena’s surprising skills as a seafaring
sailor enough? He hoped to God they were. All he needed, all they
needed, was a couple days of rest and time to rethink their plan of
where they would go, knowing that it was too risky to rely on the ISA
for help.

“25, 68, 99,” Marlena mumbled in her sleep. John immediately opened
his eyes and bent down closer to her, all the while holding her hand
to his forehead. “25, 68, 99….25, 68, 99…..25, 68, 99.” Quickly
committing the numbers to memory, John let go of her hand and pulled
the wool blanket up to her chin, wishing for once that she would have
an uninterrupted nights sleep. Almost every night she seemed to wake
up from some terror of her past.

“25, 68, 99,” Marlena mumbled again. John softly stroked her cheek.
“25, 68, 99….25, 68, 99…..25, 68, 99.” What did the numbers mean, if
they meant anything at all? He knew it had something to do with
Channing Owens, that much Marlena had told him earlier when she
remembered the number 25. John had so many questions about Channing
Owens and his brother Maxwell Owens. What was the connection to the
Dimera family beyond drugs and crime?

“Can’t tell….promised that I wouldn’t tell,” Marlena whispered out loud.

“Marlena, what’s inside of you that has you so frightened,” John said
softly to her, knowing that she couldn’t hear him. “Why won’t you let
me in?”

“I won’t tell anyone, please let me go,” she begged out in her sleep.
John watched helplessly as she started crying in her sleep.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to do it…I didn’t…please
let me go,” she cried out in her sleep, rolling on her side into a
fetal position. John watched as she brought her knees up to her chest
and held onto them tightly. In the glow on the moonlight he could see
deep gashes on her arms, gashes that looked like someone had purposely
dug their fingernails into her arms. He felt the pain of her injury
deep in his gut. All this time she had to be hurting and yet never
said anything. The question was where did the gashes come from? Did
she do it to herself?

“Doc, its me John,” he said tenderly as took her into his arms, afraid
to wake her up for what information her subconscious might unknowingly
divulge.

“John…I love John,” Marlena whispered as she smiled. “I don’t want to
hurt John, he’s my savior…can’t let him leave me.”

“Doc, why won’t you let me in? Why can’t you let me in…don’t you know
by now how much I love you and will always love you regardless?
There’s nothing that you could tell me that would ever change how I
feel about you,” John whispered in frustration and desperation to
Marlena, at a loss as to how to really help her. “Give me a chance.”

“You weren’t there for me,” Marlena whispered in response to John’s
request. “You didn’t care….you say that you do, but I know that you
really don’t,” she called out in a little more louder and far more
demanding tone. She was trying to tell John how she felt but he wasn’t
listening. He stood silently before her with his arms crossed over his
chest, his mouth moving inaudibly. Her father stood quietly in the
corner watching her.

“No man will ever love you or want you,” he told her cruelly, taunting
her. His eyes were as black as coal in the shadows of her mind.

“Shut up…I’m trying to talk to John,” she angrily said as she turned
to look at him, growing impatient with her father and his intrusion.
She looked up to John, but he had turned his back to her, unwilling to
hear what she was trying to tell him.

“Don’t you tell me to shut up…you’re a loser Marlena….a loser. You
always have been and always will be.”

“John doesn’t think I am…he loves me….right John?” She asked as she
approached him. “Right John?”

“What do you dream about that you can’t share with me Doc?” John asked
Marlena as he watched her thrashing about and talking to an unknown
force in her dreams. Was she dreaming about him? Channing? Mason or
Alex? Her father?

“He doesn’t love you…you repulse him…you repulse everyone…”

“That’s not true…it’s not…he said no secrets…if I tell him everything,
he’ll understand.”

“He’s a man…no one wants used up goods….face it….you’re a mess…less
than desirable….”

“No…John loves me…he loves me…he told me he loves me….John, where did
you go?” Marlena panicked as she looked around and couldn’t see him.

“You’re still a damn fool Julie,” Channing told her as he stepped out
of the shadows into the light. “Still as sexy as hell….wouldn’t mind
having me some.” She felt his hot breath on her neck as he approached
her and took her into his arms. She struggled out of his grasp and
leaned up against the wall.

“If your John Black loves you so much, why was he never there for you
when you needed him?” her father asked.

“Yeah, Julie…why?” Channing reiterated as he approached her once again.

“He didn’t know…he didn’t,” Marlena cried out as she tried to escape
the hands of the men as they tried to hold onto her.

“He knew…he just didn’t want to deal with you or another one of your
situations,” her father said to her as he gently ran his fingers along
her jawbone. She instinctively closed her eyes and tried to not to
react as the felt the bile slowly rise up her esophagus.

“That’s not true,” she cried out as the tears of fear that she tried
to hold inside came to the surface. “He told me before that he didn’t
know, that he was sorry,” she told her father thinking back to when
she told John about how she had been attacked years ago and he
dismissed her.

“So he says…He’s a man Julie, ” Channing said callously as he
approached her and grabbed her chin holding her head where she had to
look at him. “That’s right Jules, he only wants one thing.”

“No….that’s not true…he loves me,” she empathetically said, trying to
act braver than she felt. Struggling out of Channing’s grasp, she ran,
not knowing where she was going.

“He loves being inside of you, but that’s about the only part of you
that he loves,” her father said as he grabbed her from behind and held
her tightly to him.

“Let me go,” Marlena demanded as she struggled to move back and out of
his grasp. She felt the pain in her bare shoulders as his fingernails
dug into her skin. The memory of her being held down against her will
and being violated in the parking garage bathroom permeated her mind.

“No…Stop it…Stop it….Stop it,” she yelled at Channing and her father
as she grabbed her head and tried to stop the immense pain she felt
deep in her soul.

“I love it when you beg,” Channing taunted her.

“Stop….I don’t want to remember…I don’t,” she cried as she struggled
out of Channing’s grasp.

“Don’t want to remember what a freak you are and all the things you’ve
done including murdering me in cold blood, murdering your father and
murdering Rafael Torres?”

“I don’t want to remember….It’s too painful…John wouldn’t understand,”
she cried out loud. “I had to do it…I had no choice…it was the only
way to end things.”

“Marlena, wake up,” John said as he gently shook her, concerned about
her dream. She was trashing about and crying out in pain. As much as
he wanted to know about her hidden past, it wasn’t worth the pain and
mental anguish she appeared to be going through.

“Come on Jules…remember the good times we had.”

“You sick fuck….I was twelve….twelve fucking years old…what choice did
I have?” she screamed at him, then cowered when she saw the look in
his eyes. “Don’t you touch me.”

“What are you going to do? Kill me again?” Channing maniacally
laughed. “Julie, ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?”

“Stop,” she screamed. “STOP.” One memory after another of her past
returned with surprising clarity. She saw and experienced things long
since forgotten or repressed.

“Shut up bitch,” the stranger said as he pushed her down on the tile
floor. She watched through half closed terrified eyes as he lowered
his pants and rolled the condom carefully down the length of his
shaft. Crawling on top of her ripped her underwear off and spread her
legs wide. She tried to move back from away him, not wanting to go
though with it, not in this place. “No…No,” she begged, hoping that he
would see her fear and stop. “No.”

“STOP,” she screamed at Channing once again as he stood before her
callously laughing. She saw and felt the stranger as he grabbed her
hands and held them tightly over her head as he roughly entered her in
one move. “Stop…please stop…you’re hurting me,” she sobbed. His eyes
were demonic as he moved in and out of her at a quickening pace.
“You’re a crazy bitch,” the stranger laughed at her as he continued to
pump into her. Marlena tried to move her hands, but he held them
firmly above her head.

“Please stop,” she begged the man. The physical pain was tolerable,
the emotional pain unbearable. Where was John? “Shut the fuck up
before I kill you,” he yelled. He lowered his head and tried to kiss
her. Marlena felt the taste of bourbon on his breath as his tongue
entered her mouth. The mixture of the blood from the cut on her lip
when he’d hit her, the bourbon and the salt from her tears created a
unique combination. She struggled against him, trying to stop the
assault, trying to stop the pain, but her was too big and strong for
her. Giving up, she layed there on the floor and sobbed, allowing the
stranger to violate her. With each thrust she felt her hair being
pulled as he moved her body back and forth against the dirty tile
floor. She tried to imagine herself in another place, far away, a
place where she was safe and loved. Her mind tried to find that place,
but couldn’t. She didn’t feel safe and loved. Things with John were so
fractured; they were barely on speaking terms, strangers living in the
same house. They never talked anymore, only argued. With a final push
and a grunt the stranger came and then pulled out of Marlena and stood
up leaving her on the floor. “You mention this to anyone and I’ll kill
you…Alex was right….you are crazy,” the stranger said as he quickly
buttoned his pants and adjusted his red checked flannel button down
shirt.

“STOP…Please make it stop Channing,” she begged him, thinking that he
was controlling her memories. She needed John, she wanted John.

“John,” she called out. “I need you John…I can’t do this by myself.”

“Doc,” John said as he held her. “I’m here…I’ve always been here and
always will be here for you.”

“John is here for me,” she told Channing.

“No he’s not…You’re crazy….have to be with all the things you’ve done.”

“He’s here,” she said with a fierce determination.

“Do you see him anywhere around here?” her father asked as he once
again stepped out of the shadows.

“I feel him….he’s inside me.”

“Crazy Julie, such a little foolie,” Channing taunted her as he bent
his head down and kissed her neck.

“Get away from me now,” she said as she struggled against him. “You’re
dead…you’re not really here.”

“Am I?”

******************************************************************************

“President Owens, there’s a man here to see you,” the young aide
nervously said into the intercom. Per White House office protocol only
the president’s secretary and secret service were allowed to approach
the inner sanctum of the oval office without being announced on the
intercom first.

“I don’t have any appointments today Mandy,” he said coldly, pissed
that he had been interrupted yet another time today but the idiotic
aide.

“Sir, I apologize… but, the man said that you would want to see him.”
After three years of working for Maxwell Owens, Mandy was still as
terrified of him as the first day she met him. There was a coldness
behind his cheerful family man façade that chilled her to the bone.

“Very well…who is it?” he barked into the phone.

“He won’t tell me his name….but he’s been cleared already,” she added
hoping that this would make her interruption somewhat better.

“What?” President Owens wondered how in this day and age with concerns
over national security and nations harboring terrorists and weapons of
mass destruction how one man could be in the White House wanting to
see him and didn’t have to give a name. Only few men in the world had
that kind of power.

“Sir, I’m sorry but that’s all I know.”

“Thank you Mandy, give me five minutes and then show him in,” Maxwell
Owens said as he slowly rose from his black leather chair and walked
to the back of the office where a secret door recessed into the wall
kept all the recording equipment. Secret Service demanded that all
visitors in the Oval Office be taped for security reasons.

Pushing the off button on the cameras and recorders and shutting the
door behind him, Maxwell Owens went back to this desk and sat down.
Taking his handkerchief out of his pocket, he wiped the line of sweat
that was forming on his brow. A knock on the door interrupted him.
Quickly he placed the handkerchief back into this pants pocket. “Come
in.”

“Owens, we have a lot to talk about,” the man said with authority as
he entered the Oval Office and took a seat. “Don’t bother to waste
your time by standing up and properly greeting me….It’s not needed or
wanted.” Maxwell Owens watched with fascination as the man took
something out of his pocket and looked around the room. “Lighter?” he
asked.

“Um….there’s no smoking in the White House…A rule of my wife,” he
joked. He’d heard stories about this man for the past forty years but
had never seen him in the flesh.

“Lighter?” the man asked again, as he took his Cohiba cigar.

Grabbing a lighter out his desk drawer he tentatively got up from his
desk and approached the man, nervously handing it to him.

“Ah President Owens….have a seat,” the man said, pausing as he took
the lighter and lit his cigar. “You and I have a lot to talk about…a
lot,” the man said as he patted the seat beside him. Handing a folder
to the President, he watched as the President sat down on the couch
and opened the folder.

The man watched with a level of satisfaction he hadn’t experienced in
years as the color drained from the son of a bitch’s face.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked the man.

“There is nothing that I cannot get…you of all people should know that by now.”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“I can’t give that to you….Justice must be served.”

“Justice will not be served, not in this case,” the man said as he
slammed his fist down on the arm of the red floral print couch.

“She’s just a woman…”

“She’s not just a woman…she’s my brother’s child,” Stefano Dimera
yelled at Maxwell Owens. “She’s my niece…I don’t care that you’re the
President…you will call off the NSA, ISA, Secret Service, FBI and any
other goon you have looking for her….and you will do it now.”

“What if I don’t?”

“You don’t want to find out…ask your associates what happens to those
who cross me or displease me.”

“Are you threatening me.”

“Yes. Oh and Mr. Owens….you have twenty four hours to return Eric
Brady to Salem,” Stefano said as he calmly rose from the seat and
walked to the door of the Oval Office. “Don’t think that this is the
last you will see of me either…there is the matter of my Marlena and
what you and your brother did to her….justice will be served, I
promise you that.”

Just as quickly as he entered the White House he left, with an air of
mystery and the smell of Cuban cigars.

Chapter 8

“Crazy Julie, such a little foolie,” Channing Owens taunted Marlena as
he bent his head down and kissed her neck.

“Get away from me now,” she said as she struggled against him. “You’re
dead…you’re not really here.”

“Am I?”

“STOP,” Marlena screamed out hysterically, abruptly sitting up on the
floor of the boat. “STOP,” she screamed again as she grabbed her head.
“STOP,” she screamed over and over, unable to stop herself.

“Marlena….” John tried to interrupt, alarmed at her hysteria. She was
gasping for air and trembling and yelling the word stop over and over
again.

“STOP,” she screamed again.

“Doc,” John said as he pulled her into his strong arms and held her
tight. “You’re safe… You’re safe… It’s me John…It’s John….I love you
baby, please come back to me.”

“John,” she whispered as she turned toward the direction of his voice. “John?”

“Doc.”

“John…are you really here?” she asked in disbelief as the tears of
terror that she had been holding in freely flowed. “Are you really
here or is it another cruel trick of my mind?” Pulling out of his
arms, she sat back on her heels at stared at him. Was he really there?
Slowly she reached out to touch him but stopped short inches from his
face not wanting this to be another illusion.

“It’s me pretty lady…It’s me….don’t you know that I’ll always be here for you?”

Marlena closed her eyes tightly as an image of Maxwell Owens
approaching her, malice in his eyes, flashed in her head. Reaching out
his hand he tried to touch her.

Swallowing hard to shake the image from her mind knowing that it
wasn’t real, Marlena tried to explain to John what she was seeing. “It
was all so real…Channing and my father were trying to convince me that
you didn’t love me,” Marlena said as she tried to dodge his hand. She
had been touched too many times, in too many ways and wasn’t ready for
that kind of contact with John.

John quickly dropped his hand, understanding that she wasn’t ready for
human contact at this time, but seeing so many tears uncontrollably
flow down her face was too much for him. “Honey, you know that could
never happen….no matter what…you’re stuck with me,” John said as he
tenderly wiped the tears from her cheeks. He was comforted by the fact
that she didn’t rebuff his attempt at comfort.

Faster and faster pictures from her past flashed in her head in a
random order. She saw herself as a small child with pigtails in her
hair swinging on a worn out frayed tire. “Ring around the rosy, pocket
full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down,” she sang out in a sing
song voice. She saw herself running down a daisy filled meadow hair
blowing in the breeze, laughing as she was being chased by someone she
couldn’t see. She saw herself being held prisoner by Stefano in his
guilded cage, watching her every moment, desperately waiting for her
to give herself willingly to him.

“I need to get out of here,” Marlena said abruptly as she tried to
stand up. The walls she’d created in her mind were closing in on her.
She knew that this was John, her loving and wonderful ex-husband, but
couldn’t deal with his nearness and her nightmare about Channing and
her father. It was simply too much, too soon.

“We’re in the middle of an ocean Doc,” John told her, alarmed by the
sudden change in her demeanor. He watched her from a distance,
noticing that she was furiously rubbing her arms where he’d seen the
gashes before.

Leaning against the railing she tried to catch her breath. “I feel
like the walls are closing in around me,” she admitted as she tried to
breathe in deeply through her nose to ward off another panic attack.
“I can’t breathe…I need to get off this boat.”

“Give me a couple minutes and I’ll pull it onto the beach,” John
suggested, getting up from where he was kneeling and walking to the
back of the boat.

“No, now.”

“Two minutes Doc,” John said as he pulled the cover off the outboard
motor and inspected it. He prayed that Marlena could hold on long
enough for him to get the boat started and headed to shore. Although
it was still too dark to safely approach the beach, he didn’t see that
they had a choice. Either get her to shore quickly or risk a major
panic attack.

“No, I can’t be here John…I need to get off this boat right now,” she
said as she started trembling. Suddenly dropping to the floor of the
boat, Marlena broke down sobbing, covering her head with her hands. “I
can’t do this…. I’m not strong enough to do this.”

“Doc, you’re going to be okay,” John said as he dropped the cover and
ran to the front of the boat kneeling down in front of Marlena,
wanting desperately to take her into his arms.

“No I’m not. Something is wrong with me John….something is wrong…I
feel like someone is crawling under my skin….I don’t want to be
here…Something is wrong,” Marlena managed to tell John between gasps.
The more she talked to him, the more confined she felt. Something was
wrong. Grabbing her wrist, she rubbed the wounds on her arms
furiously, causing them to bleed.

“Tell me what you are feeling,” John innocently suggested, thinking
that if he could get her to talk about her dream, it may calm her
down. He was alarmed at her hysteria but at a loss for what to do.

“Nooooooooooooooooo,” Marlena moaned as she grabbed her head.
“Noooooooooooooooo…I don’t want to remember….I don’t want these images
in my head……I just want to be Marlena….Just Marlena…..Not Julie.”

“Doc…..”

“Make it stop John….make these memories stop…..please help me,”
Marlena pleaded with him, the desperation in her voice bringing John
to tears.

“Doc, breathe in,” John commanded as he ran to the back of the boat,
taking hold of the outboard motor and starting it up. When he stole
the boat from the tiny Italian seaside village, John hadn’t actually
thought they were going to get away and didn’t salvage either anchor
in his escape attempt. He was now thankful for that decision as it
allowed him to be more responsive to Marlena in her moment of need.

“Oh god…of god,” Marlena said as the smell of gasoline permeated her
nostrils. She was going to be sick. “I need off this boat now, John,”
she muttered to him before dropping her blanket and climbing onto the
railing of the boat.

Seeing what she was about to do, John cut the engine and ran to
Marlena, holding onto her tightly. “Doc….Doc…Doc…Doc,” he whispered
repeatedly into her ear as he held her tight.

“Let me go,” Marlena warned him as she started dry heaving.

“You can’t get in the water Doc…you can’t…I’ll give you space on the
boat and help you in any way I can, but I won’t allow you to get into
the water,” John said tenderly as he rubbed her back, trying to be
supportive as she leaned over the railing of the boat trying to expel
what little there was in her stomach.

“I need to get off this boat now….I don’t want to be here John.”

“I know that baby… I know that…let me help you.”

“You can’t… No one can… What’s wrong with me,” Marlena said as she
stood up and faced John, dumbfounded that she was questioning her own
sanity. “I thought that by remembering my past it would make things
better but its just making things worse. I can’t be here… I can’t be
on this boat… HELP ME DAMMIT.”

“I want to help you, but you need to tell me how,” John said as he
tried to take her into his arms to comfort her.

“DON’T TOUCH ME,” she screamed as she backed away from John. Seeing
the look of shock and devastation on John’s face as he backed away
from her, Marlena reached out touch him, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m
sorry….I’m so sorry…I’m sorry.”

John stood before her silent, concerned and confused. He had dealt
with Marlena and her panic attacks in the past but this was different.
Thinking back to the medical training he received while employed as
Stefano’s mercenary he recognized her behavior for what it was,
someone on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

“I’m so sorry John….forgive me,” Marlena said, tears streaming down
her face, as she put one leg over the railing of the boat and climbed
overboard jumping into the black sea below.

“Marlena,” John yelled as he jumped into the water behind her. “Holy
shit,” he muttered at the coldness of the water once he surfaced.
Scanning the ocean surface around him he spotted Marlena struggling in
the water twenty feet away from him. “Fuck,” he muttered as he took
off after her hoping for once that the fates were on his side and that
the boat wouldn’t drift too much.

Quickly swimming to where she was, John pulled her into his arms.
“Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again,” he sternly
warned her, annoyed that she was putting both of their lives at risk.

“Let me go.”

“No, not until we get back to the boat.”

“I don’t want to go back… let me go…I don’t want to be here,” Marlena
cried out as she kicked her legs and arms furiously against John,
trying to escape his firm but painful grasp. Marlena had resigned
herself to her fate at the bottom of the abyss, but Julie was a
fighter, not willing to give up so easily. As hard as Marlena tried to
stop struggling, Julie wouldn’t let her.

“The hell if I will lady,” John replied as he shifted Marlena against
her will onto her back and pulled her up against him. Placing one arm
securely around her chest he swam backwards to the boat dragging her
with him.

“Let me go,” Marlena cried out as she struggled against him. Ignoring
Marlena’s protests and attempts to escape his grasp he slowly pulled
her toward the boat. Grabbing her around the waist he forced her into
the boat.

“I’m gonna jump,” she threatened him, seeing the anger in his eyes as
he approached her.

“No you’re not,” John said as he grabbed Marlena by the arm and drug
her down below to the galley. Finding the flashlight that he had
located earlier, John picked it up and turned it on.

“Please let me go….I’ll be good,” Marlena pleaded with him in a child
like voice, seeing not John before her but Channing Owens.

Pointing the beam of light towards the small bunk John told her, “Get
in there now.”

“No…please….No,” Marlena cried out as she tried to back away from John.

John was at a loss of what to do. Marlena was clearly in the midst of
a breakdown that he was helpless and unprepared to stop. If he left
her alone, she might attempt to jump overboard again. If he left the
boat unattended they might crash into the rocks and any attempt at
leaving the island would be forever dashed.

“Get on the bed now,” John demanded, knowing that he needed to get
back up on deck and move the boat to safer waters.

“No, I’ll be good,” Marlena cried out trying to reason with him.
“Please no,” she said, looking down at her feet, not wanting to see
the disappointment in his eyes once again.

“Mar sweetheart, I need you down here so I can try to motor the boat
towards the shore… then you can get off,” John said as he physically
moved her the last few remaining feet to the bed and sat her down.
Marlena instinctively crawled to the wall and sat with her back
against it, drawing her legs up against her body.

“I’m sorry,” Marlena cried as she put her head down on her legs and sobbed.

John felt the sudden rocking of the boat and knew the boat had drifted
into more shallow water. “Fuck,” he muttered as he ran up the small
set of stairs to the deck of the boat, inadvertently leaving Marlena
alone in the dark.

“I’ll be good…I’ll be good,” she muttered as she clenched her eyes
shut, not wanting to see what was before her. She felt the hum of the
motor as it came to life and the boat started moving.

“Julie, you should have drowned yourself when you had the chance,” her
father said as he sat down on the bed beside her.

“You’re not real…you’re not real,” Marlena said further shrinking down
on the bed, trying to be as little and unnoticeable as possible.
“You’re not real…You’re in my head.”

“Am I?” he laughed as Marlena felt him grab at her arms and reopen the wounds.

“Stop,” she whispered as she struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp.

“I’ll always be a part of you,” he said seductively as he grabbed her
wrist and his tongue tentatively touched the bleeding flesh.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” he laughed as he bit down on her wrist.

“Not going to cry….not going to cry….you’re not real,” she told
herself outloud as she rocked back and forth along with the boat in
the bunk. “I’m strong…I’m strong….John says I’m strong….you’re not
real…you’re all in my head,” she repeated over and over as the
sensation of her father biting her wrist was omnipresent.

Suddenly the engine of the boat cut off. Marlena struggled to get out
of the bunk but found herself being stopped and pushed back down on
the bed.

“No…I’ll be good…,” she muttered again.

“Wait Marlena,” John interrupted, alarmed by Marlena’s mental
condition. Reaching out his hand to her, he nodded for her to take it.
“Trust me.”

Slowly taking his hand he helped her off the bed. “I’d never hurt you
sweetheart,” John said quietly to Marlena as he led her to the deck of
the small boat.

“Look,” he said motioning to the nearby beach. “If you still want to
get off the boat now you can.”

Marlena dropped his hand and walked to the bow on the boat and looked
at the beach before her. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked him, her
voice barely above a whisper.

“Not for a second,” John replied as he stood behind her and looked
down at her tussled blonde hair. “Not for a second….you’re just going
through a hard time, much like I did years ago when I tried to
remember my past.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t try to remember?”

“That’s always an option,” he told her knowing that it wasn’t. If she
didn’t remember her past and why Maxwell Owens and company were after
her they could be on the run for the rest of their lives.

“As a psychiatrist I’m failing miserably and going against every piece
of advice I’ve ever given a patient and against everything I’ve
studied… I don’t get why this is so hard for me John.”

“Is it the memories that are effecting you or the process of remembering?”

“I don’t know…maybe both?”

“Is there anything I can do to help you through this?”

“Just knowing that you are here by my side is more than enough.”

“I’ll always be here for you, you know that…there is nothing you can’t
tell me….I hope you know that.”

“I do and I so appreciate it, more than you’ll ever know… I think part
of my problem is that I’m trying too hard to change how I feel about
myself, hoping that along the way I’ll change who I am….the harder I
try to find who I am, who Marlena is, the more I feel like Julie. I’m
tired of feeling like a victim, because I’m not one….yet I can’t seem
to stop myself. The more I remember, the worse it feels, the worse I
feel about myself,” Marlena said as she turned around and faced John,
sitting on the railing. “Everything in my head is a mess. I can’t stop
my dreams even though I want to so badly. I don’t know how to explain
to you what I am dreaming…If there was a way I would, but there
isn’t….none of it makes sense to me…Channing and my father keep
talking to me…I don’t know to explain it…. It doesn’t make any sense,
I know that rationally it can’t have happened John, but I know what I
felt and I know what I saw.” The tears in her eyes and the obvious
pain on her face pained John. Looking at her he felt a tightening in
his chest and lump in his throat. Taking her face tenderly in his
hands, John looked up in the sky for guidance. There was nothing he
could say to make things better for her. There was no one there;
everything was in her head.

“Try to explain to me what you’re seeing? What are Channing and your
father saying?”

“I can’t.” she said as she grabbed her hair and roughly pulled on it.
“I don’t understand it myself. I don’t know where to start…I keep
seeing pictures and can’t get them to stop. I thought I was
okay….everything was behind me and in the past and now it won’t seem
to let me go John.” “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?” she screamed
loudly. “WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY WHY?”

“Honey, its going to be okay,” John said as he took her into his arms
and slowly rubbed small circles into her back. “Maybe by taking each
image piece by piece and talking about it will help.”

“It won’t John…you wouldn’t understand what I’m seeing,” she said as
she hung her head down in shame. Closing her eyes an image of her
father popped in her head. Wearing a tuxedo, he looked as dashing as
ever. Slowly she approached him, the pale blue silk of her dress
rustling with each small step she took. Smiling up at her he said, “We
made it.”

“No,” she moaned as she shook her head furiously and pulled out of
John’s embrace.

“Doc what is it now? What did you just see?”

“My father,” she whispered as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. She
reached up to wipe it away but John got to it first. Tenderly he ran
his thumb across her cheek, capturing the silent tear.

“Tell me about him.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Try,” John suggested as he put his arm around her, trying to
encourage her to continue.

Marlena lifted her arm and wiped her nose on the sleeve on shirt.
“Just thinking about him, thinking about my past hurts too much John.”
Holding the sleeve over her mouth, she felt comfortable enough to
continue. “I don’t want to think about him. I just want him and that
part of my past gone.”

“Nothing is that simple.”

“I don’t want simple. I don’t want him in my head anymore. Every time
I close my eyes and try to forget it just gets worse.”

“Gets worse? What do you mean? Are you remembering more?”

Marlena slowly shook her head yes and she put her index finger in her
mouth and bit down on it. “I don’t want to remember…I don’t.”

“I know its scary baby, but the answers are in your head. In your
sleep you called out some more numbers 25, 68, 99…”

“Really?” Marlena interrupted.

“Do you remember what you were dreaming?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marlena admitted as she pulled her
shirt tightly around herself, the images of her dream flashing in her
mind.

“No secrets Doc,” John whispered as he reached out and took her hand
in his, kissing it gently.

“I was dreaming about you and you and Channing and my father,” she
admitted, eyes downcast. “I don’t remember what the number means only
that its something that Channing told me before he died.” Swallowing
deeply, Marlena tried to lubricate her throat to keep it from
swelling, not wanting to breakdown in front of John again.

“Well that’s a start,” John said as he tipped her chin up and gazed
deep into her hazel eyes. “What is it sweetheart?” he asked, her eyes
glassy from the tears yet to fall.

“I remembered something else….about Al….about Al….about Al….I can’t do
this,” Marlena said as she sought solace in John’s arms, sobbing. “I
can’t do this….it can’t be right.”

“What are you remembering?” John asked. “Please tell me…I want to help
you….Was it about Alex North.”

Nodding her head yes, Marlena held onto John tightly, nestling her
head into his neck. Whispering she told him, “He sent the man to
attack me.” As the memories of being attacked and raped in the parking
garage bathroom came to the surface of her subconscious Marlena held
onto John tightly for support unable to control the flood of emotions
that the memory evoked.

“I’m going to kill the bastard,” John promised Marlena as he held her
sobbing frame tight to him. “Once I find him, he will pay.”

Chapter 9

How far would you be willing to go to save the one person you deeply
care about and possibly love? Would you be willing to risk everything
you have, everything you’ve built your entire life on and around for
one person? Even if it meant that you’d have to give up that person,
and any chance of you ever being together? If given a chance would
you? Could you?

For Stefano Dimera his conundrum was much more than that of a lesser
mans. Reconciling the fact that the woman that he’d loved and lusted
after for two decades was now morally and ethically off limits to him
was harder than he thought it would be. Even though his brain was
telling him that this was wrong, thinking of Marlena in anything other
way was wrong, his heart was unable to stop the torrent of emotions.
As much as he wanted to just accept Marlena as his niece and move on,
he was unable to.

During the day he was consumed with revenge, revenge upon those that
brought the destruction of his brother John Dimera and his family and
revenge upon those that foolishly decided to cross his path by hunting
after one of his own like she was a common criminal. No Dimera would
ever be treated like that, Stefano vowed. His endless search and
devotion to his family and their protection helped assuage the guilt
her felt over what he dreamt about at night. At night Marlena visited
him in his dreams, willingly joining him in bed in a vision of white
lace in the candlelight.

“I’m no better than my brother John,” he said outloud to himself, as
he got ready for bed, knowing that his dreaming of Marlena was
inevitable. Shane Donovan had disclosed to him months ago what a
monster his brother was to his family, but particularly to Marlena.
Did his dreaming about doing to Marlena what his brother actually did
make them the same? The more he thought about it, the more he drank.
However, no amount of alcohol seemed to ease the pain he felt deep in
his soul, knowing that his dreams were wrong.

“I’ve got to stop doing this to myself,” he thought as he took off his
robe and climbed into the barren four-post bed. Laying alone, with no
one but himself for company his thoughts turned to his nemesis John
Black, the man he hated with every ounce of his being. His hate and
rage towards John conflicted with his feeling of gratitude for John
protecting his queen. How could he be so consumed with hate for the
man that was doing the one thing that he was unable to?

“Damn John Black,” Stefano muttered as he grabbed his pillow and
fluffed it. “Damn him. I should have killed him years ago when I had
the chance.”

*******************************************

“I’m going to kill you…kill you with my bare hands,” John mumbled in
his sleep, tossing and turning in the small bunk of the boat. John
grabbed Alex by the neck and squeezed him as hard as he could, pushing
him up against the faded red brick wall.

“Did you do it North?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex replied smugly.

“Did you fucking send that man to rape Marlena, to rape my wife?” John
demanded as he slowly placed more pressure on Alex’s windpipe.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex said with a little more effort.

“Did you send that man to rape Marlena?” John asked once again as he
placed even more pressure on him. John was filled in inexplicable
rage, rage that he hadn’t felt in years. It was taking every once of
effort for him not to just finish Alex off with one quick blow to the
windpipe, like he’d been taught to do by Stefano so many years before.

“I can’t breathe.” Alex was starting to sweat profusely and panic.

“Did you?”

“Yes…alright I did it,” Alex said, gasping for air.

“Why?” John stepped back dumfounded. The man had actually admitted to
doing something so vile that John still didn’t believe it. He’d asked
the question thinking that Marlena was mistaken.

“Let go of me and I’ll tell you,” Alex threatened him, knowing that he
still had some leverage on his side; information that John wanted but
didn’t have.

Not knowing what to say or do and still stunned by Alex’s
confirmation; John let him go with a quick shove against the wall. As
Alex cowered in the corner, the more John thought about what Alex did
to Marlena, the madder he became. It was no longer about retribution
for what he had done to her, but what he had done to them. In the
absence of the attack, Marlena might not have distanced herself from
John for all that time. She wouldn’t have gotten so wrapped up with
Tony and the twins. He wouldn’t have lost all that time with her when
she kicked him out of the penthouse when the town of Salem lived in
fear of the serial killer. It was because of Alex that he had lost
precious years with her when she was presumed dead. Ultimately her
infidelity with Roman would never have happened and she wouldn’t have
gotten pregnant. Without her being pregnant and falling down the
stairs, her amnesia never would have happened and Alex fucking North
wouldn’t have been reintroduced into their lives. It was a sick chain
of events and he was the one that set it all in motion. One act one
night, 5 years of misery that should never have happened.

Enough thinking about what might have been, all John had to go on what
was, and what was, was that Alex was going to pay dearly. Taking his
gun out of its holster he released the safety lock and pointed the
barrel at Alex. “Talk, you worthless piece of shit…you’re running out
of time.”

“Because the answers are inside of her,” Alex blurted out in fear,
seeing the rage boiling beneath John’s cool exterior. “She’s the only
one that knows the numbers…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” John interrupted.

“Your precious Marlena is much more important than you realize…she
knows things that Presidents would risk their whole administration and
legacy to protect, things that are worth more than….”

“Stop talking in codes North and tell me the fucking truth… Why did
you fucking do it? WHY?”

“I needed what was in her head…your precious Marlena doesn’t even
realize that she holds the key to everything… I needed that key and
knew that her little encounter might trigger her memory recall… Her
mind is more messed up than I realized. I don’t think even Mason could
straighten it out if he tried,” Alex laughed nervously. “No foul, no
harm right? You aren’t going to shoot, are you?”

“Afraid I have to pal….can’t let a scum by the likes of you that did
what you did to my wife get away, can I?” John said as he placed the
barrel of the gun against Alex’s temple and started to pull the
trigger.

“She’s a very beautiful woman, you have to be vary of girls like
that,” Alex said in the nanosecond before John pulled the trigger.

“What?” John asked.

“She’s a very beautiful girl Forrest….You have to be vary of girls
like that, they know how to use men to their advantage,” Matthew
Dimera warned his cousin. Sitting on top of the picnic table, John
swung his legs back and forth watching the gorgeous blonde as she
walked along the beach lost in thought.

“And you would know this because?” John asked Matthew, knowing that
Matthew was all talk and little action. He fancied himself a ladies
man, but had little experience in that department.

“You wound me cousin….are you going to stare at her all day or are you
going to talk to her?” Matthew asked motioning towards the young woman
that seemed out of place. Wearing crème colored linen pants and a
matching blouse, she seemed lost in the sea of sand.

“Later…see you at dinner,” John said as he hopped down from the table
and straightened out his chinos.

“Don’t be late Forrest….you know how mad they get when you don’t
follow proper etiquette,” Matthew joked. John knew it wasn’t a joke
though. His family was more concerned than most about how they looked
to the outside world than their actual substance. Tardiness was one of
those things that set his Aunt Suzanne off. From an early age Forrest
was reared not only to dress the best, behave better than other
children his age, but also to consider himself as better than those of
a lower class. As hard as he tried to buy into and accept his family’s
constant tutelage the harder it became. Although he was only sixteen,
he was wise beyond his years, already achieving the maturity and
insight necessary to recognize and accept people for what they were.

“Screw etiquette,” John yelled back at his cousin as he quickly walked
toward the girl. After licking his palms, he quickly tried to slick
down his jet back hair.

Standing behind her, John took a moment to gather the courage to talk.
He’d never been nervous around a girl or a woman for that matter in
his whole life, yet here he was palms sweating, heart pounding.
“What’s your name?” John finally gathered enough courage to ask.

“Ju…Ju…Jill,” she replied as she slowly turned around, not quite
looking at him. John couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just plain
rude.

“That’s a pretty name,” he said watching as she shuffled her white
tennis shoes slowly against the hot sand.

“Thanks,” she nervously replied, not knowing what else to say.

“So are you here on vacation?” he asked, trying to engage her in a
conversation long enough to see what color her eyes were. He imagined
them to be as green as the ocean in front of them.

“Yes.”

“With your family?” he asked thinking that she looked only to be
fourteen or fifteen years old at most. He’d been at the resort for the
past six weeks, how had he not seen her before?

“I guess.” What did that mean? She was either here with her family or wasn’t?

“Hey there Jules,” a girl that looked exactly like Jill said as she
walked up to them. John watched as the twin put her arm around her
sister and stuck out her hand for him to shake.

“I’m Samantha,” she said, her hazel eyes appearing to be almost green
in the sunlight.

“Forrest,” he said smiling as he shook her hand. “Forrest Alamain and
I was under the impression that your sisters name was Jill,” John said
with an air of authority. All the years of grooming lessons had paid
off. His Aunt Suzanne would be proud of his manners.

Samantha laughed as she looked over at her sister. “She’s such a
kidder….her name is Julie, but you can call her Marlena… Don’t
ask….long story,” Samantha said as she held onto John’s hand a little
longer than necessary.

John looked over at this Julie/Marlena person and noticed her standing
quietly by. For as quiet as she was, her sister more than made up for
it. “I was just asking your sister if you were here with your family.”

“I guess you could say that,” Samantha said as she took inventory of
one Forrest Alamain. John could see the look in her eyes and knew that
she appreciated what she saw. He was no stranger to the looks of
women, but that was as far as his actual experience went. He’d never
admit that to his cousin Matthew though. It was better for Matthew to
think of him as a woman-conquering stud. Brought him more respect.

“Who are you here with Forrest?” Samantha asked, the R’s in Forrest
rolling off her tongue.

“Extended family….It’s a yearly obligation for me,” John explained,
not wanting to offer more than that. The twins didn’t seem to pick up
on his last name, which was a good sign.

“Sounds fascinating…you’ll have to tell me all about it later,”
Samantha propositioned him. Twirling a long strand of her blonde hair
around her index finger, she looked up at him coyly through half
closed eyes. “Much later.”

“Julie…um Marlena…which name do you prefer I call you by?” he asked
the quiet blonde, thinking that she looked more like a Marlena to him.

“It doesn’t matter,” she responded, still not making eye contact with
him. The more she ignored him, the more John wanted to engage her.

“Okay…Marlena… Are your parents here?” he asked, not missing the look
that passed between the sisters.

“We don’t have parents,” Samantha replied, putting her well manicured
hands into the pockets of her bell bottom jeans. Slowly she sashayed
from one foot to the other, trying to entrance the handsome stranger.
Men had never been able to resist her, why should this one?

“Samantha…” Marlena warned her.

“What? It’s not like it’s a secret anyway… well its not.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, who are you here with?” John wondered if
they were European royalty. It wasn’t often that he got to meet new
people, for it seemed that everyone in his parents social status
seemed to travel to the same places at the same time each year.
Winters were spent in Austria or Switzerland skiing followed by a
couple weeks of recuperation in the south of France. Every summer they
spent two months at their summer house in the Mediterranean. Fall was
spent in the Caribbean, which was where he happened to run into
Marlena and Samantha.

“Our guardians,” Samantha told him before Marlena ever had a chance
to. “Our parents are dead.”

“Wow…” John said as he took a step back, stunned by the young woman’s
callousness. “I’m sorry,” he said with regret, more towards Marlena
than towards Samantha.

“I’m not,” Samantha joked. “My life is a hell of a lot better now.”

John watched, as Marlena seemed to shrink in her own skin, obviously
wanting to be anywhere else but there. Placing her right index finger
into her mouth, she slowly chewed on the nail. “Still its tragic
anytime you lose a parent,” he told her.

“We need to get back Samantha,” Marlena said, as she wiped a tear
quickly from her face hoping that no one saw it. “They’ll be worried
about us.” John quietly watched her; her tears and sadness not lost on
him.

“You go back miss goodie two shoes…I plan to have some fun with Mr.
Alamain here,” Samantha said as she looped her arm around John’s and
leaned into his body for support. John could smell her perfume, but
didn’t recognize the scent.

“I will,” Marlena said softly to her sister as she walked away. John
followed her form as she quickly walked away unsure of what to do.

“Wait,” John yelled after Marlena. “Wait.” Disengaging his arm from
Samantha’s lethal grip he took off running after Marlena.

“Wait Marlena,” he pleaded as he caught up with her. He wasn’t ready
for the moment to end, there was still so much more to discover about
this mysterious girl.

“What?” she said as she turned around and looked over his shoulder
towards her sister. Samantha had seemingly lost her patience with and
interest in Forrest and was running down the beach toward a group of
teenagers. John was blown away by the intensity of the color of her
hazel eyes. He’d never seen anyone with eyes quite like hers. For as
bright and full of life as they were, they also contained a deep
underlying sadness that John didn’t understand.

“How can I contact you? Are you staying at the hotel?” John wasn’t
willing for the moment to end and was scared that he was never going
to see her again.

“You can’t,” she whispered, eyes downcast once again.

“Why not?”

“He won’t allow it.”

“Who is he?”

“Frank…my guardian…look I know you mean well, but I’m sorry….this has to be it.”

“Can’t I just walk with you along the beach for now? There’s no harm
in that is there?” One way or another John was determined to break
Marlena’s chilly and guarded façade.

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s a beautiful afternoon at a lovely resort.”

“I’m not much for company,” Marlena added, not understanding why this
handsome teenager was still talking to her when he could easily be
spending his time with her beautiful and talented sister.

“That’s okay…we don’t have to talk.”

“You’re not going to leave me alone are you?” Marlena asked as she
stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at him. The instant that
their eyes met he was left speechless. He felt a connection with her
that he’d never felt for another soul in his entire life. As he stared
at her, he felt like she was looking into his soul and taking hold of
all the pain he’d felt and stored carefully away, gently caressing it.
The hair on his arms standing up, John felt electricity in the air.
Although he’d just met her, he felt like he’d known her forever.
Everything about her was comfort and hope and at the same time mystery
and fear. Unable to break the contact, break the connection, he
reached out to take her hand.

“It’s you,” she whispered as she slowly closed her eyes unable to
stand the intensity of the moment.

“What?” John asked as he abruptly sat up in the small bunk, slamming
his head against the fiberglass ceiling. His black T-shirt drenched in
sweat, John frantically leaned over the bed and looked in the bottom
bunk for Marlena, needing to tell her about his dream.

“Marlena?”

Not seeing any sign of her he hopped down from his bunk and quickly
ran up the small set of stairs to the top deck to find her.

“Marlena?” he asked. The deck of the boat was shrouded in fog,
visibility less than 5 feet. He panicked not being able to see the
island.

“Marlena where are you?” John yelled out into the distance not knowing
where Marlena was only that she wasn’t on the boat.

“Marlena?” he yelled again as he started to panic. “MARLENA…..MARLENA.”

“John….help me,” he heard her shout followed by the sound of a gun being fired.

Chapter 10

John ran along the beach as fast as his legs would carry him. The
shifting sand beneath his bare soles made his journey cumbersome.

“MARLENA,” he screamed as he frantically looked around the deserted
beach trying to catch sight of her. The moment he heard her cry for
help he was on autopilot unable to focus on anything but finding
Marlena. Although his feet were bleeding from where the rocky shards
of the underwater reef cut into them when he jumped off the boat, he
felt nothing but the pounding of his heart in his chest. Where the
hell was she?

“MARLENA,” he yelled again, as he followed a set of footprints he
assumed were hers towards the dense jungle. Was someone else on the
island? Did that person shoot Marlena? A million question entered his
mind as he ran with abandon.

“MARLENA.” John sensed that she needed him and was frustrated and
panicked that he couldn’t find her and that she wasn’t responding. Not
watching where he was going, he came to an abrupt stop when a low
lying tree branch hit him in the middle of the forehead. “Fuck,” he
yelled out in pain as he rubbed the injury, feeling a trickle of blood
ooze from it. Not having the time to clean and bandage his gash, once
again he took off running towards the area where he thought her scream
originated from.

“John,” he heard Marlena yell somewhere in the distance in front of him.

“Marlena?” John yelled back, grateful and relieved to hear the sweet
sound of her voice. His head hurt like hell, but he didn’t have the
time to deal with it. Once he knew she was safe, he’d clean and
bandage it.

“Over here,” she yelled back.

“Keep yelling so I can find you,” John yelled. The forest undergrowth
was so thick that sunlight was barely penetrating the tree canopy.
Added to that, there was no path. He was literally running through and
jumping over bushes, small trees and who knows what else. He was
amazed that Marlena had made it that far into the jungle, but
questioned her sanity to even venture off the beach.

Instead of yelling, John was surprised to hear Marlena start singing a
song he hadn’t heard her sing since Belle was a little girl.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I
once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

John followed her slightly off key voice as he climbed up a steep
incline using the aerated roots of some of the trees for support.
Shaking his head at her stupidity and physical prowess he continued to
follow the sound of her singing.

“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. Through
many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come; ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and
grace will lead me home.”

Suddenly the sound of her singing stopped. “Marlena?” John yelled as
he started climbing faster and faster. “Keep singing.”

“I don’t want to sing anymore,” she yelled back.

“Come on Doc…I’m almost there,” John replied in frustration. “I’ll
sing with you…. The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope
secures; he will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall
cease, I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace,”
John sang out but quickly realized that he was only hearing the sound
of his own voice, not hers.

“Sing dammit,” he yelled. Stopping for a moment to catch his breath
and gather his bearings, he willed himself to calm down. His
frustration was starting to show. “I’m sorry Marlena,” he yelled out
into the forest. “Please keep singing….it’s the only way I’m going to
find you. I can’t see anything from where I am, but from the sound of
your voice I’m almost there.”

“The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,” her sweet voice sang out
sadly. “The sun forbear to shine; but God, who called me here below,
will be forever mine. When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright
shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when
we’d first begun.”

“There you are,” he exclaimed as he saw the back of her blond head
poking out through the top of a bush. “You scared the crap out of me
Marlena.” Carefully navigating his way towards her he saw that she was
holding onto a gun in one hand and pointing it at something.

“Marlena,” he said softly as he walked towards her.

“Move slowly John,” she warned him.

Not being able to see what she was pointing the gun at he followed her command.

“A boar?” he questioned when he saw the large animal bleeding two feet
from where Marlena was kneeling. “You’re fucking amazing,” he said in
wonderment as he knelt down beside her and took the gun out of her
hand. Lying dead in front of Marlena was a 150-pound wild pig with
half of its head blown off.

“Well we need to eat and I was hungry…”

“I’d say so,” John replied amazed that his wife had hunted down and
killed lunch and dinner for them. She was certainly full of surprises.
Feeling for a pulse on the pig, John confirmed his suspicion that it
was dead. Reaching over, he swatted the flies away where they had
gathered to feast on the blood and lay their eggs. “Where’d you get
the gun?”

“I found it on the boat in one of the cupboards,” Marlena said as she
slowly stood up, bushing the dirt off her knees. She had yet to look
at him.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” John asked in a somewhat accusing tone as
he wiped the blood from his forehead on the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“You needed the sleep and I didn’t…I was hungry, the gun was there…end
of story.” Marlena turned her back to him signaling that the
conversation was also over.

“I worry about you Doc,” John said as he walked towards her and put
his hands on her shoulders. “When I woke up and you were gone I was
afraid something had happened to you.”

“You have to stop looking at me and treating me like a child John… I
am more than capable of taking care of myself…I’ve done it for years
before I ever met you.”

“I know honey, its just that I like to think of myself as your
protector,” John admitted.

“I’d say that you have the caveman routine down,” Marlena said with a
hint of nostalgia in her voice as she thought back to the last time he
had acted like a caveman, picking her up and taking her back to the
penthouse where he had his way with her.

“Are you complaining?”

“No…at times I rather enjoy when you get all possessive and macho.”

“But….”

“But, other times I don’t need for you to be that way. I’ve worked
hard to get where I am in life and at times your constant need to
protect me overshadows all my accomplishments….It’s almost as if no
matter how capable I am, it doesn’t count at all, that because I am a
woman I will always need a man to take care of me.”

“As long as that man is me,” John joked as he kissed her neck.

“John, I’m serious,” Marlena said as she pulled out of his kiss. “You
seriously think that because I’m a woman I need a man.”

“Marlena, lets not talk about this.”

“No…I want to finish this conversation.”

“Marlena.”

“John.”

“Come on honey, let’s drag dinner back down to the boat.”

“No,” she said as she turned toward him and looked him in the eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere until we finish this conversation.”

“I don’t want to fight with you Marlena.”

“And I don’t want to fight either, but this is a serious matter John.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“It already is….I was only joking earlier when I suggested that you
thought I needed a man to take care of me, not believing that was
actually how you felt, but it is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, alright yes…. No matter how well educated you are Marlena, there
are things that you need a man for.”
“I cannot believe you John Black.”

“You need me Marlena.”

“Sure I need you John, but that doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of
living without you or another man for that matter…. You have a
daughter John…. What about Belle? As her father do you believe that
she needs a man to take care of her?”

Realizing that he was in an impossible situation and just digging a
deeper hole, John tried to end the conversation.

“Doc… I don’t want to fight with you all right… Do I believe that you
are capable of taking care of yourself? Of course…. You are the
strongest woman emotionally and mentally that I’ve ever met and ever
will meet…. I’m not suggesting that you aren’t. Could you live without
a man? Of course. Would I want you to? No, because I’m the man that
wants to spend the rest of his life with you, pampering, loving and
taking care of you.”

“But you still think that you’re better than me….”

“Shut up,” John said as he interrupted her, grabbing her face roughly
in his hands and kissing her passionately. He felt her resolve slowly
being to crumble as she gave into and accepted the kiss.

“Now, let drag dinner to the boat,” John said after he pulled out of
the kiss, noticing the starstruck look on Marlena’s face. Picking up
the carcass, he threw it over his shoulder and looked around for an
easier path down the hillside.

“John, what happened to your forehead?” Marlena finally asked as she
followed him down the hill.

“Another time, another story,” John said as he focused on dinner.

“I still can’t believe that my incredible wife shot and killed a wild
pig,” John said with amazement. He was equally impressed when without
hesitation she gutted and skinned the pig. Never in his wildest
imagination would he ever have guessed that prim and proper Dr.
Marlena Evans would even know what to do with a dead animal that
didn’t come nicely packaged from Safeway. She was barely capable of
cooking, yet here she was expertly and efficiently handling the pig
like she’d done it for her whole life.

“Ex-wife,” Marlena reminded him, as she tried to daintily chew on a
pork rib. Scouring the cupboards of the boat earlier they had managed
to find a couple of tin plates and one set of silverware that they
would have to share. John still hadn’t told Marlena the truth about
the divorce and as time went on he wasn’t sure how he should approach
it. The time never seemed to be right. He wanted her to ask him about
it, thinking that if he kept on mentioning that she was his wife that
one day she’d ask him about it, but she never seemed to. Marlena would
always matter of factly remind him that she was his ex-wife and move
onto another line of conversation as if being his ex-wife wasn’t an
issue for her. Maybe she was glad that they were divorced.

“So John, would you mind sharing with me what you were dreaming about
earlier on the boat,” Marlena asked as she set the rib down on her
plate and tried to find something to wipe her greasy fingers on.
Finding nothing, she wiped her fingers on the tops of her bare thighs.

Marlena didn’t miss the brief look of guilt pass over John’s face when
she asked the question. Although he tried to hide the look, it was out
there. He was aware that she knew he’d dreamt about something he
didn’t want to share with her. Standing up, he walked towards the
bonfire and pensively stared into it. The pain of his dream about Alex
and what he had done to Marlena was raw in his mind. Not grasping or
processing the full implications of his dream, he wasn’t ready to talk
about it. If what he dreamt about was real and did happen, like he had
a hunch had, talking about it might cause Marlena to further withdraw.

“John, please don’t shut me out,” Marlena said softly as she put her
hand on his arm. Lips pursed in frustration, John continued to stare
into the fire, knowing that if he looked at her his defenses would
painfully shatter. He needed to be strong for both of them and not
further confuse her with his speculations regarding Alex. As soon as
he found a phone he’d call Shane and ask him to investigate.

“I just had a weird dream…that’s all.”

“I can tell that it bothered you.”

“Confused me is more like it,” he responded deciding to tell her about
the dream he had with her in it. “Marlena…have you ever been to
Barbados?”

“Why?” Marlena asked as she stepped back instinctively. For some
reason his question really bothered her.

“Just curious…that’s all.” Looking out of the corner of his eye, John
watched as Marlena seemed to be remembering something from her past.
“So have you been there?”

“I don’t know,” she replied defensively. In her mind she saw herself
running down a beach towards someone or something. She tried to
concentrate what she was running towards but her mind wouldn’t allow
her to go that far. Something pulled her back at the last minute. As
quick as the memory came, it left, leaving a conflicting emotion. If
the brief flash of her memory she felt both extreme sadness and
extreme joy. Was the memory real?

“I had a dream about you in Barbados,” John told her hoping to probe
her memory and see if she’d react again.

“That sounds nice…I’d like to go there someday.”

“What if you have already been?”

“I think I would remember that John,” Marlena said as she turned
towards him. The glow from the fire cast haunting shadows across
John’s face.

“I guess so,” John said as he sat down on a log in front of the fire
and put his hands in his head. His head still ached where he smashed
it into the tree branch earlier. He felt her defense walls being
erected once again, block by block, with his line of questioning.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she sat down next to him on the log and
leaned on his shoulder for support. “Is it your head?”

Although she had cleaned, stitched and bandaged the injury earlier,
she knew that without medication he had to be in incredible pain.

“Everything…nothing….this….you….me.”

“Okay, that was a rather cryptic answer,” Marlena said as she sat up
and turned to look at him. All her psychiatric training immediately
came into play. “Overlooking the obvious…being our current
situation…lets start with me.”

John turned his head quickly towards her, incredulous that she of all
people actually wanted to have this conversation. “I don’t want to
talk about it Doc,” John warned her, regretting that he’d said
anything.

“John, its not healthy to keep your feelings bottled up inside.”

“Let it go,” he warned her. She was starting to play Dr. Evans and it
was pissing him off. She was the one that needed help, not him.

“No…you’ve been edgy for weeks John… if we’re going to peacefully
co-exist we need to discuss these things,” Marlena told him in
frustration. He always wanted to play the role of the strong macho
supporter. His earlier comments about her needing a man to take care
of her played over and over in her mind. Did he find her independence
threatening? Was this what his little outburst was about?

“You’re one to talk,” John muttered under his breath.

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing John… it sounded like you said that I’m one to
talk….care to tell me what you meant by that?” Marlena was trying her
hardest to remain professional but having an extremely difficult time.

“Drop it Marlena.”

“No…we need to talk about this,” she insisted, frustrated by his
behavior, secrecy and all around attitude. It sucked, he sucked and
she just wanted to deal with the issues now since they were out in the
open.

“Fine, you want to talk about but don’t say I didn’t warn you…I’m sick
and tired of being kept in the dark regarding what the hell is going
on in your head,” John blurted out. Marlena sat back stunned. This was
the last thing she expected him to say. “….you’ve become like Dr.
Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde in the last year. I’ve tried to be patient and
understanding, but sometimes you just make it so damn difficult
Marlena,” John said as he looked over at her, committing her responses
to memory. “Please don’t cry,” John pleaded with her. “Great, now I’m
an ass for making you cry.”

“You think I’m trying to be like this…. You think I like being like
this?” she cried out in frustration as she turned from him. He’d hurt
her feelings with his comment and she hated that she was showing him a
sign of weakness that would just reaffirm what he already thought of
her and women. If for just a minute she wished that he could be her so
she wouldn’t have to explain what she was seeing and feeling. After
wiping her tears on her sleeve, she folded her arms across her chest
defensively.

“I don’t know what to think Marlena….I’m trying to be supportive and
understanding…I know what you’re remembering is probably extremely
painful but I want to help…I want to be there for you,” John said as
he lowered his voice, regretting that he’d made her cry.

“You are John…you are.”

“No I’m not…I may be physically here for you, but I am in no way
closer to understanding who you are than when we left Salem.”

Every word he’d spoken was the truth, something that Marlena couldn’t
deny. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How about you start with the truth Marlena….just the truth.”

“I resent the implication that I haven’t been telling you the truth,”
she said with a hint of animosity. John saw the fire in her eyes and
knew that he’d made her mad. How was he able to push all of her
buttons so easily?

“How about all your lies of omission….you’ve been remembering things
for months Marlena and I’ve only been told what I need to know when
its been convenient for you.” John had nothing to lose at this point.
His frustration with her was out on the table. better to deal with
their issues that politely put them back on the shelf to look at and
play with them later. If they needed to have an all out yelling,
screaming and crying match then that was what they were going to have.

“That’s not true.”

“Oh its not? Well why don’t you tell me all about Alex then?” John
yelled at her in anger. It was too late to turn back the clock and
undo things that had been said.

“I don’t owe you any answers John…got that,” Marlena said as she stood
up to leave. She wasn’t going to deal with John in his current state.
Fighting wasn’t going to solve any of their problems. She knew that
and he knew that, but for some reason he was hell-bent on it. She
supposed that a lot of his frustration was borne out of their current
situation, which was inevitably her fault,

“Don’t you walk away from me Marlena,” John said as he grabbed her arm
and pulled her towards him. “You don’t walk away when I’m talking to
you…got that,” he yelled as he raised his hand towards her face.

Chapter 11

His heart beating faster and faster, blood pressure rising to a
dangerously high level, John reached out and grabbed Marlena, pulling
her towards him. “Don’t you walk away from me Marlena…You don’t walk
away when I’m talking to you…got that,” he yelled as he raised his
hand towards her face.

“No,” she screamed as she instinctively raised her hand in front of
her face in a defensive posture and waited for his hand to connect
with her skin.

“Goddammit,” he screamed as he let go of her and hit his hand on the
gnarled wood of an olive tree as hard as he would.

“Dammit…Dammit….Dammit.”

Marlena stood still afraid to breathe, trying to minimize her presence.

“Fuck,” he yelled as he hit the tree once again. “Fuck…Fuck…Fuck.”

“John,” Marlena said as she watched him pound his first into the tree
over and over again. “Please stop,” she said gently as she placed her
soft hand on his. “Please.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he yelled as he pulled his hand abruptly
out of her grasp and brought it up to his lips. Pressing the tender
flesh against his lips, the coppery taste of his own blood assuaged
his senses, a stark and painful reminder how close he was to tasting
her blood, not his. John had almost hit her.

The conflicting emotions racing through his deep blue eyes, Marlena
watched timidly and helplessly not know where John was or how to begin
to help him.

“I can’t do this Marlena….I can’t.” He still wouldn’t look at her.

“John….”

“No….please don’t say anything…I just need you to listen to what I
have to say, nothing more.”

“Alright,” Marlena conceded as she took a step back from him and
walked towards the dying bonfire. Sitting down in the soft sand, head
on her knees, the poignancy of the moment was not lost. Everything
about them as a couple, lover, friends, companions was so wrong and
painful at times but when it worked it was magic. How could one
relationship be so complicated and emotionally draining, yet at the
same time bring emotional clarity, enlightenment and sheer joy?

“I can’t do this anymore…I can’t,” John mumbled more to himself than
to her as he paced back and forth in the sand, the path he’d chosen
becoming more and more defined with each step that he took.

Feeling horrible for causing the torment that John was currently going
through, Marlena felt a sense of responsibility to make things right
with them. “It’s okay.”

“No, its not. I almost hit you Marlena.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”

Not expecting his directness, Marlena was unsure of how to respond.
She was used to dealing with John on a more intellectual level, he
rarely talked about how he was feeling beyond the ‘you made me mad and
I’m angry’ level. Most of her male patients were that way and she’d
have to work hard to extract anything remotely like this from them.
Here John was handing her a fundamental tenant of his psyche on the
proverbial silver platter.

Beyond all the bells and whistles of their lives: the fancy cars,
expensive clothes and jewelry, luxurious penthouses and island
estates, they both were products of their upbringing and environments.
“I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me.” It wasn’t about
violence; it was about John’s need for self preservation at all costs
and his need for love.

“Am I still hurting you?”

“Yes…No…Yes,” John replied confused as how to answer her question. He
could lie to her and the conversation would quickly come to an end and
they’d go back to living their lives and Mr. and Mrs. John Black, or
he could be totally honest with her and they could move beyond where
they’d been stuck for years and attain a level of happiness and
understanding with each other that had been missing for years, if it
had ever been there in the first place.

Marlena had to fight her instinct of defensively asking him how. “What
are you feeling right now?”

“Absolute rage.”

Marlena whipped her head around, instantly seeing the fire in his
eyes. Dropping her head to her chest, she closed her eyes not wanting
their emotions to drive the conversation in unhealthy and unproductive
ways.

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being you really want to hit me or
something else, where are you right now,” she asked as she looked at
him out of the corner of her eye pacing back and forth.

“Oh probably at an eight right now,” John admitted and then
defensively laughed. “Not pretty is it?”

“What is still causing you so much anger that you feel you need an
outlet to dispel it?” ‘That outlet being me’ the unspoken ending of
her question.

“You honestly want to know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“It’s you Marlena,” John admitted as he walked over to where she was
sitting and knelt down in front of her. She needed to hear and
understand what he had to say. As good as she was about analyzing and
helping other people, she was incapable of discussing her own feelings
and motivations. “I love you so much and I’m not saying this to hurt
you, but I can’t take all your secrecy anymore. If I’m going to be a
true partner and help you, you need to tell me what’s going on, okay,”
John said as he tipped her chin up and gazed deep into her eyes. “I am
scared to death right now….I have no fucking idea where we are right
now or how we’re going to get off this island or if we get off where
we are going to go.”

Marlena sat quietly, forming her defenses to any question, concern or
statement he might make about her.

“I can’t help us if I don’t know what I’m up against and I think deep
down inside you do know.” Shaking her head in denial, Marlena tried to
stand up but John grabbed hold of her shoulders and held them in
place. “Don’t run….Please, don’t run.”

“I think you know what’s going on and why all these people are after you…”

“I don’t.”

“I think you do, maybe you don’t have the whole picture, but you
certainly know more than you’re telling me.”

Marlena gazed down at the ground unsure of how to respond. She could
lie or misdirect him, as was her motus operandi, or she could be
honest with him. He’d gone out on a limb for her, trusting her with
his innermost feelings and it would be incredibly hypocritical of her
not to reciprocate.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I just need to hear the truth from you Marlena…whatever it is, I just
want the truth.”

“I don’t know where to start John…I’m at a loss for what information
you need from me to make yourself more secure.”

“It’s not about me and my needs Marlena, don’t you see that? This is
about you and what keeping information inside of you is doing to us.”

“I disagree with you John…this is not about me.”

“It’s always been about you and always will be about you until you
come clean with me and tell me what you remember. Tell me about Alex
North…you can’t can you?”

“I don’t want to talk about him John,” Marlena said sadly as she
brushed a few fallen tears out of her eyes.

“I need to understand your relationship and what it is that’s
motivating that man…in case you forgot he and Mason are after us….but
why?”

“Please drop it.”

“I can’t Marlena….what does Alex have over you?”

“John…please don’t…I don’t want to be analyzed….you’re not my
psychiatrist,” Marlena said in frustration and anger. How had this
conversation turned from his rage to her secrecy? She’d been played by
someone even more skilled in the art of misdirection than she was.

“No, but I am the man that loves you more than anything else in the
world and just wants you to be healthy…you’re a mess right now…”

John watched as Marlena furiously shook her head in denial at his statement.

“Marlena, look at you….you weigh less than 100 pounds right now…I can
count your ribs through your shirt, you have gashes up and down you
arms that aren’t healing because you keep picking at the scabs causing
them to bleed….you claim to be seeing your father and Channing….you
have nightmares all the time, yet won’t tell me what they are
about….You. Need. Help.”

“I’ll be fine,” Marlena said as she laid her head down on her knees
and closed her eyes.

“Please tell me about Alex and what happened with him…please,” John
said as he got up and sat behind Marlena on the ground, pulling her
into his arms.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I met him in middle school…When Sam and I left their house…” Marlena
started as she remembered the day the child welfare came and took her
and Sam. Ms. Chavez, with her friendly smile and big white clean Ford
came and took them away, promising them a life of happiness. It was
the first of many times that Marlena lost her faith in the system that
Ms. Chavez said would protect them.

“Go on,” John said as he stroked her hair.

“We started a new school…most of the kids there ignored me…. Sam fit
right in…I didn’t.” She remembered her jealously at her sister whom
instantly was invited to sit at the cool kids table and joined the pep
squad. Lost in middle school hell, she was rescued by Alexander North
and Mason Jones. “Mason and Alex were my only friends that year.”

“What kinds of things did you do with them?” John asked trying to get
her to open up about her past.

“I don’t remember…it was more of how they made me feel…for once in my
life they made me feel like I was a person that was normal…do you know
what I mean?”

“I do…my cousin Matthew was like that with me…Enough about me… Were
they your friends for long?”

“For a couple of years…When we went back to live at his house, they
kept in contact with me.”

“So you went to the same school?”

“I wasn’t allowed to go to school.”

“What?”

“I was home schooled…he distrusted the US government and they were the
ones paying for and providing public education…the only time I
attended school was when I was in foster care and when I left his
house for good.” You mean after you killed him, being the unspoken
response.

“But you married Alex, right?” John suspected that her marriage to
Alex was one of the secrets that she’d been hiding all along.

When Shane had told him, he was initially angry at Marlena for not
telling him but soon got over it. She had to have had a good reason
for never mentioning him.

“I guess so,” Marlena said, surprised that he knew about the marriage.
“A lot of that time is really fuzzy in my mind…I’m not trying to
evasive….I just don’t remember.”

“That’s okay honey,” John said as he tenderly kissed the top of her
head. “When you went to live with the Evans’s did you stay in contact
with Alex?”

“No…we weren’t allowed to…we had to change everything, including our
names,” Marlena said thinking back to the confusion that the name
change brought about in the household.

“I’m curious as to why Samantha didn’t,” John stated, puzzled by the
fact that she was always referred to as Samantha.

“Oh that….her given name as a child was Suzanne Samantha, named after
our Aunt Suzanne who’d we’d never met but heard horrible things about
from our mother. Apparently our father insisted that she be named
after her…Since my mom didn’t like Suzanne, she insisted that her
daughter be called Samantha. My mom didn’t know that she was going to
have twins, so when I came out unexpectedly, they didn’t have a name
picked out for me so I was named after a character in a Harlequin
romance novel that my mom was reading…. Not terribly exciting is it?”

“So, since her given name wasn’t Samantha she was allowed to take it
as her new name?”

“Exactly, on paper she was Suzanne Samantha…guess they figured it was safe.”

“Back to Alex…. You never saw him until medical school?” Marlena
resigned herself to John’s questioning, knowing that he wasn’t going
to stop until he had all the answers that he needed to know.

“Nope…I wasn’t allowed contact with anyone from my past…and there is a
lot of stuff that I still don’t remember….Anyway, he and Mason were so
great growing up but something in him changed between when I left and
when I found him again…he was different, but I didn’t find that out
until I married him and he beat the crap out of me,” Marlena admitted
wistfully as one memory after another of Alex hitting and kicking her
popped into her mind.

“So how did you get away?” John asked angered at the fact that anyone
had laid a hand on Marlena, even though minutes earlier he was about
to do the same.

“My father came and got me…some of his cop friends roughed up Alex and
told him to stay away from me. I don’t remember a lot after that…I do
remember seeing Alex again when I was with Roman, but not much else
until he came back recently.”

“Does it bother you that you have gaps in your memory? I know it bothers me.”

“Sometimes, but maybe its just my minds way of protecting me from the
memories…I try not to psychoanalyze myself…. Makes things too
complicated…”

“Probably a good thing Dr. Evans,” John joked. “So, when he came back
did he say what he wanted?”

“In not so many words…me.”

“What?” John asked as his mind flashed back to a conversation he’d had
with Marlena right before she tried to kill herself. He’d walked into
the penthouse to find Marlena’s clothes disheveled, bed unmade and her
general attitude disconcerting. Something was wrong and she wasn’t
telling him.

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, would you?” John asked.

Marlena reached for the bar of soap, avoiding the question. She didn’t
want to lie to John. She could avoid his questions, but she never
wanted to be a liar. Good girls didn’t lie, they always told the
truth. She was good wasn’t she?

“Marlena?” John asked as he moved closer to her. He lack of a response
was worrying him and only confirmed what he had been feeling;
something was wrong. He had a sickening feeling in his gut that
something was very wrong with the picture of domestic bliss that
Marlena tried so hard to present.

As soon as her hand grasped the bar of soap, John saw the bruises on
her upper forearm. Bruises that had not been there last night. “What
the fuck,” he thought to himself.

“Marlena,” he said as he grabbed her arm. She pulled her arm out of
his grasp and turned her head. “Who did this to you,” he demanded.

“Its nothing,” she said as she turned her head to the side, unable to
look him in the eyes and lie. She was going to lie. She wasn’t a good
girl, never was. As much as she tried to pretend that she was, she
would never be good enough.

“Its something, don’t lie to me either. Who did this to you?” He
reached into the water, shirtsleeves becoming soaked in the process.
He roughly grabbed her other arm which was hidden underneath the
bubbles and lifted it up.

“Marlena,” John said as tears formed in his eyes. Matching bruises
dotted her other arm, the clear imprints of another person’s fingers
visible.

Marlena jerked her hands out of John’s grasp and put them beneath the
bubbles, in embarrassment. She was disgusted with herself. She’d been
so preoccupied with seeing what John was doing in the bedroom that
she’d failed to hide the evidence. Her father would be so disappointed
in her. The one thing that he’d always taught her and Sam was how to
hide the evidence so that no one knew. The less people knew, the less
questions they asked, the less trouble they got into later. It was
easier that way.

“Marlena,” John said again as he lifted her face tenderly with his
fingers. She wouldn’t open her eyes to look at him. John tenderly
stroked her face with his fingers trying to provide some measure of
comfort. He could see her bottom lip and chin start to tremble.

“Talk to me…did someone hurt you?” Was she mugged or robbed and was to
scared to tell him?

“No,” she said weakly, as the tears that she had been trying
desperately to hold back finally fell.

“Marlena, I have to know…. Please tell me what happened…how did you
get these bruises?”

“I can’t,” Marlena cried out, starting to sob.

“Can’t or won’t? If someone did this to you they need to be punished.”

“It’s nothing, just a little misunderstanding, that’s all,” she said,
ashamed that he had seen her bruises. She was incapable of telling him
the truth. Talking about it would make it real. Besides, she was
strong enough to handle this on her own, telling John would only bring
up elements of the past that she never wanted John to know. Telling
wouldn’t change things; it would only make them worse.

“Marlena, who did this to you?” John asked again, still not
comprehending the full scope of the situation.

“No one, I’m fine, forget about it,” Marlena said as she sat up in the
tub and grabbed the sides for support as she lifted her body out of
the water. John watched her helplessly, silently inspecting her body
for other bruises. She was much too thin still. As much as he
encouraged her to eat more, she always claimed that she wasn’t hungry.

Marlena grabbed another maroon towel off the rack and wrapped it
around her body. John followed her as she went into the bedroom.

“Why won’t you talk to me about this?” John said as he sat down on the
disheveled bed. John felt the bile slowly rise in his throat as he
analyzed that conversation in his mind. In retrospect everything made
sense; Marlena had been hiding the painful truth.

Chapter 12

“Marlena, did he rape you?” John asked as he rubbed her shoulders
gently. Head dipping to her chest, John supported her. Unable to
control the emotions that had been simmering below the surface for so
long, Marlena silently cried.

“Oh honey,” John said as he held her, devastated by her answer.
Nothing about life was fair. Why did it seem that Marlena of all
people was victimized over and over?

“I didn’t want you to find out John…I never wanted you to know,” she
whispered. “I’m sorry.” She’d held the secret for a while and had come
to accept it as part of her past, a piece that she neatly tucked away
in a corner and never brought it out. Although she knew that
compartmentalizing her emotions wasn’t the healthiest thing to do, she
seemed to be stuck in a behavior pattern she couldn’t and didn’t want
to stop. That day on the beach months ago when she finally accepted
her past and made the commitment to move forward with John seemed like
such a long time ago. No matter how hard she tried to move forward it
seemed like she was stuck in a circle, endlessly going around and
around.

“I don’t know what to say,” John admitted, at a loss of how to help
Marlena. Although his own past seemed so complicated, it was nothing
compared to what Marlena went through. “I don’t know how to comfort
you and help you, but I want to.”

Marlena sat in a tense but comfortable silence for a few minutes
thinking of John’s words to her. He did want to help her and to
comfort her but had no idea how. The sad thing was, neither did she.
She honestly didn’t know what could be said and done by her or by him
to make things better for her and for them, to stop this endless cycle
drama, co-dependence and secrets that seemed to be tearing them apart
at their most fragile seam. If she continued on this track there would
be no her or them. She knew and understood that, although recognizing
it was painful for her. “God, why do I do this? Why can’t I let you
in?” Marlena laid back in Johns arms, tired of fighting. “Why?”

John just held her, resolved to let her lead the path this discussion
took. “I need to tell you some things,” Marlena whispered trying to
find the courage and the words, neither coming easy to her. “I need to
explain some things, things I should have told you a long time ago.”
He needed to know about Alex and Mason, but most of all she needed to
accept responsibility for her own actions for the past forty years.

Finding it easier not to have to see his face and see the care, love
and understanding that was omnipresent, Marlena closed her eyes. “My
whole life I grew up wanting to be someone else,” she finally began.
“Becoming Marlena allowed me to do that. Going away to college allowed
me an escape of sorts. No one there knew me or of my past. But as much
as I loved finding out who I was and what I wanted out of life it
always seemed as if something was missing. My freshman year I was so
terrified that people, especially my roommate, would find out I was a
fraud. I took as many classes as possible and studied all the time.
Every free minute was spent in class or in the library. It just became
easier that way…. there was no expectation that I go out and socialize
or party as you call it. The strange thing was, the more I became
involved in my studies, the more fascinated and entrenched I became
with finding out about the world around me, the world I’d been missing
out on.” John gazed down at the top of her head and watched as the
firelight danced and reflected on the blond strands with each crackle
of the log. He imagined the bright eyed and scared girl thrust too
early into the cruel world, much like the Marlena of his dreams.

“I graduated with my undergraduate degree in two years and entered
medical school at twenty. I had no idea who I was or how to interact
with my peers so once again I threw myself into my studies. Psychiatry
seemed a natural choice to me, as I needed to understand my own past
in order to move forward. I ran into Alex quite by accident in the
library at school one day. He was one year behind me in school. I
can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see someone familiar after so
long. We fell back into our natural camaraderie and it was as if the
seven years we’d been apart hadn’t occurred. Alex and I were friends
before but that was it. I guess when I agreed to marry him it wasn’t
because I loved him, but because I felt in order to overcome my past I
needed to act like and do things that other people my age did, other
undamaged people. I married him in a simple ceremony during the summer
before I graduated and started my residency. I guess I knew going into
the marriage that I didn’t love him, not passionately and deeply, not
what I had with….” Marlena started and then stopped abruptly, lost in
a memory of a long time ago, of a person her heart tried so hard to
forget. Clenching her eyes shut she tried to get him out of her mind,
wondering why after so many years he still held a piece of her heart,
a piece that she’d never been able to let go of and give to someone
else, even John. “John,” she thought to herself, feeling guilty for
still having feelings for a ghost from her past. Although John was
everything that she’d ever wanted and was the love of her life and
soulmate, the first man she’d given her heart to would always hold a
special place.

“Nevermind,” she began again. John wondered who and what she was
remembering from her past. He always assumed that Don Craig was the
first man to capture her heart, but now knew that wasn’t the case.

“Tell me about him,” John gently prodded her as he stroked her hair.
He needed to know about this ghost that had resurfaced after so many
years that his wife was remembering. He needed to feel secure with his
place in her life, by most of all her needed to hear how in the horror
of her upbringing that at least for one moment, however brief, she was
loved.

“I don’t know where to begin John and I don’t remember his name…for
the past couple of months I’ve been having dreams about him, dreams
that are recurring and build upon each other. As a psychiatrist I know
that they’re not fantasies and delusions,” Marlena said, the
melancholy in her voice dripping like honey. Glimpses of the man were
all that she had to go on and to hold on to. How could she still feel
something for someone she didn’t know or remember? “Why can’t I
remember this man? I wake up with an overwhelming sense of love and
loss….”

“What kinds of things are you doing in your dreams?” John asked
wanting to provoke her memory and help her, yet afraid that she’d
reveal intimate details of her past with another man, a man that
wasn’t him.

“Mainly walking on the beach, swimming in a lagoon, horseback
riding…why?” Marlena said as she sat up and turned and looked at him,
not quite understanding why he asked what he did.

“Just curious, that’s all,” John said, the love in his eyes evident as
he cupped her chin gently with her hand and smiled at her.

“Tell me about your first love John,” Marlena suggested wanting to
take the focus of the conversation off of her.

“You know that you’re my first love Doc,” John said with sadness in
his voice. There were so many years of his past missing, gone,
vanished. Although he loved and cherished the memories that he did
have especially his memories of Marlena, he always had the feeling
that something, someone, was missing.

“Yeah right sailor…I’m not buying that one…Try it on someone else,”
Marlena laughed as she playfully swatted him on the arm, missing the
serious look that briefly crossed his beautiful features.

“Really Marlena, for a long time you were my first love, the woman I
remembered from when my past began….It’s always been you…my past,”
John said as he kissed her forehead. “My present,” he said as he
kissed the tip of her nose. “And my future,” he said as he gently
kissed her on the lips. What started out as a gentle kiss soon became
much more as both Marlena and John became lost in the magic of the
moment, hands roaming, fingers gently touching and probing the
sun-kissed exposed tender flesh of others torsos.

“Wow,” Marlena said in amazement as she pulled out of this kiss.

“Still got it baby,” John said seductively as he reached his hands
around to her back side, placed his large hands on her buttocks and
squeezed them gently.

“So as you were saying Sailor,” Marlena said as she reached behind her
and grabbed his hands, pulling them off her butt. If they remained
there, they’d never finish this conversation, not that she minded.

“Oh right,” John said as he tried to shake the image of Marlena lying
underneath him, long tanned legs wrapped around him, out of his mind.
“I had a dream this morning that was so clear, that I’m wondering if I
am remembering my past,” John finally admitted.

“Oh John that’s wonderful,” Marlena said as she hugged him. “I know
that you’ve always wanted to remember your past.”

“I have, Doc, I have….And I think I might be remembering something,
but it was just one dream,” he said as he thought back to the memory
of the woman with long blonde hair running in front of him on a beach.
As hard as he tried to reach out and grab her and see her face to see
if she was Marlena, he couldn’t. Who was the woman and why did he feel
such a sense of loss surrounding her? “Let’s not get our hopes up,”
John warned her as he thought back to his dreams about Marlena and his
memory of the blonde girl on the beach. It was so clear and so real to
him. Was it real? Did it happen?

“What was your dream about?” Marlena asked, unsure if she really
wanted to know. Although she’d come to accept the mystery of her past
and the loss of her memory, John’s memory loss still frightened her
immensely. The fear of his unknown continued to haunt her at night.
What if he had this wonderful life before he lost his memory? Would he
give his life up in Salem, give his life with her up, to reclaim what
he might have had with another woman?

“You,” John admitted, waiting for her reaction.

“What?” Marlena asked quizzically.

“You, you and Samantha…”

“Honey, you’re just transferring your memories of me onto someone else
that you knew a long time ago.”

“I’m not Marlena…I’m not… I believe I met you long before I arrived in
Salem.” The conviction in his voice frightened Marlena. Whatever the
truth was, John really believed that he had met her in the past.

“That’s preposterous John, don’t you think we’d both remember it?
Things like this can’t happen,” Marlena blurted out in frustration,
her voice rising with each word she said.

“What if it did?” John replied calmly, knowing that he was right, that
his dream was right.

“It didn’t…don’t you think that I would know that it was you?”

“I know…it doesn’t make any sense….”

“It’s because you want to believe it John….think about it…what would
be more wonderful and romantic than for us to have known each other
from a long time ago….it’s the destiny theory.”

“Destiny theory?”

“You know….we were always destined to be together…no matter what life
has thrown at us we will always find out way back to each other…This
is the stuff of novels and young girls dreams John…stuff like this
doesn’t happen in real life.”

“Is it so crazy to believe and to hope that it does?”

“No,” Marlena said as she took him into her arms. “Not at all honey,
its what makes us human. If we didn’t believe that dreams and fairy
tales do come true what hope would be have?”

“You’re probably right Doc, but I have this profound sense deep in my
soul that when I arrived in Salem in 1985 it wasn’t the first time I
met you.” Marlena closed her eyes and willed herself the ability to
stay calm and not raise her voice again. Arguing with John wasn’t
going to get her anywhere. He was convinced that he was right and
there was no changing his mind.

“It not possible for us to have known each other before you moved to
Salem John…Honey, you just want to believe so much that it did
happen,” Marlena said as she gently cupped his cheek with her hand and
smiled at him. “But it didn’t happen….It was just a dream, albeit a
wonderful one….It’s not physically or geographically possible for us
to have known each other before…You were a wealthy young man traveling
the world with the Alamain’s and I was a foster child of the
Evans’…Where would we have met? I know you want it to be true and I
would love it as much as you would if it was true, but its not.”

“You’re probably right,” John told her, not believing it for a minute
but sensing that this line of discussion was going nowhere. He’d have
to recover more of his memories before she’d be receptive to what he
had to say. “So….Doc, about Alex….”

“What about him?” Marlena’s blood suddenly ran cold at the mention of
Alex North.

“I’m trying to understand why he married you, disappeared and then
came back and tried to lock you up.”

“I don’t know John,” Marlena said defensively as she sat back and
crossed her arms over her chest.

“I think you do Doc,” John said as he reached over and pulled on her
one arms until she let go of the other one. Taking her hand in his he
told her, “The answer are inside you Marlena, we just need to know
where to look….after you went to live with the Evans’ all contact with
your past life ended, right?”

“Yes.”

“Including Alex and Mason?”

“Well yes, but they both disappeared right after….” Marlena paused not
wanting to continue her sentence, even though they both knew the event
that she was talking about. “After someone killed their families I
lost contact with them.”

“How do you know that Doc?”

“I just do.”

“Someone had to have told you….” John stated matter of factly as
Marlena went into a flashback of a man in a white room…. “You won’t
remember anything about Alexander North and Mason Jones after you are
finished with your treatment. They will be a long forgotten part of
your past….” “I was supposed to forget them John.”

“But why? And how did Alex know where to find you? You think that it
was random?”

“I don’t know…”

“Think Marlena…think.”

“I can’t John…you’re asking too many question…I can’t think fast
enough.” Flashes of her past with Alex ran through her mind in random
order. She saw him smiling handing her a bouquet of flowers.

“That’s the point…I need for you to remember and not analyze what
you’re thinking before you say it…whatever pops into your mind say it,
no matter if you think it doesn’t make sense or happened….okay?”

“Okay,” Marlena said relinquishing control to John. She needed to
trust in him if she was going to recover or remember things that her
mind seemed to want to repress.

“Back to Alex…when was the last time that you saw him?

“When I shot them,” she said softly with a far away look in her eyes.
She remembered the look in her father’s eyes as he lay dead on the
floor of their shack. The color of his eyes was the same as John’s.
Why hadn’t she realized that before?

“What did he say to you?

“I don’t remember a lot of what happened John,” Marlena said
defensively, still bothered by her realization that her father and
John shared the same eye color. “It was so long ago…honestly what
little of it I do remember I wish that I didn’t… I just want it to
stay in the past where it belongs.”

“I know Doc…don’t give the misery and despair you felt back then
power….Until we figure out what happened we’ll never know what
happened to you we’ll never be safe….We can’t go home to Noah and
Rachel or to Sami, Carrie, Eric and Belle until we find out why they
want you….it’s a lot more than retribution and you know it.”

At the mention of her children’s name, her resolve dissipated. “…I’ll
find you, no matter what happens…that’s the last thing that Alex said
to me.”

Nothing out of the ordinary, not a particularly revealing statement.
“When you met him at the library in medical school…what did he say to
you?

“Chaucer is an interesting author, don’t you think?” she said as she
thought back to that day in medical school when Alex North, handsome
in corduroy jeans and matching jacket, suede patching on the elbows,
boldly approached her.

“Chaucer?”

“Yes.”

“Were you reading a work of his?”

“No, he was,” Marlena said as she saw him in her minds eye approach
the table where she was buried underneath a pile of medical journals
and anatomy books. “He was reading the Canterbury tales.”

“Seriously.” John thought to himself that Alex had to be the lamest
man ever to try to pick up a woman. Chaucer?

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you find that odd?”

“Well yes.”

“Did you recognize him at first?”

“Not until he said that to me.”

“Really?…when he walked up to you…you had no idea who he was until he
said “Chaucer is an interesting author don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Did he look different….Was it his voice you recognized.”

“No…I’m pretty sure it was what he said.”

“Did you read Chaucer or something when you were younger?”

“Not that I recall,” Marlena said. The distant look in her eyes
validated to John the path that he’d chosen to help her recover her
memory. So much of her past was right below the surface waiting to be
recalled.

“Oh my God John,” Marlena said as she grabbed onto his hand and held
it tightly. “It’s not what he said and has nothing to do with
Chaucer…He was wearing a ring that he held up…that gleamed in the
light.

“A ring?”

“Not just a ring, it was a ring with the Dimera family crest on it.”

Chapter 13

“Not just a ring, it was a ring with the Dimera family crest on it,”
Marlena admitted, wondering how and why she ever forgot that crucial
detail. After everything she’d been through with Stefano and Tony she
knew that crest better than she knew herself. Countless hours she’d
laid in her four post canopied bed at Maison Blanche staring at the
crest on the bedroom wall. That crest and the Dimeras were part of
her. Their blood was her blood. Standing up, Marlena turned away from
John.

“What’s wrong Marlena,” John asked as he stood up behind her, deeply
puzzled by her comment about Alex wearing a ring with the Dimera
family crest on it. “Did you remember something?” John held out one
hand over her shoulder, wanting desperately to touch her but afraid
to.

“No,” Marlena said, her eyes closed. She needed John to touch her, to
ground her once again. She patiently waited for needed reassurance
that never came. He had to have sensed that something was wrong. Why
wasn’t he touching her?

“Why’d you stand up then?” John asked as he stood quietly behind her,
not quite believing her answer. Once again she was shutting him out,
choosing to deal with her memories and feelings alone. How long would
it be, how much would they have to go through before she realized that
one was the loneliest number?

Marlena stood mutely, not knowing how to answer his question when she
didn’t know or understand the answer herself. “John….” she said then
stopped. She could feel John’s hot breath against the back of her
neck.

“Mar,” John said in a reassuring but questioning voice using a
seldom-used nickname for her. The longer her silence went on the more
concerned he grew. “I’m not sure if I want to know the answer to
this,” Marlena started as she looked down at the ground and played
with the hem on her shirt. “But for some reason I need to know.”

“Whatever it is, please ask,” John said worried about what was running
through her head. Was this about Alex? Did she have some other dark
secret that she needed to get off her chest? How much more would she
have to endure in this lifetime?

Looking up at the sky to keep her tears from falling Marlena finally
asked him what had been troubling her from the moment she recalled the
Dimera family ring on Alexander North’s right hand. “When you look at
me, when you touch me….when you make love to me, do you think about
the fact that I am a Dimera?”

“Never,” John said as he finally reached out and touched her gently,
cupping the side of her cheek with his hand, catching her tears as
they fell. “Never…. when I look at you…when I touch you….when I make
love to you….I’m making love and touching and looking at Marlena, my
wife, my lover, my soul mate.” Without his hand ever leaving her face
he slowly turned her so that she was facing him.

“Good,” she sobbed. “Because when I look at you I can’t help but still
see all the pain behind your beautiful eyes, the pain that you try so
valiantly to hide from me, from Belle, from our family and friends….I
see and feel your pain and I feel so responsible for it.”

“Why would you feel responsible?” John asked, his head tilted towards
hers in concern. This was about her feeling guilty for being a Dimera,
not about him.

“Because my family has been behind and continues to be behind all the
misery you’ve been through….Their blood runs through me John.” Turning
her face away from him in shame she looked down at sand beneath her.
“God I so wish that it didn’t, but it does.” In her mind she saw John
chained against the wall in Maison Blanche, the bleeding and infected
welts on his back from where Stefano had his men beat him standing out
in contrast against his pale and emaciated frame.

“That’s not your fault Marlena,” John said trying to convince her
that, but knowing that he couldn’t. After all these years together and
apart she was still so much a part of him, his feelings were hers and
hers his. He felt guilt for years over Orpheus taking her thinking
that it was because of his actions as Roman Brady that caused the man
to snap and seek revenge. For years after she’d been gone he’d laid in
bed at night and run “what if” scenarios in his head. Now the tables
were turned, but the pain still remained.

“But what if it is? I can’t help but think that I’m responsible for everything.”

“How could you be?” John said, his voice rising in anger and
frustration. “You can’t control what Stefano and Tony are going to do
any more than I can.” Why was she doing this to herself?

“What if I’m the catalyst for everything.”

“I’m a little confused here Doc,” John said as he raised her chin with
his index finger and forced her to look at him. She refused to make
eye contact, looking everywhere but at him.

“I started the war between the Torres, Owens and Dimera families,” she
admitted after a couple minutes of uncomfortable silence.

“No your low life son of a bitch biological father did that,” John
said in anger, sick and tired of the fact that she was owning issues
that other people created and she was just a victim of.

Tensing up from John’s outburst, Marlena pulled away from him. “No I did.”

“No you didn’t Doc.”

“I did John….I killed them…I killed Channing Owens and Rafeal
Torres…No one else did it…” Slowly she backed away from him, his
proximity and anger frightening to her.

“You had no choice honey.”

“There’s always another choice John.”

“Why are you doubting yourself and your decisions now Doc….why now?”
He refused to let her take responsibility for Stefano and what he had
subjected them to over the years.

“I don’t know…I just feel so responsible….what if Stefano is the way
he is now because of me?”

“Oh Doc….you can’t be serious…he was probably born a ruthless bastard.”

“Hear me out John…what if his brothers death…” Marlena started and
then stopped, not wanting to start crying again. “What if when I
killed my father it changed him…what if he was good before? I did
that.” Not being able to stop the tears from falling Marlena gave into
her pain and sobbed.

Pulling her into his arms, John tried to comfort and reassure her.
“Marlena…you are good and wonderful…you can’t blame yourself for a
course of events that may or may not have happened….Hell, the man was
probably born evil.”

“What if he wasn’t….what if he was good and pure and I turned him into
a monster and because of me he did what he did to you,” she admitted,
her voice muffled by his chest.

“You can’t be serious Doc….even if what you are proposing was true,
which I’m sure isn’t, you can’t blame yourself….You were a
child….you’re lucky to have survived what you did.”

“I never wanted to cause you pain John but I have this feeling that
everything you have felt up until this point has been my fault….”

“Stop Doc…Just stop,” John cried out as he grabbed both of her wrists.
“Stop….please stop….You are not responsible for the actions of other
people….I believe in a good and just God who wouldn’t allow any of his
children to have that kind of responsibility…You’ve caused me pain and
hurt me deeply in the past as I have you…that’s life, that’s real,
we’ve accepted it, forgiven each other and moved on with living….to
take the leap from that to accepting responsibility for what Stefano
Dimera did to me is absurd Marlena.”

“I know it doesn’t make any sense John…as a psychiatrist I know
that…but its what I feel deep inside and its what I see when I close
my eyes,” she said as she closed her eyes, letting her tears flow
freely down her pained and tormented face. “….I see his eyes and I see
yours and I see all the love and all the pain and I feel this
inexplicable need to run, to hide, to become someone else…I don’t want
to feel like this anymore John….I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“You’re not Doc…you’re not… Do you think I would still be standing
beside you, running from the law with you if I didn’t think you were
worth it?”

“No.”

“Good, because you Marlena Evans Black are more than worth it….I’d
follow you to the ends of the earth, you have to know that.”

The love and devotion mirrored on John’s face was incredibly calming
to Marlena. Maybe what he was saying was the truth. Maybe, just maybe,
she wasn’t to blame for what Stefano had done to them.

“I do, John I do,” Marlena whispered as she stood on her tip toes and
kissed him gently. “It’s just the memory of the ring that Alex wore
brought up a lot of stuff including my crazy insecurities.”

“Promise me that when you feel or think something like that that you
talk to me about it.”

“It’s a promise Sailor.”

“Speaking of sailing…we should probably head back to the boat before
its gets tooo dark.”

“It is too dark John.”

“I know…I just wanted to make you feel better….didn’t want to scare my
lady…didn’t want you to look around and realize that its pitch black
outside and the only visable things are the glow of the animals eyes
against the moonlight.”

“John, stop it.”

“Getting scared Marlena?” John teased as he took her hand.

“Never.”

“Liar,” he teased as he swatted her on her behind.

********************************************

The unmistakable sound of the whirling helicopter blades awoke Marlena
and John from their carefree slumber.

“Wait down here,” John pleaded with Marlena as he climbed over her on
the small bunk in the hull of the boat. Pulling up the sheet to cover
her bare body, he slowly touched the side of her face. “God, how I
love you.”

“I want to go with you,” Marlena pleaded as she slowly sat up, not
bothering to cover her bare breasts.

“I need to make sure its safe,” John said as he put one leg into his
well-worn black pants. She was safer down below.

“We’re in this together,” Marlena said as she reached out and grabbed
his hand. “Remember.”

Knowing that after everything they’d been through he couldn’t deny
this request of her, he smiled down at her. If they were going to be
caught, they would go together choosing never to be separated again.
“Together,” John said as he squeezed her hand.

“However, I think you need to get dressed first. When it was just the
two of us I didn’t mind your exhibitionism, however it appears we have
a guest and I do strongly mind someone else seeing what’s mine.”

“John,” Marlena chided him as she quickly donned her well-worn uniform
of the past six weeks.

“Well it’s true,” he said watching her as she lowered her shirt down
over her well-tanned torso.

The air was quiet as Marlena followed John up to the top deck of the
boat. Two hundred feet from them sat a beautiful black helicopter, its
engines slowly coming to a stop.

“John.” Marlena took John’s hand once again and held it, unsure of
what was about to happen. Both watched in anticipation as the door
finally opened and a lone figure exited the small craft.

“John…Marlena,” a familiar voice called out.

“Shane,” John said as he approached the railing, pulling Marlena along
with him. Feeling her resistance, he turned around and looked at her.
Her eyes were a smoky brown color that he was unable to read. .

“Doc?” he asked her, wanting her to come with him. The change in her
demeanor had been not only sudden but also unexpected. Shaking her
head no, eyes downcast, she turned around and stared out at the
tranquil sea behind her. Knowing that she was still fighting her own
demons and insecurities he decided not to press the issue. Squeezing
her shoulders briefly, he kissed the side of her neck before leaving
the boat. “I love you.”

Shane watched the scene before him wondering what was being said and
why Marlena wasn’t following John. “Good to see you John,” Shane said
as he held out his well-manicured hand towards John.

“It’s great to see you old friend,” John replied, grateful to see the
face of a friend after six long weeks on the island with only Marlena
to keep him company.

“God you smell,” Shane remarked as he turned his head. The John Black
standing before him was barely recognizable. Not only was his beard
full and hair long; his normally muscular frame was thin and well
tanned.

“I could definitely use a nice long hot shower about right….Took you
long enough to find us.”

“Well there were complications…..”

“Six weeks worth of complications?” John asked curious as to why and
how their rescue had taken so long. John looked over at the helicopter
and was pleased to see that Shane had come alone.

“A lot’s been happening,” Shane told him unsure of where to start and
how much John should be told. “It hasn’t been safe to come and get
you….We picked up the homing beacon from Marlena’s engagement ring
weeks ago but couldn’t act on it. Only a handful of people within the
agency even know about the ring.” John nodded, trying to read between
the lines and figure out what Shane wasn’t telling him. “Everything
that went wrong with the safe-house in Italy leads to it being an
inside job. I wasn’t willing to risk your safety…How is Marlena?”
Shane asked as he looked in her direction and nodded. She was barely
recognizable to him.

“Doing her best considering…So what the hell happened Shane. No one
was supposed to know where we were… No One.”

“I don’t know John….I honestly don’t know….the setup for the
safe-house was confirmed as good.” He himself had gone over every
detail making sure that in the event of trouble they would be safe.
Somewhere between planning and the implementation someone had tipped
off Interpol and the NSA.

“Forget about the safe-house….what about the beach house…we were
enjoying as nice dinner in town and then bam we have half the
carbinari on our ass along with Interpol. What the hell happened?”
John’s temper was rising along with his voice. Although he was
grateful that Shane had come to their rescue, he was annoyed with the
complacency of Shane and ISA in regards to their lives.

“Don’t know…Bloody fools at Interpol,” Shane replied as he shrugged
his shoulders. It would take all of his skills as an agent to evade
John’s line of questioning. There was too much going on behind the
scenes in relation to ISA, NSA, Secret Service, FBI, CIA, Interpol and
not to mention the countless paramilitary and police agencies around
the world that had been recruited in the mission to find one Marlena
Evans Black.

“It wasn’t Interpol Shane…This was an inside job and you know it.”
With nothing to lose and weeks to process what had happened in his
mind John was ready to call Shane on his shit.

“Bloody hell,” Shane said in defeat as he turned his back and walked away.

“No.” John stared in disbelief at Shane’s form. “No.”

“I’m sorry John.”

“ISA put our fucking lives in danger?” John yelled at him. “For what
Shane? For what?”

“John it wasn’t like that…you have to believe me,” Shane said in
embarrassment as he turned around. What had he done?

“Then you tell me how it was…”

“We had to allow…”

“Who is we?”

“ISA John, ISA….”

“Go on,” he was not amused. His jaw firmly set, the tension on his
face was evident.

“No matter what I tell you, it’s not going to make it better.”

“Marlena was fucking right when she told me that I couldn’t trust
you,” John said in disgust as he threw his hands up in the air and
walked away from Shane.

“She said that?” Shane was surprised and hurt. His friendship with
Marlena went back well before John Black ever arrived in Salem.

“Call it a hunch,” John replied in a much gentler tone, his back still
to Shane. “Chalk it up to her distrust of everyone right now…but damn
she was right. …she was right…you were the only one that knew where we
were staying, the only one that knew about the tracking device on her
belt and in the ring….no one else was supposed to know.”

Knowing that he wasn’t supposed to divulge the information, but not
seeing anyway around it, Shane decided to come clean with John. “There
was an incident where three ISA agents were captured by the resistance
forces in Pakistan… these were some of our best agents.” Shane watched
as John finally heard what he was trying to say and turned around. “We
traded the location of the beach house for the agents.”

John was incredulous; “You fucking played with our lives.”

“They weren’t going to give the men up John.” Shane was in a lose-lose
situation here and John was too upset to try to understand what he was
telling him.

“I don’t give a rats ass about those men…you intentionally put the
life of my wife in danger.”

“John it wasn’t like that…” Shane said in frustration. Turning his
back from John her walked towards the boat. Turning around he said,
“Look we had no choice.”

“There’s always another choice Shane, you know that. You don’t put
your friends lives in danger…you don’t.”

“John, we’ve traded info to save your bloke more times than I can
count…its standard ISA procedure, you know that.”

“Bullshit, that’s different and you know it,”

“How? Because its Marlena?

“Yes because its her….you know how much shit she’s been through that
she has serious trust issues. She’s been frightened for months, never
knowing when we would be caught. We guessed that eventually Owens
would find us, never imagining that our ‘good’ friend would be the one
to hand us over to him on a silver platter. How could you?”

“What do you want me to do John? What happened, happened. ISA felt
that it was in its best interests to trade info on the beach house for
the three agents. If given the choice I’d do it again and so would
you. Once you have time to calm down and think about you’ll agree with
me. No instead of standing here all day and arguing with you about the
situation we need to get off this island.”

“How do I know if I can trust you?”

“You really don’t have a choice from where I see it, do you?”

“Oh I do…how about I leave you on this island and see how you feel.”

“Stop it John,” Marlena yelled towards John as she saw him grab
Shane’s shirt collar and pull him towards him. “Stop it.”

John abruptly let go of Shane and watched as he fell onto the soft
sand below. Looking up at Marlena standing on the boat John was
reminded of all that was good and right in their world. They still had
each other and were free.

“Sorry,” John said as he extended a hand and helped Shane up. “So what’s next?”

“ISA headquarters…Marlena is wanted for questioning.”

Chapter 14

“No way pal,” John exclaimed when Shane told him that his orders were
to fly him and Marlena back to ISA headquarters where Marlena would be
interrogated.

“I’m afraid that you don’t have a choice John,” Shane tried to
explain, mad at himself for having to be such a prat to John. Marlena
stood stoically on the boat deck observing the conversation unfold in
front on her. She could tell that John was upset, just not what was
being said other than his earlier outburst when he grabbed Shane by
the collar.

“You’re just going to hand her over to those bastards aren’t you
Shane?…Aren’t you?” John felt his blood pressure rising once again and
was trying his best not to give into his impulse and slug Shane.

“Look mate, I wish there was another way, but there’s not. This order
is coming from the top….my reaction was the same as yours, believe me,
but I have been assured that ISA will not hand Marlena over to the
Americans, they just need to talk to her and understand what
happened.”

“You know damn well what happened. You showed me all those pictures,
pictures that no other fucking agency was supposed to have.” Some
pictures that were staged and never happened, John wanted to add but
what was the point. Shane obviously had access to and had seen many
more photos than what he shared with him and Roman the day Marlena
mysteriously was rescued from the mental lockup at Salem University
Hospital.

“I know John, but I’ve only seen a small portion of Marlena’s
file….there are some items in there that only those with the highest
level of clearance have access to. I was only given a small portion of
the what the file contained, what I needed to know at the time.”

“You’re starting to scare me Shane…What else could there be?” The more
John thought about it, the more of a puzzle Marlena truly was. They
didn’t just want to question her about the murders, because they
obvious had access to have for years after the murders and had to have
gathered whatever they needed from her then. There was another reason,
perhaps a far sinister one.

“I honestly have no idea, but the chief is adamant that Marlena be
brought in.” Shane was trying his best to play the nonchalant
concerned friend.

“But why? What you are telling me doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Having no choice, Shane decided to give up one of his playing cards
thinking that it was well worth the risk. “My guess, and this is only
my guess, is that ISA thinks that she has something on your President
and they want to know what it is before he finds her.”

***************************************

“Against my better judgement we agreed to come back with you to
headquarters. If our demands aren’t met, we’re going to out of there
before they are even aware that we arrived and I am not joking with
you about this either. If ISA in anyway tries to fuck with us, we’re
history and you can tell the chief I said that,” John said in a
threatening yet adamant tone as he looked over at Shane.

“Understood, “ Shane said nodding his head slightly as he steered the
small four-seat helicopter towards the Italian coast. A million
thoughts were running through his head, the least of which was John
Black and what he was going to do to him if he ever found out what he
had done. Cursing himself for dancing with the devil in the pale moon
light he had no choice but to sit back and let history unfold as it
was meant to, history that began almost sixty years before in the damp
basement of a house in Amsterdam.

“I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t let you question her. I
trust you. I don’t trust them.” John really didn’t trust Shane
Donovan. All of Marlena’s suspicions about him were always in the
forefront of his mind. She was one of the smartest women he’d ever
known, with the best intuition. If she was picking up on something,
chances were there was something there.

“Not my area of expertise,” Shane said with little emotion. John sat
studying him, looking for a weakness, for a reason not to follow him
to ISA headquarters. As an ISA agent himself John knew what danger he
was putting his own career in should he ignore the order. The ISA had
been more than generous and helpful in arranging for and safeguarding
them from the American government for months. Was this a legitimate
interrogation, a debriefing of sorts or was it more? Were they walking
into a trap?

“That shouldn’t matter…All ISA agents are trained to be more than
capable interviewers. Hell we make the FBI and CIA look like
amateurs,” John retorted knowing that a standard interrogation could
easily and effectively be done by any agent. This was more, much more.

“True,” Shane laughed as he quickly glanced behind him at Marlena.
Sitting calmly, hands in her lap, she stared out the window as the
world passed her by. “But like I said earlier, whatever is in her head
they only want the experts to extract.”

“See now, that worries me…she’s told us all that she knows, what else
could there be?”

“Would you please stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Marlena
finally spoke up. She was growing tired of John treating her like a
child and Shane’s deception. John trusted Shane, she didn’t. There was
something about him that was off and as hard as she tried to deny it
and act like things were okay with them, she couldn’t. She was being
set up. Breathing in and out through her nose she tried to ward off a
panic attack. John already saw her as weak; she didn’t want to further
validate his perception.

“I apologize Marlena,” Shane offered as he nervously picked at a
hangnail on his index finger. The small pain he felt then was nothing
compared to what he was going to feel if he didn’t follow his orders
and bring her in as instructed.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to,” John said as he turned around and
looked back at Marlena. He could see her attempt at masking her
feelings. As hard as she tried to hide from him, he would always be
able to read her like none other.

“Well I’ve been thinking and your plans have changed.”

“What do you mean?” Shane asked, wondering what she had up her sleeve.
John was predictable, Marlena wasn’t. From what he’d seen in her
files, her high IQ, sharp whit and ‘training’ made her a dangerous and
formidable adversary.

“There’s an old NATO listening post near the town of Bad Orb in
Germany. Once you refuel in Italy you may place a call to the ‘chief’
and let him know that our plans have changed. If they want to question
me, fine, but they’re going to do it on my terms.” Sitting back in her
seat, arms crossed over her chest, Marlena Evans Black was the picture
of a determined and serious woman. John was stunned, the feisty woman
that he loved had returned and with more of an attitude than ever
before.

“Marlena, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Shane tried to interject.

“Why? Because it’s not convenient? Because you didn’t plan it? Because
it complicates their plans?” Marlena asked snidely.

“Well no…”

“Then it shouldn’t matter…they way I see it, I’m the one calling the
shots now…If they want to question me, then they’ll have to do it my
way.”

“Okay, fine,” Shane said in defeat. This was not an argument that he
was going to win. John turned and looked out his window and the dark
blue sea below him, hiding the smile on his face.

********************************

“Marlena, my name is Herbert Gunther,” The small bespectacled man said
as he held out his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

Taking his hand and shaking it in the expected and customary manner
Marlena remained silent, not sure of what she could say and not in the
mood to break the ice. So much of the ISA was frightening to her.
Although John and Roman were agents for the ISA and had been for most
of their lives, the world of ISA was still so foreign and secretive to
her.

“Please have a seat.”

Marlena slowly sat down in the institutional chair and crossed her
legs. She wanted nothing more than to take a shower but that would
have to wait. Along with new pictures of her children and information
on Eric, they promised that she could talk to Roman on the phone. She
needed to hear about her babies and knew that she wouldn’t be able to
talk to Sami or Belle without breaking down on the phone. They needed
for her to be strong, for her to be okay.

“What do you want to know?” she asked defensively.

“Dr. Evans, may I call you Marlena?

“That’s fine.”

“This should only take a little while and then you can see John again.”

“What do you want to know?” She asked again, not sure what more could
be told that they already didn’t know.

“Everything,” he said as he donned a pair of glasses and flipped the
button on the light switch. The room suddenly went dark and a series
of red lights started intermittently flashing along one wall of the
room. Marlena tried to look away but was drawn to the blinking
pattern.

*******************************

“What’s taking so long?” John asked Shane as he crushed his empty
standard issue paper coffee cup in his hand and threw it against the
wall. The minute the helicopter landed several members of the elite
ISA security force greeted them and took both him and Marlena to a
secure building in the center of the former Army post. How the hell
Marlena even knew that this place existed was puzzling to John.

“I’m not sure.”

“Bullshit, they’ve been questioning her for hours…what the hell for?

“Then what happened?” Dr. Gunther asked her as he ran his callused
hand down her arm slowly.

“I don’t remember,” she pleaded with him. He’d been asking her
questions for what seemed like hours. Her mind was confused, not being
able to differentiate between fact and fiction. The longer the
questioning went on the worse it was. The man kept calling her Julie
but she was Marlena, yet she had Julie’s memories.

“But I think you do Julie. I think you know everything and have known
it all along but for some reason are afraid to tell anyone.” Dr.
Gunther was concerned that his questioning wasn’t going according to
plan. He’d used the standard ISA drug and light hypnosis on her,
similar to what had been done when he’d treated her thirty years
before ameliorate what was Julie Dimera and create Marlena Evans.
Despite his best efforts Marlena Evans had become such a strong part
of her personality and was inadvertently putting up blocks to prevent
Julie from recalling details of her past that she could easily recall
years earlier when her treatment started.

“Honestly I’m telling the truth, “ she said as she grabbed his hand to
still his movement. “I don’t know Maxwell Owens.”

“Think back to your childhood Julie. Think back to that. What do you
see when you close your eyes?”

“I don’t remember.” She was trying to remember, but all she was seeing
in her mind was her in this same room 30 years before, green
tourniquet applied to her arm and some man that she called Marvin
shoving a hypodermic harshly into the thin layer of her dermis asking
her the same set of questions over and over again. “what do you see
when you close your eyes?….What’s your given name? Who are your
parents? How old are you? Who are your siblings? Where do you live?
Who is Rafael Torres? Does the name mean anything to you? When I say
the name Rafael Torres, do you feel anything? Is so what? Who is
Channing Owens? Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the
name Channing Owens, do you feel anything? Is so what? Who is Mason
Jones? Does the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Mason
Jones, do you feel anything? Is so what? Who is Alexander North? Does
the name mean anything to you? When I say the name Alexander North, do
you feel anything? Is so what?”

“What did you just remember Julie?” The man asked as he learned over
her as she squirmed on the hard vinyl chair. She could smell the stale
coffee on his breath mixed with the perspiration of his armpits.

Turning her head away from the smell, meekly she said, “nothing,” not
knowing if what she was seeing was real or just fantasies. Somehow she
knew the answers to all of those questions. Her name was Julie Dimera
and Marlena Evans; her parents were John and Katherine Dimera and
Frank and Martha Evans. Her only sibling was Samantha. She knew Rafael
Torres, Channing Owens, Mason Jones and Alexander North. She also knew
Matthew and Suzanne Dimera…she knew them all, everyone on the list
that they tried so hard to make her forget. Every touch, every death,
every once of pain and joy she felt. Feeling an incredible sense of
loss deep in the pit of her stomach she suddenly grabbed her stomach
and bent over in pain.

“What are you remembering Julie?” Dr. Gunther asked, unsure of what
was going on in her head that was manifesting itself in physical pain.

“I’m going to be sick….I don’t want to do this….I don’t want to
remember,” she begged him to stop.

“Just a little while and it will be over. The sooner you tell me
everything that you remember, and everything that you remember about
El Diablo, the sooner that we can stop and you can rest. Do you think
you can do that?” he asked in an almost patronizing manner.

Shaking her head yes, she said nothing.

“What were you remembering that caused you to grab your stomach earlier?”

Unable to put into words the extreme loss she felt and the
overwhelming sense of grief and sadness at the forefront of her mind,
she bent over in pain holding onto her stomach and willing herself not
to vomit.

“Give me a name? Who are you remembering? Give me a name? Who are you
remembering? Give me a name? Who are you remembering?” he fired the
questions off in rapid succession not wanting to give her time to put
up her defenses.

“Forrest….I remember a boy named Forrest,” Marlena said right before
she passed out.

*****************************

“Get the chief on the phone,” Dr. Gunther said as he exited the small
interrogation room, locking the door behind him. “This is far worse
than we thought.” He clipped the key ring onto his belt and then wiped
his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.

“What do you mean Dr. Gunther?” The ISA agent assigned to the case
asked. He had been assigned to several cases over the past couple
years where Dr. Gunther had been the doctor in charge of memory wiping
and restoration and this was the first time he’d seen the good doctor
so flustered. Something had happened during the interrogation that Dr.
Gunther was not pleased with.

“Apparently at some time, despite our best efforts, Julie Dimera and
Forrest Alamain met.”

“We know that….they’re married to each other now.”

“No before,” Dr. Gunther said, looking up at ISA Agent Smith waiting
for his reaction. “After the Pine Mountain incident, ISA agent Evans
took her and Samantha on vacation where the Alamain family was also on
holiday. After all our efforts to keep her isolated from the Dimera
family she was cavorting with Forrest and Matthew of all people.”

“This is not acceptable.”

“Devastating news alright….Not only was she traveling with Evans,
which he was instructed not to do, the operatives assigned to the
Dimera and Alamain clans failed to notice the interaction. After I
wiped her memory clean and created Marlena, Evans was instructed not
to expose her to anything that would trigger her memory returning. He
is the only one outside of ISA that knew what those triggers were. He
had to have known that if she ever met Forrest Alamain or any of the
Dimeras so soon after the incident there would be a great possibility
of parts or all of her memories returning.”

“Maybe she’s lying?”

“Trust me, she’s not. She not only passed out when she remembered him,
but once I revived her she was able to provide information in
excruciating and exact detail, things that the mind cannot make up. Oh
your Julie Dimera knew Forrest Alamain all right. Furthermore,
whatever was in her head she told Forrest I’m sure.”

“I’ll tell the chief Dr. Gunther. You work on Julie Dimera or Marlena
Evans or whatever you want to call her. What do we call her?”

“Marlena…We’ve been instructed by the top brass that Julie Dimera only
exists in very controlled settings. I worked for years to program her
so that she wouldn’t remember a thing about Julie Dimera or the Dimera
family.”

“What’s your next course of action? Is there any way to control the
return of her memories so that she only remembers what you want her
to?”

“Yes, however in order to extract the information that the chief wants
I will need permission to remove the block.”

“Are you sure that’s necessary? The chief provided specific
instructions not to do that.”

“I am well aware of that directive, however, it is in my professional
opinion that in order for us to acquire the information that is stored
in her head she needs to fully remember the past. That will only
happen if we undo the block that was placed there 30 years ago.”

“What’s the risk to Dr. Evans and to the mission?’

“I won’t lie to you Agent Smith, there is a high degree of risk.
Marlena is still under hypnosis right now. I’ve tried all the
conventional psychotherapy techniques but so far have been unable to
extract the information. She seems to have compartmentalized her past
and stored it deep.”

“Compartmentalized?”

“I rarely see someone with the intelligence that is necessary to be
able to do that. Most operatives and civilians I treat are easy cases;
the mind will conceal and reveal what I want it to given certain
triggers and events. Dr. Evans is different, although the instructions
and treatment given to her were the same, due to her unusual
disposition and strong sense of self-preservation, although told to do
one thing, her mind did another. In only one other case have I ever
seen anyone do that.”

“Do it…I’ll tell the chief.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure…I’ll take full responsibility for this one. We are running
out of time. She’s not safe here. We need to get the information and
get her out of here before the others find out that we have her.”

“Agent Smith, if I do it she’s got to be under guard. If she were to
leave the facility with the information part of her long term memory
there could be devastating consequences for all of us.”

“How bad could it be?”

“Worse than you could imagine…only in her mind does she know not only
know the location of 50 billion dollars in drug money that the ISA and
countless others including the Dimera and Torres families have been
searching for, but she also has something on President Maxwell Owens
that I have not been able to figure out what it is.”

“That’s it? That’s what everyone has been after her for?”

“That’s what the Dimera and Torres family are after her for now and
why President Owens wants to chat with her. That’s not why ISA wants
her though.”

“What does ISA want with her?” Agent Smith whispered, as he looked up
and down the hallway making sure that no one was listening in on the
conversation. Internally he was questioning why he wasn’t told this
information as he was assigned to the case.

Realizing that he’d said more than he should have and that Agent Smith
obviously wasn’t privy to this information Dr. Gunther turned towards
the door, not answering Agent Smith’s question.

“Dr. Gunther, you have one hour to do whatever you have to do to her,”
Agent Smith said as he turned to walk away. “I’ll call security and
make sure that John Black is kept far away from her.” God help them
all if this didn’t work.

Chapter 15

Laying on her side on the worn linoleum floor in the corner of the
room, Marlena held precariously onto her side trying to calm her
nerves and trying to make sense of the thoughts running through her
head. Nothing made sense to her. Pictures and feelings that she’d
never had were suddenly there. The more she tried to analyze what she
was seeing the more she felt like her past was not her own, but
someone else’s.

“Julie, Julie…Such a little foolie,” he taunted her. She felt his cold
hand move up and down her spine slowly, each finger tracing the bumpy
path along her vertebrae.

“Stop,” she begged him as she tried to move away from him and his
touch. She was so tired and had little energy left. Trying to open her
eyes, she was unable to summon even the energy necessary for that one
little act.

“I miss you.”

“No you don’t,” she moaned as she slowly covered her ears with her
hands in an attempt to still the sound. The cold linoleum against her
back chilled her thin frame.

“You’re worthless and will never amount to anything.” The voice
suddenly turned cruel.

“Please stop,” she begged again as she cupped her hands tighter over
her ears. As hard as she tried to still the sound and the ever-present
images she was unable to. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in
John’s strong arms and for him to make the world right again for her.

“Men don’t want a smart girl, they just want a tight piece of ass.”

She felt the light touch of his fingers as he moved from her back down
lower and was unable to control her gag reflux any longer. She felt
him, she smelled him, she heard him. But he was dead. “Stop,” she
moaned again as she tried to sit up and validate that what she was
seeing was feeling was real and not another cruel illusion.

“I could travel the word and buy things that would make kings and
queens drool with envy but none of that would ever compare to your
worth to me. You are everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman.”

“Stop,” she screamed. “Just stop.” She knew who that voice belonged to
and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t her father. It belonged to Forrest and
was one of the last things that he’d ever said to her before fate tore
them apart and sent them on paths uncertain.

“Go to sleep Julie….go to sleep.”

“I’m not tired…I want to see Forrest,” she muttered as the odorless
gas filled her lungs and rendered her unconscious, her mind still not
bridging the gap between John Black and Forrest Alamain being one in
the same.

Observing from the small monitor in the adjacent room, Agent Smith and
Shane Donovan watched as Marlena Evans laid lifeless on the floor but
for the occasional seizure that precariously pulled her from the
depths of her unconsciousness and shook her frame without regard.

“Smith, you bloody well better know what you’re doing,” Shane said in
disgust as he watched Marlena, unable to take what they were doing to
her.

“Relax Agent Donovan, relax. Dr. Gunther says its necessary to do this
to unlock her mind,” Agent Smith tried to reassure him, not entirely
convinced himself. Everything about this situation, about this woman,
seemed contradict to standard ISA procedure.

“Cruelty is necessary? You can see how terrified she is,” he said in
anger, his finger shaking as he pointed it at the small monochrome
monitor. Marlena was in the midst of a nightmare, screaming out at a
force unseen. Shane wondered how much of that nightmare was the result
of what the ISA was doing to her and how much of it was due to the
demons of her past.

“It’s harmless, she won’t remember a thing,” Agent Smith remarked as
he took a swig of the stale coffee from his cup.

“I think that’s what your whole problem is, maybe she is remembering
and the more you interfere with the natural process of memory
reclamation with your ‘procedures’ the worse its becoming for her.”

“Don’t worry Donovan…this is a standard procedure,” Agent Smith said
repeating the standard agency line. Nothing about this was standard.
If this was standard then he would have been completely debriefed
about the situation before and he would have had some idea of what the
expected outcome was. He understood that her mind contained valuable
information, but he was somewhat skeptical of the exact nature of the
information and its relevance.

Shane watched with hesitation as the door opened and Dr. Gunther
entered the room. Kneeling on the floor next to Marlena he took her
vital signs. “Pulse and heart rate are within the normal range.”

“She’s out,” he said not bothering to look up, knowing that the
unknown cameras and hidden microphones would pick up everything that
occurred in the room. Seconds later two armed guards wearing black ski
masks entered the room and knelt next to hom on the floor.

“Hold her down, “ he instructed them as he took the protective cover
off the tip of his syringe and lowered it towards her still face.
Prying her left eye and holding it open with his hand he injected the
cool liquid into the thin membrane of her cornea.

“You bastards,” Shane yelled at as he grabbed Agent Smith by the
collar of his uniform. “You bloody bastards,” he screamed at him again
as he shoved him against the wall.

“I’d strongly advise you to let go of me now or your career is over,”
Agent Smith calmly said, stunned by Agent Donovans’ reaction. Agents
were taught to remain detached to their subjects. When had Shane
Donovan begun to lose that objectivity and start to care about what
happened to Marlena Evans?

Shane fought for control of his emotions knowing that he could
possibly be making the situation worse for Marlena. “I apologize Agent
Smith. That little maneuver was quite unexpected,” Shane said, his
demeanor suddenly changing. “It won’t happen again.”

Agent Smith nodded as he continued to watch the monitor fascinated and
yet scared at the same time as to why this one woman was so important
to so many people.

*******

“Where the hell is my wife?” John screamed at the guard, oblivious to
the fact that the man was pointing a gun at him. “Where the fuck is
she?”

“Agent Black, it’s in your best professional interest not to fight or
make a scene,” the guard finally told him, having long grown tired of
John Black’s verbal tirade.

“I don’t give a damn about my career,” John snidely remarked,
frustrated that of all the things that the man could think about and
say to him, it was about his career. His career was the furthest thing
from his mind. Hell, he was seriously doubting his career choice and
his commitment to his employer at this point in time. The longer the
questioning went on, questioning that he wasn’t comfortable with in
the first place, the more he began to doubt his decision and Marlena’s
to allow it.

“You should.”

John was about to get up and test the mans orders to shoot when Shane
Donovan entered the room, his face a deathly pale color.

“What’s wrong Shane?” John asked as he tried to stand up. He quickly
sat back down seeing the intent in the guard’s eyes; he was looking
for a reason to shoot John.

“Nothing,” Shane said as he acknowledged the guard and the walked over
to where John was sitting and sat down in the chair next to him. “It’s
just been a long day…I hear you’ve been giving the guards a hard
time,” Shane said as he motioned with his eyes towards the camera in
the corner.

Reading between the lines John headed Shane’s caution and responded,
“I just want to make sure that my wife is okay.” He’d been so consumed
with worrying about Marlena that he failed to notice the typical ISA
intel setup. Why’d he think that he and Marlena would be immune from
standard surveillance?

“I just saw her and things are going well. I wouldn’t worry about her
if I were you,” Shane said, not looking at John in the eyes. John was
chilled to the bone. Every hair on the back of his neck was standing
up; something was very wrong about the whole situation. The whole time
he’d known Shane he’d never been that positive, John always assumed
that it was his English nature.

“Can I see her?” he asked, trying his hardest not to let the guard or
the people watching him that he knew something was going terribly
wrong. He hoped and prayed that whatever was happening, that it wasn’t
with Marlena.

“Not yet….The psychiatrist is almost done with his tests,” Shane told
John, knowing that if he mentioned who was treating Marlena, he’d go
through the roof. After everything had come to an end, if it ever did,
Shane hoped that John and Marlena would be able to forgive him for all
the things that he’d done in the name of the ISA.

“And then we can go?”

“I’m not sure…that’s the chiefs call,” was Shane’s best guess. He
honestly had no idea what the ISA planned next. His orders were to
bring them in for questioning and he felt guilty that Marlena had so
easily fallen into their trap and demanded to be taken to the one
place where they knew she would. So much of what she thought and how
she acted had been programmed into her years before. Shane used to lie
awake at night wondering who the real Marlena was, but determined that
the real answer was fruitless.

“Could you check on the situation for me?” John asked, feeling lightheaded.

“Sure….let me go and see if I can get an update on your situation from
the chief.”

“Thanks Shane…I appreciate all that you’ve done for us pal.”

****************

What the hell was that?” the agent watching the encounter asked the other one.

“I’m not sure….something is up. It’s not in John Black’s profile for
him to remain that calm.”

“Call the chief.”

********************

Maxwell Owens slowly set down the receiver on his phone with a shaking
hand, stunned by the news. After months of searching for the elusive
Julie it looked as if he was finally going to get his revenge. Ever
since he received the news almost seven months ago that the
fingerprints matched and that Julie had been living a comfortable life
as Dr. Marlena Evans in Salem for most of her adult life he’d been
obsessed with finding her. He’d seen the tapes that Alexander North
had handed over to him showing her brief stay in the Salem University
Hospital psychiatric unit.

For hours, over and over again he’d watched the tapes, mesmerized by
the image of a grown Julie. He’d often wondered over the years if she
was alive and what she might look like. He still saw her as the filthy
child with the sad hazel eyes that never talked. He had to stop
thinking about her or he was going to go crazy.

“Shirley,” he said as he pressed the button on the intercom. The
slight hum of the device the only discernable noise in the room.

“Yes President Maxwell,” the portly woman responded.

“Call Bill and the other men on that list now. Tell them that
Operation Golden Arrow is in effect and I expect a full briefing in
twenty minutes.” Letting go of the button, he leaned back in his
high-back leather chair smiling for the first time in months. All the
searching and all the questioning was about to come to an end. The
feeling was almost bittersweet to him; justice was finally going to be
served.

“Dimera, you are next,” he thought as he stood up and walked to the
back of the Oval Office and removed a painting that was a remnant of
the Clinton White House; a dog playing poker. Although his wife hated
the picture, he found it ironic and insisted on keeping it rather than
placing back into the archives. Behind the painting was a wall safe
which he seldom used. Spinning the familiar combination he waited
until he heard and felt the faint click as the internal lock mechanism
opened. “You’re next,” he thought again, his excitement building as he
opened the heavy door and located the folder marked ‘MB 04’. Carefully
extracting the thin manila he slowly opened it quickly flipping
through the dozen or so pages. No matter how many times he read the
report and looked at the scant pictures contained within, his reaction
was always the same; he was ashamedly aroused. “Should have been me,”
he remarked outloud as he carefully tore one of the photographs down
the middle and placed the picture of Marlena Black into his pocket.

*****************

Shane paced pack and forth in the small room next to where Dr. Gunther
was treating Marlena. For the first time in his life he was terrified,
knowing that he was way over his head, with on one to turn to and no
one to trust. Whatever they wanted from Marlena it was huge. He’d been
with the ISA for most of his career and been involved in countess
covert operations, but he’d never seen such a level of secrecy,
security and urgency. The halls of the old NATO post were filled with
an electricity that he’d never experienced. People seemed afraid to
talk, afraid to venture out of their assignments. Something big was
going down, the question was when, why and how. Even he felt that he
was being watched. He surmised that it was only natural that he was
being watched since he was the agent assigned to Marlena Evans for the
last twenty years. He knew her file, knew her life almost better than
his own. As hard as he fought over the years to remain detached and to
treat her as nothing more than an assignment, he was unable to. She
had always been more than an assignment to him, becoming something
akin to family over the passing years.

As he paced back and forth in front of the monitor her occasional
screams brought him back to the present. After years of playing the
company man he had a choice to make. He could stand by and let the
course of events play out as they were planned and no one would ever
know what his role in everything had been. Or he could do what was
right, but still morally questionable, and put an end to all of this
misery. The time was now and the choice was his.

Watching Marlena writhe in mental plain before him was too much for
Shane to take. Reaching into his pants pocket he slowly fingered the
sides of his cell phone inconspicuously locating the small thin button
on the side that controlled the ring volume on most phones. Shane
gently pressed it in hoping that his summon for help would be heard at
the same time not sure if he was making the right decision. He had the
best of intentions all along but it no longer seemed to matter.

**********

Across thousands of miles of ocean the signal was received.

“Oh thank god,” the man said as his computer came to life and
projected the image onto the large screen.

“Germany,” one of his men said stating the obvious, pointing at the screen.

“Send in the team and do what you have to do.” As the homing beacon on
the phone projected a red blinking color on the screen the men stared
in silence each aware of the great risk in what they were about to do.

**********

“No,” Marlena screamed as she strained against the thin straps
circling her wrists that held her against the wall. “No.”

“What did he tell you?” the man asked once again.

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t….I really don’t.”

“You remember everything Julie….everything.”

“NO,” she screamed again as images from her past returned with
surprising clarity. “John…..John….John,” she gasped for air. She saw
the guillotine start to drop and felt the heartbreaking pain that this
was the end for him. “John,” she screamed again as she felt the binds
on her hands where Orpheus tied her up and thew her into the dusty
cargo hold of the small prop plane. “Help me,” she screamed again,
“Save me.”

Shane watched the scene unfold in front of him helpless to do anything
about it. Reaching into his pocket he felt the side of his phone once
again and slowly pressed another button, turning off the tracking
mechanism on her engagement ring. Knowing that his career and possibly
his life was on the line, he calmly accepted his fate.

“Nooooooooo,” Marlena screamed again, commanding Shane’s attention.
“Nooooooooo,” she screamed again, lost in a nightmare that was all too
real. She saw and felt the ship sinking, saw Forrest drowning before
her. But he didn’t drown; he left her alone in her grief, alone when
she needed him most. She begged him to stay and stand by her, but he
wouldn’t, he couldn’t. “Don’t leave me John.”

Chapter 16

“Nooooooooo,” Marlena screamed again, commanding Shane’s attention.
“Nooooooooo,” she screamed again, lost in a nightmare that was all too
real. She saw and felt the ship sinking, saw Forrest drowning before
her. But that’s not how she remembered it happening. He didn’t drown;
he left her alone in her grief, alone when she needed him most. She
begged him to stay and stand by her, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t.
“Don’t leave me John. Please don’t leave me again.”

“It’s happening,” Dr. Gunther warned the others as he wiped his sweaty
palms on his threadbare trousers and watched Marlena thrash on the
floor in front of him, he arms still chained to the wall. Quickly he
undid the restraints. “She’s starting to remember…hurry and pick her
up and place her in that chair,” he said as he motioned to the men.
Silently the masked men roughly picked Marlena up and placed her in
the chair. Blonde hair hiding her face, she slid forward in the chair
and Dr. Gunther had to reach out and steady her to keep her from
falling.

“What in the bloody hell are you going to do to her now?” Shane asked
Dr. Gunther as he forced his way into the room. A blast of air from
the overhead vent chilled him. He looked down at Marlena and noticed
that her eyes were rolled back in her head and her teeth were
chattering.

“Ah Mr. Donovan,” Dr. Gunther said, looking up at him. “I’m so glad
that you could join us. After all you were there in the beginning….”

“Don’t remind me,” Shane interrupted. “If I’d have known then what I
know now you can be bloody sure that I wouldn’t have participated.”

“Why I seem to remember that you were quite eager back then….A young
beautiful girl with a recreated past was just the challenge you were
looking for,” Gunther crudely reminded him, taking him back to a place
30 years before that he rarely liked to visit.

“Herb, I’m not proud of what I’ve done in the name of my county and
world security…I’m not,” Shane admitted as he turned his back to Dr.
Gunther and looked out the barred window at the barren concrete
landscape before him. The sun was starting to set, casting interesting
shadows on the wall.

“I don’t think any of us are, but why do you care?”

“You know why. It’s not right.”

“According to your standards Shane, but not according to mine. If this
mission upsets you so, perhaps you ought to talk to the chief about a
reassignment or retirement,” Dr. Gunther suggested as he leaned over
Marlena and lifted her shirt, exposing her breasts. Shane looked away
as Dr. Gunther preciously felt along her protruding ribs and
breastbone. Finding the spot he was looking for, he jabbed the needle
of the hypodermic in as far as it would go. Slowly pushing down on the
tip of the plunger, he released the high dose of amphetamine directly
into her heart.

“Was that necessary?” Shane asked, disgusted by how Marlena was once
again being treated.

“I don’t see anyone standing by and forcing you to watch,” Dr. Gunther
smirked. “Now I suggest that you leave before she wakes up and I begin
questioning her,” he added, deciding to keep Shane’s secret from
Marlena. In due time she would know, Dr. Gunther thought as he coldly
watched Shane nervously rub the top of his head as he left the room.

“Julie…I know that you’re in there,” he said as he flashed the small
stream of light directly into her left pupil. “Come out wherever you
are,” he chided her, no longer caring about the sensitivity of his
treatment. As more time went on he became more nervous, anticipating
that at any minute John Black would come busting through the door like
a white night trying to rescue his precious queen. Seeing her pupil
dilate he let go of her lid and watched it as it naturally closed and
then struggled to open.

“Come on Julie.”

“Dr. Gunther?” she whispered as she struggled to open her eyes. “I
don’t feel so well.”

“That’s only natural. You’ve been resting for quite a while my dear,”
he said with a smile on his face and concern in his voice. Although
the risk for this seldom done procedure was high, Dr. Gunther was
looking forward to it.

“I want to sleep.”

“You will in a couple minutes. I have some questions for you…do you
think you could help me out.”

“I don’t know.”

“Try for me, then you can sleep.”

“Okay,” Marlena said as she struggled to wake up. She felt that
something was off but couldn’t put her finger on what it was. As she
struggled to recall the last thing she remembered, she was horrified
to realize that she didn’t remember anything. Nothing. Absolutely
nothing. “What did you do to me?” she asked as her eyes slowly opened.
“What did you do to me?” she asked again. Her mind was a blank canvas
without color or form. “What did you do?” she screamed in a panic as
she struggled to stand up. “Oh god….oh god…oh god…what’s wrong with
me?” she asked rhetorically as she paced in front of the window. She
had no idea of who she was or where she’d been or most importantly why
she was in the room. Furthermore, she had no idea what was outside of
the room or if she could leave.

“My name is Marlena,” she said defiantly to him, recalling the name
from somewhere deep inside her. She remembered him calling her Julie
when she woke up.

“No, your name is Julie,” he said as he stood behind her and placed
his hands on her shoulders in a kind and concerned manner. He felt the
shaking of her thin frame as she internally questioned her sanity. How
was it possible to lose your life?

“I don’t know who Julie is….I’m Marlena,” she stated adamantly as she
shook her head and tried to loosen his hands from her shoulders. She
wasn’t Julie.

“What is the last thing you remember?” he asked as he massaged her shoulders.

“I don’t remember anything…what did you do?” Suddenly she jerked out
of his hold and turned around and stared at him. Something about him
was so familiar.

“Of course you remember Julie…. Of course you remember Marlena.”
Nothing about this was routine anymore. He’d been instructed to call
her Marlena, but sensed that he’d get to her real memories sooner if
he also called her Julie.

“I don’t,” she said as she grabbed her head. All her thoughts and
suspicions were swirling around in a symphony in her head and the
harder she tried to remember the worse she felt. “I can’t do this,”
she whispered as she fell to the floor. “Who am I?”

“You are a very special woman…a very special woman with so much to
tell me….now lets start at the beginning.” Slowly Dr. Gunther reached
for her face and slowly cupped her cheek in his hand. Wiping the
errant tears tenderly with his thumb, he moved closer and closer to
Marlena until their faces were mere inches apart. She wanted to pull
out of his hold and hide. Looking around the room for a closet that
would make her safe, that would provide shelter from feelings that she
knew were lurking below the surface she was unable to find one.
“There’s always was a closet,” she whispered as she closed her eyes,
letting the tears freely flow.

“Stop…Just stop,” Shane demanded as he barged into the room unable to
take the emotional abuse that Herbert Gunther seemed to delight in
inflicting on an unstable Marlena.

“Leave now,” Dr. Gunther said in anger as he continued to stroke the
side of her face. They were at a critical juncture in her memory
retrieval and restoration. Any outside stimuli could irreparably
damage her true memory and he wasn’t about to risk his mission because
of Shane Donovan’s misplaced insecurities and some sense of duty and
protection towards his charge.

“I can’t,” Shane whispered as he watched Dr. Gunther. “I can’t.”

“Guard’s,” Dr. Gunther called out in alarm as he continued to stroke
Marlena’s face. She was so close to remembering her past. He only
needed to push past one last barrier and her mind would be putty in
his hands.

“Seamus?” she confusedly asked as she looked up at his tall and
handsome form. “What are you doing here?”

“Marlena?” Shane asked as he approached her.

“This can’t be happening,” she said as she pulled out of Dr. Gunther’s
hold and slowly walked backwards until the wall was directly behind
her. Palms behind her, she gently felt the rough concrete against her
fingertips as she looked for a place to hold onto. The situation was
all wrong and impossible.

“Marlena?” Shane asked again as he approached her.

“Nooooooo,” she cried out as she grabbed onto the wall and felt the
snap of one of her nails as it broke from the pressure.
“Noooooooo….this isn’t possible…..Nooooo.”

Shane stood before her and tried to touch her but she shirked back,
afraid of him. “Get out now,” Dr. Gunther sternly warned him. Two
guards, once again in black masks, stormed into the room. “Remove
him,” Dr. Gunther demanded as he pointed at Shane.

“I can explain it Marlena,” Shane shouted to her as he was physically
drug out of the
room by the guards. “I can explain everything.”

“You lied to me,” she screamed at him. “You lied…you’re one of them.”
Her mind bridged that connection with surprising speed and accuracy.
“You are all one of them,” she screamed out at no one in particular.
“Where is Forrest? I want Forrest….FORREST,” she screamed out as a
sudden searing pain in her head rendered her incapacitated. She closed
her eyes welcoming her memories of Forrest as they returned.

********

Marlena…Marlena….Marlena,” Stefano whispered as he held the queen
chess piece next to his heart. “What have they done to you my queen?”
he asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Damn John…Damn you,” he said as he thought back to his younger
brother. Handsome and charming, John was the apple of his mother’s eye
from an early age. As Stefano struggled through his early years
competing for his fathers’ attention, he always knew that he would
never be as good enough or smart as his six older brothers in his
fathers eyes. Joining the family business at 16, Stefano asked to be
sent to the West Indies to manage the Dimera family interests.
Ruthless and shrewd, he was determined to earn his fathers respect.
“Enough about the past,” he said outloud as he walked to the balcony
doors and opened them. “But why?” he asked again, troubled by the
situation, not understanding how a monster like his brother could have
created such an exquisite creature like Marlena.

************

Maxwell Owens took the much fingered picture of Marlena Evans Black
out of his pocket and held it to his lips. “Vengeance is mine,” he
promised her. “Vengeance is mine….soon I shall have you sitting before
me begging for your life.”

***********

“Forrest,” Marlena screamed as she crawled on the floor towards the
steel door. “Forrest…don’t leave me,” she begged, tears streaming down
her face.

“Julie, who is Forrest?” Dr. Gunther asked her, trying to distract her.

“You know who he is,” she calmly said as she sat up and looked him in
the eyes. The brightness of the overhead fluorescent bulb illuminated
her orbs, bringing out the yellow in them. She looked like a cat that
was about to attack its prey. “My name is Marlena,” she coldly
informed him.

“That may be, but you are also Julie.”

“Julie is dead. You and Seamus killed her a long time ago….God, I feel
so stupid now. I must be the running joke at ISA,” she said as she
stood up and wiped her hands on her bare legs. “I feel so naive…my
whole life has been nothing but a lie that both of you have
orchestrated. Shane, Seaumus, whatever your real name is…”

“Marlena its not like that,” Shane interrupted.

“THEN YOU TELL ME HOW IT IS,” she screamed at him, all the rage built
up in her for what she had just realized that she’d lost spilled over.
“Tell me how it is.”

Shane looked down at the floor, unable to respond. The day that he’d
always feared was coming was here and there was nothing he could do.
This wasn’t, she wasn’t, a tidy package that he could rewrap and place
a bow on anymore. Her feelings of betrayal and memories of what she’d
lost were quite real. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t Mr. Donovan?” she asked, no longer caring about
maintaining an semblance of a relationship with him. “All this time,
all these years, I’ve been nothing but an assignment to you….AM I
RIGHT?”

Shane continued looking at the floor, as the two guards continued
holding him away from her. “Marlena, I need to ask you more
questions,” Dr. Gunther tried to intercede.

“Fuck your questions….I’m done….I’m done with you and the ISA,” she
said as she walked towards the door and put her hand on the cold metal
handle.

“Marlena, you were more than an assignment,” Shane admitted as he
struggled to move closer to her. “You have to believe me.”

“How can I? All the years you sat at my dining room table eating
alongside my family, you knew all this stuff about me. You probably
found it all amusing didn’t you? Probably laughed afterwards as you
filed your little reports with the ISA on me….I can see it now. ‘I had
dinner with Marlena and her family tonight. She thinks that she is
such competent doctor but if she only knows that she needs help more
than her patients’…”

“That’s not true,” he interrupted.

“I don’t believe you anymore Shane…I had a right to know about my
past…. It’s mine, not yours.” She was livid and out of control,
Shane’s betrayal more than she could tolerate. “All those years Shane,
acting like you were my friend….” she said and then suddenly stopped,
lost in thought.

“Marlena?” Shane asked, not liking the silence in the room.

“Roman’s known all along about me, hasn’t he?” She didn’t want to know
the answer, but needed to know. “He knows doesn’t he?” Tears slowly
ran down the side of her face that she made no effort to hide or
still. “He knows.”

“No Marlena…..No,” Shane said in a panic. “He doesn’t know.”

“How could he not? He was an employee of the ISA and I was a project.
He was sent to watch me wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m right….I’m right….I’m right,” she said as she let go of the
handle, the burden of what she learned to much for her psyche. “John?”
she choked out in a sob, her eyes welling up with tears. “Was John
involved?” Time seemed to stop for her as she turned towards Dr.
Gunther and Shane and waited for the answer, looking back and forth
between them for any signs that they weren’t telling the truth. Each
second passed with the heavy beating of her heart, a heart that was
breaking with each nanosecond.

“I don’t know,” Shane whispered. “I don’t know.”

“LIAR?” she screamed at him. “You’re all liars…I don’t trust anyone….I
can’t trust anyone.” Turning back to the door, she once again placed
her and on the handle. “I can’t trust anyone,” she whispered. John
couldn’t have been part of this conspiracy, could he?

“Marlena,” Shane said as he tried to lunge out of the guard’s firm
hold. “Let me go…I need to talk to her.”

“I think you’ve done enough talking Mr. Donovan….I need to finish my
questioning….Now Julie, if you’d sit down in the chair we’ll be done
in a few minutes.”

“I don’t think you understand…I’m done with the ISA,” she said as she
pulled down on the door handle only to find that the door was locked.
“Open the door,” she demanded, as she furiously pushed up and down on
the handle trying to disengage the lock.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Dr. Gunther said coldly as he
approached her, hypodermic in hand. “You are going to tell me
everything that I need to know.”

*********

“Can’t trust anyone,” John said as he stood up from his chair, feeling
like something very wrong was happening with Marlena. “You can trust
me….you can trust me.”

“Sit down Mr. Black,” the guard ordered, as he pointed his snubbed
nose pistol at John. “NOW.”

“Sorry pal, my wife needs me,” John calmly told him as he approached
the uniformed agent. “I know you’re just doing your job, but something
is wrong.”

“You heard Agent Donovan… Everything was fine….now just sit down.”

“Save me,” her voice whispered to him in the dark. “Save me Forrest.”
He saw her, the ethereal glow of the moon casting shadows across her
face. Holding out a thin pale hand, she beckoned him to her. “Save
me.”

“I can’t,” he told her as he tried to grab hold of her hand. The
closer he moved towards her, the further she seemed to be.

“Wait….please wait.”

“Why are you leaving me?” she asked him, her blood red nails floating
in the space in front of her, drawing his attention.

“I’m not.”

“You did.”

“Don’t go.”

“It’s too late for me…it’s too late for us,” she said as she slipped
below the surface of water he didn’t even know was there. He felt the
coldness of the water as it suddenly rose, soaking his pants and
shirt.

“Wait.”

“It’s too late Forrest….I’m falling and I don’t want to stop,” she
said as she suddenly leaned backwards and disappeared. He frantically
reached below the surface trying to find her in the dark murky water
but couldn’t. “Where are you,” he frantically asked, as he felt below
the surface, afraid of what lay beneath.

“Marlena,” he screamed as he dove below the surface of the water.

“Mr. Black, are you okay?” the guard asked John, noticing the vacant
look in his eye. He’d been standing before him for a couple minutes
with a blank look on his face. “Mr. Black?” he asked again as he
waived his hand in front of his face. “Mr. Black.”

“Marlena,” John whispered, as a trail of water ran from his thin blue
lips towards his chin and down the front of his shirt. “Marlena,” John
whispered again, eyes unfocused. Water continued to run from his mouth
in a steady stream. “Marlena,” he choked as water spurted from his
mouth.

“Mr. Black, are you okay?” the guard asked as he fingered the speaker
button on the walkie-talkie attached to his shirt.

“Something is wrong with Mr. Black. I need back up stat.”

“Marlena, don’t leave me,” John whispered to an unseen force in the
room. “Don’t go.” He grabbed his chest with one hand and placed
pressure on it. He was having a hard time breathing as his lungs
filled with water. “Where are you?” he gasped between desperate
breaths of precious air. Looking through the murky water he couldn’t
find Marlena. “Don’t leave me again,” he begged her.

“What’s going on?” Agent Smith asked as he quickly entered the room,
the click of his leather wingtips as they ricocheted against the hard
floor echoed against the walls. He was annoyed that the questioning of
Dr. Evans had been interrupted by the antics of John Black once again.

“Something’s wrong with him,” the guard said as he pointed at John who
was struggling to breathe. “He’s been standing there like that for a
couple minutes….I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“Probably faking it,” Agent Smith suggested, as he ran his hand in
front of John’s face cautiously. He wasn’t going to fall for a clever
diversion. John Black was one of the best agents that the ISA had
something that Agent Smith always kept in the forefront of his mind.

“I’ll always love you,” John whispered as he lost consciousness,
falling to the floor with a resounding thud.

“Get an ambulance,” the guard yelled into his walkie-talkie, not
finding John’s pulse as he felt along side his neck.

“What’s wrong with him?” Agent Smith asked, believing that this was
another ploy of John’s.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that he was drowning.”

Chapter 17

The movement of the car as it rolled steadily down the autobahn lulled
Marlena’s senses enough to know that she was no longer at the NATO
outpost but was a passenger in a car; late German model and expensive
based on the feel of the seats and the lack of outside noise
intrusion.

“Wo ist das andere auto Claus?” Marlena heard someone ask from the
front of the vehicle.

“Ich weiß nicht. Es hätte hinter uns sein sollen,” another male voiced
responded in a deep and surprising rich voice. Marlena struggled to
open her eyes, but lacked the strength to do so, so she kept her head
still against the head rest and listened trying to recall what German
she knew.

“Sie haben gleichzeitig verlassen, als wir machten. Sie sollen hinter
uns sein. Vielleicht ist etwas falsch.” Marlena picked up on the
concern in the man’s voice and recognized a few of the words he was
speaking. Something was wrong.

“Es gibt nichts, dass wir machen können. Wir können nicht umdrehen.
Wir haben eine halbe stunde, Dr. Evans zum tropfen ab punkt in München
zu liefern.” They were going to Munich Marlena surmised and they were
in a hurry. She wondered where John was and if he was all right.
Moving her hands, she was surprised to find that she was not
restrained as she assumed that she would be. She needed to find John,
needed to know that he was okay.

“Ah Dr. Evans, you are awake,” the younger of the men said to her in a
strong accent.

“Where am I?” she asked weakly as she continued to try to open her
eyes. She was able to open them enough to see that it was dark outside
and the car was moving quickly.

“You are safe Dr. Evans.”

“John?”

“He’s in another car being brought to the same location.”

“Are you ISA?” she asked weakly, not sure of where she was or who she
could trust at this point. Where was John?

“No….save your strength Dr. Evans, save your strength.” She didn’t
feel safe as panic slowly began to creep into her mind, invading her
senses from the outside in. Something was wrong.

“I need to see John,” she demanded weakly as she struggled to sit up
in her seat. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on the back of the
passenger side seat for support. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked as
a wave of nausea suddenly overcame her. She was going to be sick if
they didn’t stop the car soon.

“Welche art der drogen haben sie ihr Claus gegeben?”

“Ich habe keine idee. Vielleicht machte Dr. Gunther etwas ihrem gemüt.”

“Please stop talking in German,” Marlena demanded as she clenched the
seat tighter, trying to control wave after wave of nausea that rolled
about in her mind and soul without abandon.

“I’m sorry Dr. Evans. We are merely, how do you say it?….creatures of
habit,” the driver of the car said. Marlena struggled to open her eyes
enough to commit his features to memory. Caucasian, light brown hair,
approximately 40 years of age, average height and weight, no visible
markings.

“Where are we going?”

“To the drop off point,” he offered as he deftly steered the auto
along the highway.

“What happened? Why am I in this car?”

“Save your strength….you will be told all the answers to your
questions shortly.”

“I just want to know that John is alright.”

“I’m sure that he is….” he responded before he was interrupted by the
older man that she assumed was “Claus”.

“Stille. Wir wurden unterrichtet, nichts Dr. Evans ungefähr Herr Black
zu sagen.”

“Stop,” Marlena found the strength to yell. “I don’t care who told you
not to tell me about John Black….” Marlena started but had to lean
back against the headrest. All kinds of words in languages that she
didn’t understand were flashing in her mind in random order. Gefahr.
Meurtre. Тишина. De haat. Pazzia. “Stop,” she muttered more to herself
than to them. “Please stop.”

“Sein ereignis,” the man with the deep voice said to the other.

“What’s happening?” Marlena asked as she fought to control the spasms
in her stomach. “What is happening to me?”

“Treiben sie schnell.”

“Tell me what’s wrong with me. I don’t care how fast he drives,”
Marlena managed to blurt out before she started gagging. Holding her
hand over her mouth she tried to keep from vomiting but was unable to.
Over and over her stomach contracted as she leaned forward and emptied
her stomach all over the floorboard of the back seat. Unable to stop
herself she gave into the total loss of control and accepted it for
what it was; her body’s way of telling her that it was in control, not
her. Through each contraction she felt and thought of one thing; John.

******************************************

“Marlena,” John screamed as he suddenly gasped for air. He felt the
rush of water as it entered his mouth from his esophagus. Unable to
stop choking, he laid on his side and coughed over and over as his
stomach involuntarily spasmed and emptied the watery liquid from his
stomach.

“Gott sei dank.” John head someone say as a bright light suddenly
blinded him in one eye.

“Stop,” he choked out between spasms as he slowly opened his eyes and
tried to sit up. His clothes were soaking wet and foul smelling.

“Wird er in ordnung sein?” someone in front of him asked.

“Yes,” John whispered answering the person. His throat was raw, and
although the liquid had since left his stomach, the spasms hadn’t
stopped. “I’ll be fine. Where am I?” he asked as he looked around and
noticed that he was no longer sitting in a waiting room at Bad Orb
waiting for Marlena but in an automobile. Marlena. “Where the hell is
my wife,” he demanded weakly.

“Er versteht Deutsch. Wir müssen vorsichtig sein, was wir sagen,” the
driver of the car stated in a muted tone to the person sitting in the
passenger side of the car.

“Ja und ich spreche es ebenso,” John replied, the German flowing
naturally from him. After so many years of denying who he was as an
Alamain, separating himself from Forrest, he was unable to stop his
minds activity in bridging the gap across decades from who he was to
who he is. “Yes I speak German,” John though to himself and many other
European languages as well. He was almost hoping to challenge them to
find a language that he wasn’t familiar with, but because of the
urgency of the situation and Marlena’s whereabouts and safety unknown,
he didn’t. “Where is my wife?” he asked again with full authority,
sitting up straight in the seat.

“In another car in front of us,” the driver of the car said as he
shifted his eyes to the side to the passenger. John studied his
features and committed them to memory. Turkish decent, black hair,
average height and small build.

“Are you ISA?”

“No.”

“Who are you with?”

“All your questions will be answered shortly Mr. Black,” the driver
said as he concentrated on the road in front of him. Checking his
watch he saw that he was behind schedule and would need to make up
time.

“We’re late aren’t we?” John asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about Mr. Black.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Munchen where you will be transferred.”

“Will I see Marlena there?”

“I’m not sure. My orders were to deliver you to Munich. Beyond that,
you’ll have to wait for answers.”

“What happened? How did I get in this car?” John asked, frightened by
the gap in his memory. One minute he was in the waiting from waiting
for Dr. Gunther to finish his questioning and the next thing he
remembered was waking up in the car.

“You were transferred to the car.”

“When and why?” the venom present in John’s voice sent the clear
message to his captors that he was serious and meant business.

“I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t. Our orders were to bring you to the drop off point, not to
answer your questions.”

“If you and your buddies so much as harm one hair on Marlena’s head
you’ll have to answer to me….do what you want with me, but leave her
alone.”

“I’m afraid that’s out of my hands….my responsibility is with you.”

“Bullshit,” John said as he suddenly leaned forward in his seat and
grabbed the driver from around the neck. “Unless I get some assurances
and some answers from you, you’re dead.” John tightened his grip on
the driver as the driver sought to control the car.

“Mr. Black….please be reasonable,” the passenger said as he turned
around and faced John and tried to diffuse the situation. “Let’s be
reasonable here.”

“I’m tired of reason….I want to see my wife….I’m tired of all the games.”

“Please let go of him.”

“Not until I get some answers.”

“We can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“I’d say that’s too bad for you,” John remarked as he tightened his
hold. The driver swerved from lane to lane across the autobahn as he
started to choke from the lack of oxygen.

“Stop….you’re going to kill us all.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me….The way I see it, you have more
to lose than I do at this point….I don’t even know if my wife is
alive.”

“She’s alive and she’s safe and won’t be harmed,” the passenger
blurted out as he grabbed the steering wheel and struggled to gain
control over the car. “Gott haben gnade auf meiner seele.”

“God has nothing to do with this….who do you work for?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You better or we’re all dead,” John smirked as he tightened his hold
further on the driver until he felt him lose consciousness. The car
further swerved across all lanes of the deserted highway as the driver
slumped forward against the steering wheel; foot firmly pressed on the
gas.

“We work for the Stockholm Consortium.”

“Stockholm Consortium… never heard of you.”

“Most people haven’t,” the passenger replied as he tried to pull the
drivers body off the steering wheel.

“Where are we going?” John said as he leaned back in his seat and
fastened his seat belt, enjoying the ride.

“To Munich.”

“I know that, tell me something I don’t know… Where is our final destination?”

“America.”

“America? No way…we’re good as dead there.”

“You’ll be safe….help me with him,” the passenger started to panic as
the odometer read 220 kilometers per hour and was quickly climbing.
John surmised that they were traveling well over 120 miles an hour and
it was only a matter of time before their luck ran out and they
crashed. Saying a silent prayer to God to protect his family, John
calmly placed his life in God’s hands.

“If you don’t help me we’re going to die.”

“I guess we are unless you tell me who you work for…who controls the
Stockholm Consortium,” John said as he leaned back and closed his eyes
“It’s in God’s hands now.” He pictured Marlena in his mind, running
through a field of flowers.

“Forrest,” she laughed as she shyly brought the wild daisy up to her
nose and sniffed it.

“Julie…Marlena…whatever you want to be called,” he said as he took her
free in his. “You know, no matter what I’ll love you forever.”

“I know…. But sooner or later I have to go home….you have to go home…”

“Until then,” John said as he closed his eyes and leaned forward to
kiss her. “We have today,” he whispered against her lips as he felt
her smile into him. Gently he captured her lips with his and tenderly
kissed her, not caring who was watching.

“Not here,” she said shyly as she pulled out of the kiss. She wanted
to stand there and kiss him forever but didn’t dare. Her guardian
Frank Evans had forbade her contact with him. If she were caught
talking to him, much less kissing him she would be immediately sent
back to Colorado.

“I’m going home next week,” he told her, not wanting to look into her
eyes and see the devastation.

“What?” she asked as she turned towards him, her big hazel eyes
welling up with tears that equally devastated him.

“My Aunt Suzanne informed me this morning that we would be returning
earlier than planned….Something to do with the family business.”

“No,” she whispered, her bottom lip quivering. “No.”

“I’m sorry…we’ll keep in contact,” he said as he tipped her chin
towards him. “We will Marlena….I’ll write to you and once you graduate
from high school and can leave Mr. Evans’ house I’ll arrange for you
to come to Europe where we can get married and be together.”

“It’s not going to happen…they’ll never let us be together….you know
that,” Marlena cried out as she wiped her nose on her sleeve. “They
won’t let that happen.”

“They won’t have a choice. Once you are legally an adult you can do
what you want, you can be with whom you want and they can’t say a damn
thing…. You can be with me.”

“I don’t want to wait Forrest…I want to be with you now.” She couldn’t
stop the tears, desperate to hold onto him.

“It’s too soon…we agreed to wait until you were ready,” Forrest said
as he held onto her small frame.

“I’m ready now…I want to be with you Forrest,” she begged him. The
thought of never seeing him again was more than she could comprehend.
The one good thing in her life was about to leave her, possibly
forever.

“I want our first time to be special and something that we’ll remember
forever, not something done in a rush….”

“It’s not a rush Forrest, it’s not,” Marlena interrupted. “I love you
and want to be with you,” Marlena said summoning all the maturity she
had in her body. She was tired of being treated like a fragile doll
that needed to be protected. She knew who she was and what she wanted
and it was Forrest Alamain.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Forrest offered, hoping that tomorrow she would have
changed her mind. Although he wanted to be with her more than anything
and had fantasized about making love to her from the first time her
saw her it was too soon.

“Now,” she demanded as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Now,”
she said as her tongue invaded his mouth. “Make love to me Forrest.”
Her tongue moved efficiently throughout his mouth, dueling with his
and driving him wild with desire for her. He resisted the urge to cup
her breasts, never having been that far with her before.

“Where,” he muttered between kisses. He felt himself growing hard with
desire for her.

“Here,” she said as she reached down between their bodies and stroked
him through the fabric of his pants.

“Here?” he gulped, finding it hard to concentrate on what she was saying to him

“Here,” she said as she took his hand and led them to the backside of
the hill overlooking the ocean. Marlena sat down among the daisies and
slowly unbuttoned her shirt while eyeing John seductively. He stood
paralyzed above her, unable to move. She was more than he ever
imagined her to be; blonde hair blowing in the breeze, bronze skin
contrasting against the daisies that she layed against. She was a
puzzle of perfection to him, the epitome of what a woman should be
with the optimism of a child.

“Forrest,” she beckoned him as she reached behind her and undid her
bra. Dropping to his knees in front of her he hooked both straps under
his index fingers and slowly moved them down her arms.

“Marlena,” he moaned as her bare breasts came into view. He had to
have her, had to possess her, had to make her his.

“Make love to me.”

“Are you sure?”

“More than anything…This is what I want…you are what I want.”

Kneeling before her, he slowly unbuttoned his pants.

“Rafael Torres,” the man admitted as John snapped out of his silent
reverie. “Rafael Torres, now please help me,” the man yelled at John
as the car started fishtailing across the autobahn, striking the
guardrail in the process. The force of the initial impact forced John
forward in his seat, his seat belt keeping him from flying into the
front seat. John quickly undid his seat belt and leaned forward,
grabbing the steering wheel and turning it sharply before it struck
the guardrail again.

“Rafael Torres? Why? Who else is part of the Stockholm Consortium?”
John asked the passenger.

“Leopold Alamain….”

“My father?” John interrupted. “He’s dead.”

“I’m afraid that he is very much alive…Try steering straight,” the man
cautioned John.

“You trying driving from the backseat.”

“You wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t choked the driver…”

“Technicality,” John stated as he concentrated on the task at hand.
“Who else is involved?” He couldn’t allow himself the luxury of
thinking about Leopold Alamain being alive. He needed to find out who
was behind all this and more importantly where Marlena was.

“Dimera…Stefano Dimera.”

Chapter 18

“In each family a story is playing itself out, and each family’s story
embodies its hope and despair.” Auguste Napier

“Welcome to Casa de soledad,” Stefano said as he opened the large
double paneled mahogany doors, welcoming his guests inside.

“I hope that you found your trip most enjoyable and a welcome change
from those awful confines in Germany.”

“What do you want with us Dimera?” John asked, as he clutched
Marlena’s hand tighter. She seemed to be in a trance, mutely standing
before Stefano, not able to look him in the eyes. Circling his index
finger in the center of her palm he tried to provide some reassurance
that everything would be all right.

“I want to keep you safe from those dreadful Americans,” Stefano said
as he watched John and Marlena enter the parlor. Shutting the door
behind him, he turned and eyed them, “that is all.”

“That is all?” John laughed nervously. “That’s rich coming from
someone like you….what you couldn’t take someone else chasing after us
so you had to get in on the game as well?”

“Why must you think of me in this way?” Stefano asked as he led them
through several rooms out to the back of the mansion. John was
surprised to see the place beautifully decorated, light and airy. Gone
were the morose paneled walls and the deep burgundies of Maison
Blanche. Brown Italian leather furniture, tiled floors and modern art
lined the walls.

“You’ve given me no reason not to,” John said as he moved Marlena to
the other side of him, putting as much distance between him and
Stefano as possible. Her behavior was starting to scare him. She
hadn’t said a word since they left Munich. Looking down at her he
willed her to look up at him, to meet his eyes. He needed that
connection. One look and he would know how she was feeling. They’d
always had that connection and always would. Something had happened
during her questioning with Dr. Gunther that had affected her somehow.
If only he could get her alone and talk to her.

“Fair enough…do know John Black that if I wanted to ‘take you out’ as
you so call it, I could have done so easily a long time ago.”

“Sorry if I don’t trust you old man, because I don’t.”

“And nor should you,” he cautioned as he stopped and unlocked the
french doors leading out the patio. “The less you trust, the better.”

“So really….Why are we here?” John asked.

“As I told you a couple of minutes ago, I want nothing more than to
keep you safe,” Stefano said as he stood before John and carefully met
his glare. “Two can play this game,” John thought as he stood staring
back at Stefano wanting him to be the one to break eye contact first.
He was not going to back down to Stefano ever again.

“And as I told you earlier, sorry if I don’t trust you… How do I know
that you aren’t going to turn us over to Owens and his cronies?”

“You don’t John…you don’t… but the way I see it you either take your
chances with me here or out there,” he said as he waved his hand
across the vast expanse of land that laid below the balcony. The house
was situated on top of a hill overlooking a lush valley covered with
grapevines as far as the eye could see. This was a place were you came
to on a romantic getaway, not a place where Stefano Dimera held one
captive. “Why don’t I have Celia show you to your room where you both
can freshen up. Stefano’s manners were too impeccable to say anything,
but they both looked awful. John looked like he’d been wearing the
same clothes for months, dirt covered and ripped. His hair was down
past his shoulders and his beard unkempt. Marlena smelled of vomit and
was lacking pants. It was hard to tell what color her T-shirt was
through all the dirt and grime. Her hair was a tangled curly mess with
golden highlights from the sun. Stefano tried not to look at her,
concentrating all of his attention on John.

“You aren’t going to separate us?” John asked as he eyed Stefano
suspiciously, wondering what he was up to.

“Did you think I was going to chain you up in my dungeon?” Stefano
laughed, but quickly stopped when he noticed the serious look that
came over John’s face. “Oh you cannot be serious John…you aren’t my
prisoners.”

“Then what are we? We were brought here against our will….”

“No, you were rescued…”

“From what? The ISA? You have got to me kidding me….I felt safer there
with them than here with you.

“You are a bigger fool than I thought if you think that the ISA had
your best interests at heart… They only wanted one thing and once they
got it…” Stefano started and then stopped.

“Finish your sentence old man….once they got it, then what.”

“You both are expendable to them.”

“You’re lying Stefano.”

“Am I?” he asked. “There is time to talk later….why don’t you both
freshen up and then we can talk.”

“I want answers first,” John demanded. “I want to know about the
Stockholm Consortium and what you want with us.”

“John Black, why must you try my patience?” Stefano asked as his
temperature started to climb. He was trying to be a gracious host,
trying to be nice, when all he wanted was to throw John over the
balcony to his death. But he couldn’t and wouldn’t because of her,
because of his niece. He was unable to say her name anymore, not even
in the darkness of the night when he laid alone in bed thinking about
her.

“Because you have fucked with me and Marlena and the rest of the Brady
family for years…I don’t trust you and I’m not going upstairs to
‘freshen up’ in your house until I get some answers…are we clear?”

“For once in your life stop being selfish…look at her,” Stefano yelled
at John as he motioned towards Marlena. She was shivering, her
emaciated frame shaking from the chill of the air conditioning of the
house. Although she wouldn’t look up, she had the stance of someone
that was exhausted and on the verge of collapsing. “Look at her.”

“I’ll take my chances on the outside old man,” John said as he grabbed
Marlena’s hand and pulled her towards the house. “We’re leaving.”

“Fine, that is your choice, but once you leave this house I cannot
offer you protection.”

“From what? Owens and the CIA?”

“There are forces out there at work right now that are greater than
you realize John…stop being foolish. Are you going to put your life at
risk, put her life at risk to get back at me? Are you? If you do,
you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.”

“Tell me what I have to be afraid of old man… From the way I see it
you have always been and always will be a greater danger to me and my
family than the sum of ‘them’ could ever be.”

Standing next to the french doors Stefano contemplated how much to
tell John. “I promise you that after you freshen up I will tell you
what you want to know.”

“How do I know that this isn’t a trap?”

“You don’t…but know this….you may not be able to trust me, but she
can. Dimera blood is thicker than water and we never harm our own. She
will always be under the protection of the family.”

******

As John undressed in the bathroom he contemplated Stefano’s words to
him. “She will always be under the protection of the family.” God help
them all if Stefano actually thought that she was one of them now.

“What are you up to old man?” John asked as he slowly drug the blade
of the razor across his cheek. “Is it me that you want or is it Doc?”

“Think Black….think,” John told himself as he tried to determine what
Stefano’s game plan was. He couldn’t allow himself to willingly walk
into another trap. They’d been through too much with Stefano to turn a
blind eye to the past and just assume that because there was a
newfound ‘family’ relationship things would be different. If anything,
things were more complicated than ever.

“What does he want with you Marlena?” he asked as he once again drew
the razor blade slowly across his face. Jutting his chin up in the
air, he inspected the job he’d done so far. Not too many nicks. He’d
try to see if Marlena was up to cutting his hair. Marlena. What was he
going to do about her? He’d left her lying on the bed resting and
hoped that she was okay. Opening the door slowly, he peeked out into
the bedroom and was relieved to see that she was sleeping soundly
under the covers.

“Doc, Doc, Doc…What am I going to do about you?” John asked himself as
he turned on the shower and stepped inside. “If only I understood what
was going on inside of you I could help.” He thought back to the
questioning at Bad Orb. Stefano had insinuated that the ISA couldn’t
be trusted and they wanted something from Marlena. What was it?
Everything came back to Marlena. If only he could figure out what it
was that was in her mind that they all wanted maybe he could give them
that information and their lives could get back to normal.

As the scalding water beat down against his skin he thought back to
the beginning of it all. It all started with her amnesia and Alex
North treating her. He wanted the best psychiatrist for his wife,
someone who specialized in memory disorders. Lexi had recommended him.
“Alexandra Dimera,” John said outloud. “I should have known
better…She’s just like her old man, no matter how hard we want to
believe that she has changed.” Had Lexi known that Marlena and Alex
had a past together and that they were in fact childhood friends? What
about Roman Brady? Roman admitted to having met Alex North in the past
but when Marlena woke up with amnesia in the hospital, Roman acted
like it was the first time that he had seen Alex. “Roman Brady,” John
questioned. “What else do you know about my wife that you aren’t
admitting to?” Roman was ISA. How could he not have known about her
and her past? Did he know? Was he part of this organized plot? John
felt sick to his stomach at the thought of Marlena possibly being
duped by someone she once loved.

“Noah and Rachel,” John said in a panic, horrified by the thought that
he had trusted Roman with his children enough to name him their
godfather. He needed to get back to Salem and figure out what was
going on. If Roman couldn’t be trusted, he needed to make sure that
his children were cared for by someone that was. The more he thought
about Roman, the more concerned he became. It was rather convenient
for Roman to leave the Greek isle with Marlena for Alaska. What
rational man would willingly give up his life to follow his ex-wife
around the world? John was happy at the time, thankful that Doc had
someone to rely on in her time of need. Had he foolishly misplaced his
trust?

“I’m just so stupid,” John moaned as he threw the bar of soap against
the tile wall. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…I gave him access to her for
months….months.…”

“Oh my god….the castle,” John thought. This deception could have gone
back well before she had amnesia. During the time he was grieving her
loss, she sought solace and comfort in the arms of Roman Brady and
would up pregnant with his child. What is that was part of the plan?
“No, he wouldn’t,” John tried to convince himself. He’d relived the
devastation that brought Marlena to that point with Roman. He felt her
anger and wrath on the hotel terrace a year ago when she confronted
him about his relationship with Kate and explained her reasons for
sleeping with Roman.

“I’m going to kill him.” The more that John thought about Roman, the
madder her became. Why was Roman always there, unable to move on with
his own life? Sure, he was briefly married to Kate, but married her
knowing that Kate was Marlena’s best friend. Was that marriage
orchestrated to get closer to Marlena?

“Roman couldn’t….could he?”

“I have to stop this…this is not about Roman, this is about Marlena
and who is after her…..” John thought for a moment, trying to figure
out this complicated puzzle. The ISA wanted her for some reason.
Dimera wanted to keep her safe. Alexander North also wanted her was
going to have to pay for raping Marlena. The thought of another man
touching her made him sick and brought out the mercenary in him. He
tried hard to hide and control the baser part of his personality that
could kill and torture without regret, but the thought of retribution
for Marlena filled him with a perverse sense of joy. He would get
even; it was only a matter of when. Mason Jones was also an unknown,
but appeared to be a lackey of North. Channing Maxwell wanted Marlena
for the obvious reason, retribution for his brother’s death. Rafael
Torres, who was supposed to be dead, was now partnered with Stefano
Dimera and Leopold Alamain, who was also supposed to be dead. “Could
this be anymore more complicated?”

John leaned his head against the cold tile and closed his eyes, trying
to make sense of it all. Everyone wanted Marlena, but the question
was, was it for the same reason or did people have their own reasons
and agendas? The longer John thought about Marlena, the more the
memories of his past long since repressed, seemed to return. He
couldn’t get the memory of making love to her as Forrest Alamain out
of his mind. Although she denied a shared past, he was convinced more
than ever that they had always been linked, linked before they were
born. He was a child born out of wedlock to Daphne Dimera, Stefano’s
wife, given to her sister and her brother in law to raise as their
own. Raised in a world of privilege as an Alamain, the world was his
playground.

A continent away, Marlena had a far different upbringing. An unwanted
and abused child of Stefano’s brother John, she grew up never
experiencing unconditional parental love.

Despite their pasts they were connected in a twisted familial way. The
one constant through their whole lives, parts remembered and
forgotten, was the Dimera’s.

“Were you my first love?” John asked as he lathered soap in his hands
and applied it to his hair. “Did I make love to you in that field of
daisy’s so long ago?” When so much of his past was missing it was hard
for him to know where the fantasy ended and reality began. Was he
wishing that it happened or did it?

“Think John…think,” he told himself as he tried as hard as he could to
grasp something from his past, something real. An image of his father
Leopold popped in his mind. He saw himself as a young boy of twelve
approaching his father in his den.

”Father, may I play a game of chess with you?” he asked.

“Sure Forrest, but for just a little while and then its time for bed.
You know that your mother doesn’t like for you to stay up late on a
school night,” the elder Alamain said as he sat pensively at his desk
staring at a picture of his family.

“I know…I promise just a quick game and then I’ll go to bed,” he said
as he approached the imposing desk, his father looking so big and
important behind it. He was holding a picture of the family taken a
couple years before at the ball held for his great Aunt Anastasia on
his mother’s side of the family. Forrest hated large family
gatherings, as they were always large and almost always boring. No one
ever seemed to think about any of the children, as all the activities
and festivities were geared towards the adults. He was thankful for
his cousins Nicholas, Tyler, Ian, Matthew, Anthony, Samuel, Gerald,
Christopher, Michael, Samantha and Julie as they always made things
more fun.

“Forrest, no matter what happens in life know that I’m your father and
I’ll always love you.”

“Oh my God,” John exclaimed as he sat down dumfounded on the tile
shower bench. Memory after memory returned with surprising clarity,
confusing him and at the same time providing a much-needed explanation
for his whole existence. John remembered being Forrest Alamain, but
more importantly remembered his whole past.

Chapter 19

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge
to our future.”
Alex Haley

“Marlena,” John said as he rushed into the adjoining bedroom, towel
draped haphazardly around his waist. She was sleeping soundly, covers
tucked tightly beneath her chin.

“Mar,” he said as he sat down on the bed and slowly stroked the side
of her face. There was so much that he needed and wanted to tell her.
“Please wake up honey.”

“So tired,” she muttered as she turned to her side and buried her head
deep under the covers. She knew that John was talking to her, but was
too tired to engage in a conversation with him. The past twenty-four
hours weighed heavily on her mind. She barely remembered what had
happened, only glimpses of Dr. Gunther questioning her and then a
flash of bright light. The next thing she recalled was waking up in
car traveling towards Munich. Every conversation, every moment was a
blur to her.

“I need to talk to you Mar.”

“Later, please…” she begged of him.

“It’s important.”

“Uh huh,” she mumbled, barely listening to John, as she drifted back to sleep.

“I remember my past.”

“What?” she asked as she sat up in bed covers falling down around her.
“What?” she asked again, thinking that what she heard wasn’t correct.
Did he just say that he remembered his past?

Smiling, he cupped her chin with his hand. “I remember everything
Doc…Everything.”

“You remember being Forrest Alamain?” she asked not quite convinced
that what he was saying was real. The words echoed in her mind, she
just wasn’t sure that she didn’t make it up.

“Yes…I remember my childhood…”

“Tell me about it,” she said becoming more aware of her surroundings
and John’s presence. He smelled of sandalwood, amber and patchouli, a
stark contrast to the way that she smelled. Breathing in deeply, she
took his hand and encouraged him to continue.

“I remember summers on the lake when I was about eight or nine.
Lawrence and I used to get into so much trouble hiding from the
nanny…one time it was his bright idea to hide in the boat house, only
we didn’t know that the door locked from the outside.”

“Oh no,” Marlena laughed, knowing where he was going with the story.

“Lawrence locked us in and it wasn’t until hours later than we were
rescued by our nanny. Of course our parents and everyone else were
worried to death and assumed the worst.”

“I can imagine,’ Marlena said knowing that she would have been worried
to death if one of her kids had been missing. “Eric,” Marlena thought
as he eyes welled up with tears.

“What’s wrong Doc?” John asked noticing the sudden change in her demeanor.

“Eric,” she whispered as flashes of people talking to her in hushed
tones invaded her mind. Not understanding what she was seeing or
hearing, she closed her eyes tightly and tried to stop the memories.
It was too painful remembering.

“Doc, you know that we’re gonna find our son….”

“I know John….I know….lets talk about you,” she said trying to change
the subject. “What else do you remember?”

“Everything…I think,” he said, slightly confused. When he thought
about his past, his childhood, he was able to recall people, places
and things. But did that mean he had all his memories back?

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted sheepishly as he got up from the bed and
pulled the drapes on the window flooding the room with light. Marlena
instinctively shielded her eyes. “You look like shit Mar.”

“You think,” she joked as she slowly got out of bed and approached him
at the window. Her gait unsteady, she had to grab onto the windowsill
to keep her balance.

“Are you okay?” he asked in concern.

“I’ll be fine,” she lied as she looked out the window. Stefano’s words
to John on the veranda weighed heavily on her mind, “You may not be
able to trust me, but she can. Dimera blood is thicker than water and
we never harm our own. She will always be under the protection of the
family.”

“Talk to me Doc,” John asked as he placed one hand on her shoulder,
while the other kept his towel in place.

“Later…After I take my shower I want to hear all about what you have
remembered.”

“You have yourself a deal,” John said as he squeezed her shoulder and
then let go. “Never did I imagine that I’d ever remember. I just sort
of resigned myself over the years that this was what my life was, this
what who I was…..a man without a past….but I’m not that person
anymore. I have parents and a brother who I remember, cousins, aunts
and uncles….I have an identity that was missing….not really missing,
if you know what I mean….I know who I was, but not really who I
was….Am I making any sense to you?”

“Completely…. Bridging that gap between who you were and who you are
is going to take time John…it always does…the more you try to rush it,
the harder it will be for you.”

“What would I do without my own psychiatrist?”

“I don’t know,” Marlena said coyly as she stood on her tiptoes and
kissed him, “Good thing you’ll never have to find out.”

“Good thing,” he repeated as he slowly captured her lips with his with
the gentlest of kisses. “Mar, you really need to get into the shower.”

“Are you telling me that I smell?”

“Yes,” he said, his bright eyes shining devilishly and lips pursed
together to keep from smiling. Taking her hand he led her into the
bathroom. “I’ll turn on the water while you get undressed. Your Uncle
Steffie has good taste in personal care products,” John joked as he
leaned into the large tile shower and turned the handle on. Instantly
water poured out of the multiple showerheads.

“Is that the type of shower I think it is?” Marlena asked in
wonderment as she stopped what she was doing and leaned over, looking
into the shower.

“Why that would be the shower of your dreams Dr. Evans…of course in
your dreams I’m in that shower with you naked doing unmentionable
things….”

“John,” she moaned.

“I’ll stop…. seriously though honey,” John said as he leaned in close
to her, “later tonight I wouldn’t mind test driving that shower with
you.”

“Promises promises,” she joked as she stepped into the shower naked.
John appreciatively eyed her body as he felt himself growing hard.
Even though she was disheveled and filthy, she was still sexy as hell.
Knowing that sex was not the solution to their problems nor proper at
the time, John tried to get her naked image out of his mind. Picturing
Stefano in a pink tutu dancing on the veranda, he opened the cabinet
and extracted a pink razor. Leaning into the shower, but not looking,
John held it out. .

“Here….please shave your legs and armpits,” he joked.

“John Black,” Marlena yelled as she splashed water on his bare chest.
As he ran away from her water assault his towel dropped preciously
low, reveling his muscled and tanned backside. “You’re mine later,”
Marlena whispered as she watched John close the bathroom door behind
him.

Along in her solitude, the soothing beat of the water as it hit the
tile a symphony of sounds; Marlena gave into her exhaustion and leaned
against the wall. John remembered. She was ecstatic for him, yet
jealous. So much of who she was, who Marlena was, lay hidden beneath
of web of deceit. Would she ever remember and did she want to?

“Dimera blood is thicker than water and we never harm our own.”
Stefano’s words continued to weigh heavily on her mind. How could she
ever be a Dimera? She was Dr. Marlena Evans Black. Right? No. “I’m not
Marlena,” she cried out into the fog of the shower. “I’m not…I’m not
her…I can’t be her.” Marlena was a doting mother, a good daughter and
a great friend.

At a loss for what to think and what to do, Marlena reached over and
turned the swivel lever of the shower up, further absconding her view
as steam quickly enveloped the inside of the shower. Alone in the fog,
Marlena saw down on the shower bench and brought her knees up to her
chest and cried. Although she wished she could share how she felt, she
was physically and mentally unable to communicate what she was feeling
to John.

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore,” she cried alone into her knees.

***************************

“Good evening,” Stefano said as he took Marlena’s hand and kissed it.
“You look lovely.”

Marlena stood before him unsure of how to respond. Eyeing him
suspiciously she nodded and quickly took her hand back and rubbed it
again the sides of her white linen pants. The mere fact that he was
touching her was more than she could take. Out of her element and
unsure of her memories she wasn’t able to respond to him. She wanted
to be strong, wanted to tell him to leave her and John alone, wanted
to yell and scream at him for all that he and his family were but
couldn’t. She wasn’t that strong woman, wasn’t Marlena, but a mere
imposter who was trying to be Marlena.

“Please have a seat,” he motioned to her to sit down. She obliged his
request and sat down slowly in the plush light brown suede chair.
Nervously she looked over at John who was sitting silently at the end
of the table staring at her. She wondered if he was remembering
something about his past.

“Celia, we are ready to be served,” Stefano instructed the young woman
who stood silently next to the buffet table. “Si Senor,” she responded
meekly as she quietly left the room.

“I do hope you enjoy the meal,” Stefano told them as he took the
bottle of wine and slowly opened it, slowly savoring the smell of the
cork. “I’ve had the chef prepare Chateaubriand… I assume that you are
hungry after the long day you’ve had.” Sitting back he watched the
interaction between John and Marlena. They always seemed to say more
with their eyes than most lovers ever say with their lips. Marlena
slowly picked at her salad, eyes never leaving John. She seemed to
draw life and strength from him, a fact that saddened Stefano. He’d
never have that with her. Sitting and watching, he appreciated her
exquisite features, fine porcelain skin, deep hazel eyes and long
blonde hair.

“Ahem,” John said as he cleared his throat loudly, drawing Stefano’s
attention away from Marlena. Eyes shifting from Marlena to John,
Stefano saw the contempt and hatred behind John’s blue ones. John
continued to stare at Stefano, not willing to break the contact. His
hatred for his stepfather was greater than ever. All the lies told
over the years, all the broken promises of a childhood stolen too
soon.

“What do you want?” John finally asked.

“I want to savor this evening and I advise you to do the same…later we
will talk,” he promised John as he poured himself another glass of
wine. “How about a toast.”

“To what?” John asked.

“To family,” Stefano suggested.

“That’s rich,” John muttered facetiously under his breath.

“We are family after all.”

“Don’t remind us…” John started and then stopped when he saw that the
maid had returned with a large tray of food. Elegantly displayed
amongst a bed of thinly sliced potatoes, the meat looked wonderful.
John watched as Celia placed the food before him. Picking up his knife
and fork, John quickly cut into the meat.

“John,” Marlena finally spoke.

“What?” he asked as he looked up at Marlena and noticed that her food
lay untouched.

“Did you think I would poison you?” Stefano asked Marlena.

“I’m….I’m….I’m….” Marlena started to stutter. She felt sick to her
stomach and wasn’t sure why she was having such a hard time being in
Stefano’s presence. She couldn’t look at him and was having a hard
time talking to him.

“Not sure?” John asked trying to finish her sentence for her.
Marlena’s behavior had been off ever since their arrival in Bad Orb.
He had hoped to talk to her before dinner to find out what kinds of
tests and questioning the ISA had conducted on her but they had been
interrupted by Celia telling that dinner was ready to be served.

“You cannot be serious…. You are family….I don’t poison my family,”
Stefano said as he brought a forkful of meat slowly to his lips and
paused for a moment before he opened his mouth and placed it inside.

“You’ve tried to in the past,” John reminded him. Instantly his mind
returned him to a similar room and a similar situation over 15 years
in the past. ”Let me propose a toast to an evening that we will always
remember…who knows what surprises it will bring,” Stefano told him,
his voice and heart filled with malice. John shook his head, trying to
return himself to the present. Setting down his fork, his pushed his
chair back from the table.

“You are wasting a good meal.”

“I’ll take my chances….I’m not family.”

“No, not blood anyway….After all this time I would have thought that
you would have leaned something and would be a little more grateful.”

“For what? You still haven’t answered my question and told me why we’re here.”

“It’s rather simple John….I can offer you protection and she can tell
me the location of the money.”

“What money?” John asked as he looked over at Marlena. She was staring
down at her plate, a vacant look on her face. “I’m disappointed that
you are not more gracious in defeat,” Stefano told John.

“That’s because the war isn’t over yet,” John replied. She sat quietly
watching the men, feeling helpless to do anything. It was obvious what
Stefano wanted her body and soul. Although John told her that no
matter what happened he wanted her to stay out of it, she couldn’t.
She loved John more than she had ever loved anyone in her entire life
and was willing to make any sacrifice for his life and safety.

“Whatever happens here please stay out of it,” John begged Marlena.
Looking into his pained eyes she was willing to make any sacrifice and
he knew it. She would not let him be killed, tortured or captured
without a fight. Losing what memory he had was his greatest fear and
she was desperate not to let that happen again.

“I can give you everything you want Stefano if you let Marlena go,”
John said as he placed the soupspoon preciously to his lips. He was
going to sacrifice himself for her.

Marlena watched in horror as he ingested the soup and proceeded to
lose consciousness as the poison coursed through his veins.

“John you have to wake up…you have to fight it…John stand up…get
up…stand up and fight,” Marlena screamed at him begging him not to
leave her. He was the strong one, he was her rock.

“He will never know what he’s lost Marlena once his mind is a clean
slate…of course if there is anything from his past he might have
missed it would be making love to you,” Stefano said as he leered over
at her, eyes raking over her body. She felt numb as one of Stefano’s
henchmen arrived to take John’s body away.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she begged Stefano.

“He is no use to me and never has been….has always been a nuisance.”

“He’s a good man Stefano, despite what you tried to do to him.”

“I made him better.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

“Kill him.”

“No,” she screamed as she grabbed onto Stefano’s arm.

“Take him away,” Stefano instructed his henchman.

“No…I’m begging you…No.” Tears streaming down her face, terror in her
heart, she was willing to sacrifice herself to save John.

“It’s too late Marlena.”

“No…you have to have medicine or something…you have to do
something….you can’t let him die.”

“He is no use to me.”

“But I am,” Marlena desperately offered.

“What are you suggesting?”

“A trade….me for John’s life.”

“I have no use for you as a prisoner….I harbor no ill will towards
you, only to John Black and Roman Brady.”

“Not as a prisoner Stefano.” She was sick to her stomach even suggesting it.

“I’m surprised by what you are willing to do to save John Black….I
didn’t think that the upstanding and ever so proper Dr. Evans would
have it in her.”

Swallowing hard and forcing herself to move closer to Stefano, she
reached out and touched his clothed arm. “Don’t let him die….please.”

“I am not going to force myself on you Marlena….I am not a rapist.”

Closing her eyes, she forced herself to say the words, “I will
willingly submit to you in return for you saving John’s life.”

“Alright, suppose I accept your offer…I let him live,” Stefano said
eyeing her, wondering what game she was playing.

“…and keep his memories and not torture him.”

“Even though you are a beautiful woman and I’m sure are very talented
in bed, your offer is not enticing…I want more.”

“What more can I give you?” she asked as she panicked at the surreal situation.

“Everything….I let John live and let him go and I want everything…all
of you…including your heart and mind.”

“I can’t give that to you,” she honestly told him tears in her eyes.
“I can’t give you my heart because it belongs to John.”

“Well I’m sorry then because unfortunately that’s the only way that he
escapes unscathed…your offer, although it does interest me, is worth
nothing more than keeping him alive.”

“What about his memories? What do I need to do for you leave them intact?”

“Agree to go away with me where you will be mine in every sense of the
word including bearing me a child.”

“No,” she gasped as she moved away from him. “No.”

“That’s what I thought…. Your offer keeps him alive and nothing more.”
Her soul dying from what she was about to do and her heart breaking
for not having the strength to do more for John, Marlena moved closer
to Stefano and took his outstretched hand.

“One night,” she whispered to him, tears running silently down her face.

“What money?” John asked again, bringing Marlena out of the dark
recesses of her memories. She was going to be ill as the memories of
what happened that night long ago washed over her.

“The drug money that was stolen from the cartel by that low life
Owens….Marlena knows where it is.”

“Do you?” John asked her; stunned that the great mystery of what was
in Marlena’s head was money. All of this over money? He’d have
willingly given them everything he had to have avoided all this
unnecessary misery.

“I don’t know,” she whispered as pictures of her Stefano undressing
her flashed through her mind.

“Did Owens tell you where the money was before he died?” Stefano
questioned as he looked at Marlena with an uneasy feeling. Something
was wrong with her. Sweat was trickling down the side on her face
slowly; her hands shook as she held onto the table.

“Are you all right Marlena?” he asked, concerned about her.

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk about this right now…. Can
we talk about it later?” she asked as she got up from the table and
placed her napkin down on her plate.

“Mar…what’s wrong,” John slipped and used his used nickname for her.

“Later John….I need some air,” she said not bothering to look at him
as she moved towards the door of the room. The room spun faster as the
oxygen was vacuumed out by an unseen force. Holding on the every once
of dignity she possessed she ran the last few steps through the door.

“Mar,” John blurted out in concern as he followed her to the door.

“Let her go John…we need to talk,” Stefano said with an air of
confidence, not bothering to get up.

Watching Marlena retreat towards the back of the house, John finally
sat down in the chair that Marlena had been occupying.

“Talk old man.”

“She’ll be fine…she always has and always will….she is much stronger
than you give her credit for,” Stefano said cryptically.

“What the hell does that mean…you know nothing about her so don’t
pretend that you do…You know nothing and you never will,” John said as
he pointed his finger at Stefano in anger.

“I know more than you think…much more ”

“Don’t you ever talk about her and pretend that you know her…got that.”

“You are at my mercy John, so I suggest for your own safety that you
start acting a little more considerate.”

“Considerate for what? Arranging some clandestine kidnapping from the ISA?”

“Don’t be a fool, you know nothing of which you are talking…you pride
yourself on being such a good ISA agent, such a good defender of
democracy, such a great husband and father…. You know
nothing….NOTHING,” Stefano said in anger disgusted by John’s behavior.
John didn’t deserve Marlena.

“I know everything Dimera….EVERYTHING,” John screamed at him as he
stood up and shoved his chair back. “Memory is a funny thing old man
and I know what you tried to take away from me and why.” John wanted
to kill the man, strangle him with his bare hands and feed him to the
wild animals that roamed the canyon.

Seeing John’s ire amused Stefano. Raising his glass of wine he swirled
the burgundy liquid around and around. “Everything you are is what I
wanted you to be…Everything you think you are, everything that you
think happened is also because of me. The things that wake you up in
the middle of the night and make you question everything that you are
and can be is because I put it there. Your memories are not your own,
they are mine and belong to me. Don’t you forget that.”

Chapter 20 (epilogue)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
–George Santayana

As Marlena stood on the veranda over looking the vast empire that
Stefano had accumulated over the years, she was filled with feelings
of shame, regret and loss. Stefano’s words to her that night years ago
echoed through her mind, holding her soul captive.

“You will willingly come to my bed and enjoy your night with me. I
will not tolerate any hesitation or crying or the deal is off and your
John Black dies.” Everywhere she looked, everything she touched,
belonged to him including herself.

“John was never the pawn,” she thought sadly, recalling the life that
was and the life that could have been. There were so many
opportunities; so much potential never achieved. “And for what?” she
asked herself. “For what?”

The harder she tried to understand the less she understood. Nothing
made sense, yet everything did. “I can’t do this,” she whispered into
the crisp night air desperately wishing that some celestial force
would hear her cry for help. “I don’t want to remember,” she whispered
as she slowly rubbed the scars on her arms. Over and over her left
hand furiously dug into the thin skin on her right forearm, reopening
old wounds.

“Don’t Julie, don’t,” she told herself as she shook her head. “Don’t
go there…please don’t go there.” Over and over she dug at the wounds
until she found the release that she sought as she felt her blood
slowly start to trickle down her skin. The warmth of the blood against
the cool night air momentarily satisfied her psyche. The relief was
soon replaced with the familiar feeling of guilt. Everything was her
fault. She was the catalyst for a whole series of unfortunate events.
If not for her John wouldn’t have suffered at the hands of Stefano,
Samantha would be alive, her children would be successful adults, and
Roman would be happily married to a faithful woman.

Lifting her eyes towards the heavens she whispered a prayer long ago
remembered and seldom recited. “My God, I am sorry for my sins with
all my heart….In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have
sinned against you whom I should love above all things….I firmly
intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid
whatever leads me into sin….Our savior Jesus Christ suffered and died
for us…In his name, my God, have mercy….Amen….”

“It’s too late,” he whispered in her ear. She momentarily stopped
breathing as she felt him behind her.

“You’re not real,” she whispered as she shook her head slowly back and
forth. “You’re just in my head.

“No amount of praying to some god is going to save you Julie,” her
father condescendingly told her. She felt the movement of the air as
he moved behind her. Standing as still as she could, she wished that
she was invisible.

“You’re just in my head…Your not real…You can’t hurt me,” she repeated
to herself over and over, in her head and outloud.

“I don’t need to hurt you…you’ve hurt yourself….look what you’ve done
with your life….No man is ever going to love or respect you.”

“That’s not true,” she told him. “You’re not real…you’re not ….you’re not real…”

“Once a slut, always a slut,” he interrupted. “You fucked my brother….
that makes you a slut,” he whispered into her ear as she felt him
touch her.

“STOP,” she screamed at him. “STOP…..STOP….please stop.” Falling to
the ground, she grabbed her head and willed his voice to stop. She was
tired of hurting, tired of running from her memories, tired of living.

“You think yelling at me is going to make me go away.” He was laying
down on the ground in front of her. She could smell the Courvoisier
cognac on his breath. In and out with each breath she felt the warm
air as it moved the errant hairs across her face.

“You’re not real,” she said trying to convince herself as she closed
her eyes tightly.

“I’m that itch beneath your skin that as hard as you try, you’ll never
be able to relieve,” he said crudely, punctuating the word ‘itch’.

“Please leave me alone…please….I’ll be good….I promise that I’ll be
good,” she said reverting back to the damaged seven year old child who
just wanted her daddy to love her.

“You’ll never be good,” he laughed. “You’ll always be bad…a sinner….a tramp.”

Unable to fight the voice of her father and unable to convince herself
otherwise Marlena closed her eyes tightly and gave into the feelings.
She was worthless. She was a whore. She was a sinner. She was bad. She
was unloved.

Her memories of Stefano came flooding back to her. Nothing that her
father and his friends had done to her would ever compare to the utter
shame she felt in the moment that she degraded herself by willingly
offering herself to Stefano.

“Your offer keeps him alive and nothing more…one night.” She saw
herself as she followed him up the large staircase to the second floor
of Maison Blanche. She remembered fingering the wooden paneled walls,
thinking at the time how lovely they were and how sad it was that such
a soulless man had such beauty in his house. Slowly she came to him,
disrobing one piece of clothing at a time, per his instructions. Once
nude, she layed in the center of the bed while he appreciatively
looked her over. Never had she felt like a greater whore than at that
moment. He could have offered her money in exchange for the act and it
would have felt the same.

“Act like you want me Marlena,” he instructed. And so she did. Over
and over that night she put on the performance of her life as a part
of herself died.

She wanted to stop the memories but didn’t have the strength to.
Everything that her father had said about her was true. He was right,
she was a worthless piece of shit that no one could or wanted to love.
Men didn’t love her; they just wanted her because she put out.
Maxwell, Channing, Forrest, Alex, Mason, Trey, Samuel, Nicholas, Don,
Roman, Richard, Stefano, Victor and John.

“See you are a whore,” her father chanted. “Whore…whore….whore…whore.”

“No,” she devastatingly whispered as his words, his validation sank
in. She was a whore. She’d used her body countless times over the year
for different reasons, but regardless they all pointed to the truth.

Broken, she slowly rose and walked towards the wall that protected the
safe enclave of Casa de Soledad from outside threats. Slowly she
climbed up on the wall and stood to her full height. Before her was a
world that would never know the heartbreak that she’d known, would
never know such a feeling of utter hopelessness, and would never know
what it felt like to have dreams that would never come true.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the wind hoping that John would
somehow know how sorry she truly was for everything. She tried for
years to be strong, to be the woman that everyone mistakenly thought
she was, to be Marlena. But she couldn’t do it anymore. Tired of all
the deceit and the elaborate charade that had become her life Marlena
was at her lowest point, realizing that she couldn’t live like this
anymore. With nothing to lose, she closed her eyes and leaned forward.
In that instant where she chose death instead of life she experienced
a moment of peace and clarity.

None of them were worth it.

“No,” she said as she struggled to regain her balance on the wall.
Opening her eyes to the world around her, she noticed that the stars
seemed a little less bright and the world a little more dark. Legs
shaking uncontrollably she slowly made her way off the wall to the
corner of the veranda. Locating a cast iron lounge chair, she slowly
sat down as the enormity of what she had almost done sank in. She was
willing to die and for what? Because her father and mother didn’t love
her enough to protect her? Because of Maxwell Owens and Channing
Owens? Because of Stefano Dimera? Because of every bad thing that had
ever happened to her? Because she had never been a good enough wife
and mother? Because she had always felt and always been inadequate?

They had almost won. Her soul bent to the point where it almost broke;
Marlena released her fears and her feelings of guilt and inadequacy.
The words of the psychiatrist that she saw two years ago were heavy on
her mind. When her memory started returning she’d been encouraged to
see a counselor to help her deal with the situation. Not ready to hear
what the woman was telling her at the time, she did what she did best,
put on the part of the upstanding Dr. Evans and convinced the doctor
and everyone else that she was handling the situation just fine.

“In order to heal, you need to discover what is under the façade of
Marlena…Marlena is someone you created, she’s not real. She can be
real, she can be you, but first you must accept your past for what it
was and stop the dangerous cycle of denying your feelings and your
past by attributing that part to Julie.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you are saying?” Marlena challenged
the psychiatrist.

“You’re a smart woman Marlena, you couldn’t have gotten this far in
life if you weren’t. Over the years just to survive you’ve had to
learn some coping mechanisms. Some of these weren’t exactly healthy
and I know you know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t need your help….my life is fine.”

“This is what I’m talking about. One of your coping mechanisms is to
deny your past happened, to tuck it away, to compartmentalize it and
your pain. This may work on a short-term basis, but sooner or later
all that you’ve tried not to feel, not to deal with may come to the
surface at an inopportune time.”

Sitting in the chair, Marlena crossed her arms defensively across her
chest. This lady had it all wrong. She didn’t know her, did know what
she was feeling.

“Marlena,” the psychiatrist said as she moved her chair closer to her.
“Julie and Marlena are the same person. Julie is the child you were;
Marlena is the woman that you are. Marlena is just as damaged as
Julie, maybe more so. Pretending that something didn’t happen doesn’t
mean that it can’t hurt you. Pretending that Julie doesn’t exist isn’t
going to help you heal. Only when you accept the truth of your past
and believe in the power of your present will you be able to move on
and heal.”

As memory after memory of her life played like a film in her mind, she
closed her eyes and allowed the truth to sink in. She always was that
person her father told her that she’d never become. Her life wasn’t a
farce or an accident. Under the façade of it all, under the designer
clothes and expensive education, she was a survivor, a strong woman
with purpose and passion. A woman that knew what she wanted out of
life and how to get it: a good mother to her children, a good daughter
to Frank and Martha Evans, a devoted sister to Sam, a good wife to Don
and Roman, soulmate to John. Her life was no accident. She was
Marlena.

Laughing at how simple everything really was, Marlena layed her head
back in the chair and thought of everything that had gone right,
everything that she had to be thankful for. No doubt about it, she was
blessed.

With no feelings of guilt to keep her mind closed, she allowed her
mind to open up. Memory after memory returned.

She remembered her life as Julie. Loved and cherished as a small
child, she was the apple of her father’s eye. She remembered all the
lavish family parties and vacations. For her fifth birthday her father
bought her a miniature pony that she named Daisy. Her cousin Forrest
taught her to ride the pony. How she loved and adored Forrest, always
intending to grow up and marry him. A couple years older than her with
dark black hair and mysterious blue eyes; he was the fairytale prince
charming. Her older cousins never gave her the time of day, calling
her a baby, but Forrest always seemed to have time for her.

She remembered the night at the Dimera family compound when everything
changed. After days of torrential rain, everyone was growing restless
at having to stay inside. After a hundred or so games of hide and go
seek in the mansion, Marlena and her cousins were bored and decided to
spy on their parents for some entertainment. The Dimera men were
having a family meeting when things got heated. Words were said in
anger that she didn’t understand and the next thing she knew her
family was on a plane for America.

Things went downhill after that, although at the time Marlena didn’t
realize or understand what was happening. She had always lived in
mansions but in America they lived in a small trailer in the middle of
nowhere. With no job or money to support his family, John Dimera
turned to illegal activities. Hopeless and desperate with a drug habit
to support, he allowed his associates to molest his daughters to pay
off his escalating debts.

Although Marlena didn’t want to remember this part of her past, she
knew that she needed to in order to move forward with her future.
Allowing herself that moment of vulnerability where her soul was laid
bare, she opened her mind and gave herself permission to remember and
grieve for those things that she tightly repressed. Every betrayal and
false promise, everything that John and Katherine Dimera did or didn’t
do.

“Slim, you are aware that your debt is substantial,” the younger man
said to her father. She watched as her father nervously bit his nails
and looked around the room.

She watched as her father said something to the man, but couldn’t make
out what was being said.

“The police know, the FBI knows and now the DEA knows…You have brought
us to the attention of the feds Slim…the fucking feds.”

Her father stood in place, staring at the closet door. Did he know
that she was in there? She slowly back herself into the corner of the
closet, closed her eyes and tried to become as small as possible.

She heard the muffled sounds of them talking and the dragging of their
feet as they shuffled along the decaying floor. Suddenly the closet
door flung open and she was pulled out of the closet by her hair. The
burning in her scalp was incredible. She cried out in pain as she
tried to grab onto his hand to let her go.

“Are you sure this is the one you want?” her father asked the younger
man as he held her firmly by the hair. The younger man looked to the
older man for guidance. He nodded his head.

Julie looked up at the men in disgust. There was something about the
older man that was familiar to her.

“There’s a room out back if you’d like to use it,” her father offered
without even looking at her. “Rules are rules, touching only, no
intercourse….in exchange for forgiveness of my debt to you.”

The older man looked to the younger man and winked when he caught her
eye. She recognized him. She knew who he was. Owen Channing. She
watched as the older man pursued his lips and narrowed his eyes,
unsure of what to say.

As her father pushed her towards to man, he reached out and grabbed
her by the arm. “You are a pretty one,” he said as he stroked the side
of her face with his well-manicured hand. Owen Channing took her small
hand in his. His diamond encrusted wedding band shone brilliantly
against the layer of dirt that covered her skin.

“You’d better treat this man here well Julie,” he told her. “This is
my brother.”

She tried not to cry as she stood there before the men as they
inspected her. She knew what they wanted and it sickened her to think
what he was going to do, what his disgusting and perverted brother had
already done to her. She was tired of feeling degraded and ashamed,
tired of being used as currency to pay off her fathers growing debt.
She didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

“Julie, treat this man nicely or else,” her father warned her. He left
the room and returned with a can of beer, handing it to her.

“Drink this, it will make you feel better.” The men sat and watched
her as she timidly opened the can, hands shaking, and proceeded to
drink the beer. Its familiar taste slowly made its way down to her
stomach. After drinking a quarter of the can, she was already feeling
its effects.

The pain was still the same and probably always would be, but it was
something that Marlena refused to fear anymore. She was tired of
running and fighting her feelings, tired of being someone else. Tears
streaming down her face she accepted the past for what it was and
moved on. As she relived the past, one event at a time, she forgave
herself and them for what had happened. Yes she killed three men, but
she believed in a divine presence greater than herself that would
provide forgiveness. Leaning forward in the chair, she put her hands
together slowly in prayer. “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love, Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there
is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.” Forgiving was so
hard, much harder than she expected it to be. As she prayed there was
a small part of her that held back, that didn’t want to forgive or be
forgiven. “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be
consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we
receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that
we awake to eternal life. Amen.” Slowly she stood and walked towards
the french doors that led into the house. Every light on the first
floor appeared to be on casting a warm glow on the terrace. She wanted
to go in and talk to John and tell him about her memories but
couldn’t. Not yet.

25 68 99 210 83 22 1 7 9 was what everyone wanted to know, the magic
number, the Holy Grail. How many lives have been ruined for it? Alex
and Mason were mere pawns in the game, players much to young and
inexperienced to play with the likes of the Dimera, Torres and Owens
families. John was also a pawn in the same game, although in a
different way. Their paths were tied in an inexplicable manner and
neither of them knew it. John had hinted at it to her weeks ago, but
she was in denial. You don’t just forget the love of your life, she
told him never letting herself hope that it was true.

John. As Marlena thought about him she had a flash of him running
along the beach, the warm breeze blowing against his sun kissed face.
Her beloved childhood friend became her salvation. Image after image
of her making love to him in that daisy-strewn field flashed through
her mind. His tanned hands as they moved slowly across her bare
stomach. The look of utter pleasure on his face when he entered her
for the first time. The way his toes moved up and down involuntarily
when he released himself into her. The smell of his skin when she laid
her head on his shoulder. The sparkle in his blue eyes when he told
her that he loved her. John or Forrest, it didn’t matter what name he
went by. He always had been and always would be the love of her life,
her protector, and her equal.

“Life is beautiful Marlena….Whenever you need to be reminded of all
that is beautiful and wonderful about you I’ll always be here to tell
you,” Forrest told her as he gently wiped the tears from her eyes.
He’d been holding her for the last hour trying to convince her to go
back to America with her guardians, but she couldn’t see a life
without him.

“I’ll go with you Forrest….we can be together like you promised.”

“You’re only sixteen Marlena….you need to finish school first. After
you graduate we can be together all the time.”

“No….I need you now…please don’t leave me.”

“I don’t have a choice and neither do you…”

“We do…I’ll go to Europe with you…”

“We’ve discussed this before….its not going to work….My Aunt Suzanne
has been circling like a hawk trying to figure out who I’ve been
sneaking off to see this summer. I’m afraid we don’t have much more
time before she figures out that its you and not some European
socialite.”

“So what if she knows its me…what is she going to do?”

“She’ll never understand me dating a commoner, you know that.
Alamain’s are betrothed at an early age….”

“You’re going to marry someone else?” she cried out in disbelief. It
was bad enough that he was leaving, even worse that he was going to
marry someone else.

“No Marlena…no….I have to simply go through the motions….when it gets
close to the wedding I’ll disappear….I promise you, I only want to
marry you.”

“I can’t do this Forrest…I can’t.”

“You can…you are the strongest person that I know…we may be separated
by distance but you’ll always be in my heart,” he said as he took her
in his arms. “You know how I feel about you….I could travel the word
and buy things that would make kings and queens drool with envy but
none of that would ever compare to your worth to me. You are
everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman…Whatever happens, I promise you
that I will find you.”

“Why God….Why?” Marlena asked outloud, desperate for an explanation.
Firmly believing that everything happens for a reason, Marlena
struggled with understanding why the road of her and John’s lives
wasn’t smooth, but rather marked with sharp turns and potholes. How
much more would they both have to endure before they passed the divine
litmus test?

Only John and Stefano had the answers, Marlena realized. Wiping her
bloody arms and hands on her white linen pants, Marlena straightened
her shirt and tried to summon an air of authority. She was tired of
playing the unwitting role of the victim. She was in charge or her
life and destiny and was owed some answers by one Stefano Dimera.

********************************************************************

“I want some answers,” Marlena calmly demanded as she walked into the
formal dining room, interrupting a loud and heated discussion between
John and Stefano.

All eyes shifted towards her.

“Marlena,” John said as he rose from the table, concerned about her
mental state, seeing the gun in her hand.

“I want some answers,” she demanded again as she lifted the small
caliber handgun that had previously been obscured. Slowly her right
hand rose as she pointed the gun directly at Stefano, her left hand
gripping her right wrist for support.

“Marlena, don’t be silly….put it down,” Stefano demanded as he eyed
her curiously. The thing that he loved about her the most was also the
thing that drove him absolutely mad, her utter unpredictability.

“Not until you satisfy my curiosity about a couple of things.” A
couple hundred things was more like it, but who was counting.

“It’s not loaded,” Stefano said, calling her bluff. John stood in
Marlena’s line of vision trying to get her attention. She had an eerie
calmness about her that was alarming.

“Is it?” she asked as she suddenly shifted her aim from Stefano to the
large Dimera family painting that hung on the opposite wall.

“The seventh son of the seventh son,” she muttered under her breath,
“too bad they’re only 6 bullets in this gun.” With a passing glance at
the picture she aimed the weapon towards the face of her father and
fired.

“There is no reason for violence,” Stefano said with a slight quiver
in his voice. He knew more than anyone her pendence for violence. She
had killed before and he wouldn’t put anything past her.

“I should kill you…no one, and I mean no one would miss you,” Marlena
said as she turned the gun and focused it on Stefano’s designer shirt.
“You made me compromise my own dignity…”

“So that is what this is all about…” Stefano interrupted as he looked
up at John. John was standing with a confused look on his face. “I
made you forget.”

“What made you think that you had a right to do that? Do you even hear
yourself? ‘I made you forget’. This is my life dammit, you don’t get
to decide what I get to remember.”

“What are you talking about?” John interrupted, confused as to what
they were talking about.

“I was only trying to make it easier for you…”

“Easier for me? That’s rich….answer this question for me? How long
have you known who I was, who I am?”

“Marlena,” Stefano started and then stopped, a look of concern on his face.

“Answer the question dammit….”

“A couple of months…”

“Bullshit, you liar,” she screamed at him. “Alex North worked for
you…I remember.”

“You cannot possibly remember that.”

“I do…I remember him approaching me in medical school. He had a ring
with the Dimera family crest on it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You’re lying again…I have the gun…I wouldn’t lie if I were you.”

“Alright he worked for me….When my brother was killed I was told that
you and Samantha had also died. I needed to make sure. I simply sent
Mr. North to find you.”

“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense….you knew I was alive, you had
to have known.

“I didn’t.”

“You did,” John interrupted, the pieces of his own past and how they
fit into this puzzle coming together. Stefano had known all along.
“Old man…you knew, you did….You took me from my home, from my parents
because of Marlena…..You knew about our relationship and how we
planned to go away and get married…You knew that Marlena was my
cousin, my cousin that I grew up with….You took away the love of my
life, and for what Uncle Stefano?” John asked, the hate on his face
and in his voice evident. He wanted to strangle the man with his own
bare hands.

“You have it all wrong John.”

“Then you tell me how it is…funny thing about this memory of mine….I
remember everything, and I mean everything…..I remember the night that
your brothers, my uncles, came and got me….I was waiting on the
sailboat for Marlena, waiting to go away with her forever and escape
all of your family’s madness. Uncle Dimitri told me that my parents
had been in an accident and that I was needed back in Europe
immediately.”

“I remember that,” Marlena said wistfully. She had been hiding
underneath the covers on the bunk when Dimitri stormed in and demanded
that Forrest go with him.

“Why?” John screamed as he approached Stefano. “Why?”

“It’s simple. I wanted you to experience the same pain that I felt
when I learned that my wife made love to another man and gave birth to
his bastard child.”

“You can’t possible blame John for something that Daphne did,” Marlena
gasped, alarmed at his sickness. “You can’t.”

“But I did…all those years when you were in my house, my house, you
sat around the table, played with my children, my nieces and nephews,
true Dimera’s….all along you were nothing but the bastard son of my
wife,” Stefano said, shuddering at the memory.

“I was made a fool of and you needed to be punished.”

“But he was just a boy,” Marlena said, looking for some explanation of
this madness. “Why did you decide to take him then, why not earlier.”

“I did not know who he truly was until then when a man came to my
house stating that he was Forrest’s biological father and wanted to
know where he was…before that he was my nephew and after that,
nothing…. Surely you can see the predicament that I was in… I was made
a fool of by my wife…My sister Suzanne had said where you were
vacationing so I sent my brothers to come and get you….they understood
what their mission was and how I’d been betrayed and how no one does
that to a Dimera…We had to preserve the family name and I wasn’t about
to be made the laughing stock of Europe. What better way to get rid of
the family embarrassment and punish Daphne?”

“You don’t punish a child…,” Marlena said.

“He was not a child…he was a man, old enough to be making love to you
in a field…ah yes, I was shown the surveillance pictures….Both of you
defamed the family name….I expected that of Forrest, but not you
Julie….You are a Dimera.”

“You truly are mad,” Marlena said astonished by the extent of his madness.

“I am not mad…I am a Dimera…Imagine the shame you brought upon the
family when Dimitri showed me the pictures of Forrest and his
girlfriend…Both of you should have known better.”

“I had no idea who she was old man, unlike you.”

“I didn’t know either,” Marlena whispered, ashamed in the reality of
the situation. “We didn’t know.” If she had even thought that he was
her cousin at that time she would have stayed away.

“I barely remember Julie,” John said, trying to search the recesses of
his mind for any memory of Julie. “The last time I saw her was when
she was a small child and moved to America….but that’s not the point.
If you knew who she was, why didn’t you stop her from tarnishing the
precious family name?”

“You are a fool John Black…Why are you not listening to me? I did not
know who she was until Dimitri told me that your girlfriend was a twin
and showed me a picture. She looks so much like her mother that it was
not hard to figure out the relation.”

“You think I look like my mother?” Marlena asked him. She had always
cast her mother as the tragic heroine in their torrid family tale. Did
he see her that way?

“You look more so like her now…Katherine was quite a special woman.
What she saw in my brother John I’ll never understand, but ‘tis her
choice to make, not mine.”

“Tell me about her,” Marlena whispered as she moved closer to Stefano.
Her memories of her father were strong; her memories of her mother
were few and far between.

“Marlena, don’t trust anything he says…he is just trying to mess with
your mind,” John warned her upon seeing her softening resolve.

“I wish you no ill will Marlena, please understand that,” Stefano said
as he got up from the table and slowly walked toward Marlena. She
still had the gun aimed at him, but he was convinced that if he could
talk to her and help her understand the past, she would find the
answers she sought. “I sent my brothers to the island to make John
pay, but when they discovered you and your sister there their mission
became one of retrieving you. Dimera’s belong with Dimera’s, not some
American family.”

“They came to get me?” Marlena asked astonished.

“Yes, but Frank Evans prevented it,” Stefano said as he recalled the
conversation that he had with his brother. Dimitri went to the boat to
get Forrest, while Konstantin hid in the boathouse. Konstantin was
supposed to go and get Marlena once Dimitri and Forrest had left the
boat, but before he could ISA descended upon the boat and a gunfight
ensued. Konstantin stood by helpless as the boat slowly sank to the
bottom of the ocean. He was able to pull Dimitri and Forrest from the
water but was unable to find Marlena.

“I don’t remember much of what happened that day,” Marlena admitted.
She woke up in a hospital in Colorado and was told she had been in a
car accident in Denver and had sustained injuries so serious the
doctors put her into a medically induced coma for months while her
body healed. Her mind was still having a hard time reconciling what
she was told versus what she was remembering.

“Neither do I….I remember being on the boat and drowning and my uncle
Konstantin pulling me to the shore,” John said as he started to get
mad as the memories of what happened after that returned. He was
supposed to remember nothing of his past when he arrived in Salem, but
now did. He remembered being flown to Europe where he was promptly
brainwashed by Stefano to forget his past and in particular forget
Marlena.

“Ah yes, but that’s all in the past….the point is I was told that
Marlena had drowned…”

“But you knew that Samantha was alive,” Marlena interrupted.

“Ah yes, but your sister is as she always was even as a little girl,
simple minded.”

“She was still a Dimera…”

“Yes she was and there were plans to try to locate her and bring her
back to the family….”

“Which is where Alex came into play?”

“Exactly. Alex was sent to try to find Samantha and prove once and for
all that you were dead….You see, John kept insisting for years after
the incident, years after he was programmed to forget all about you
and life before you, that you were still alive.”

“You did,” Marlena whispered as she looked over at John. Tears were
streaming down his face and she could tell that he was having a hard
time recalling all the memories of his missing years when he was at
the hands of Stefano.

“Yeah…I didn’t know who you were only that you came to me at night
begging me to come and find you….I’d forgotten all about that,” he
said as he wiped his tears away.

“John was right, you were alive however Alexander North double crossed
me and told me that you had indeed died and that Samantha had
overdosed on drugs and had died in Los Angeles…Imagine my surprise
when I came to Salem to right an old wrong with the Brady family and
discovered that you were married to Roman Brady?”

“So why didn’t you try to take me then or at least tell me who you were?”

“There was never an opportune time and I never had proof that you were
who I thought you were. Yes you look like your mother and your name
was Marlena, but there was nothing tying you to the Dimera family….I
did not know for certain…Every time I tried to get a sample of your
DNA, the ISA somehow prevented it,” Stefano said as he thought back to
the past. He wanted to tell her, but too much time had passed and she
was too ingrained in a life of truth and justice and wouldn’t have
believed him. It was safer for her to remain oblivious of her rich
heritage.

“So in the meantime you made my and the Brady’s life hell.”

“Vengeance is mine. Do not feel sorry for the Brady’s, there is much
that you don’t understand. Take Roman, your dear ex-husband…”

“This is not about Roman and there is nothing you could say about him
that would change my mind. He is a good, honest and decent person.
This is about you Stefano.”

“Believe what you want if it makes things easier for you…Know that I
did not know for certain that you were indeed Julie until I received a
call from Shane Donovan asking for protection for both of you…But how
convenient for all of us…”

“Convenient for you….” John interrupted.

“Convenient for all of us….Marlena has something that I want and need.”

“What is that?” John asked.

“The location of the money….before he died Channing Owens told you a
series of numbers…those numbers unlock a series of safe’s that contain
the money that my brother and Owens tried to steal….For the last 30
years I had had countless experts work on that safe to open it.”

“You couldn’t just blast through it?”

“If only it were that simple John….Maxwell didn’t trust his brother
Channing or my brother John….he placed a series of safeguards on the
safe…The safe can only be opened with the exact combination or risk
the contents of the safe being destroyed…that’s too much money to
risk….billions of dollars…do you know what I could do with that?

“I shot Rafael Torres….” Marlena stated, realizing that none of what
Stefano was saying made sense. John had told her that Leopold Alamain
and Rafael Torres and Stefano were part of the Stockholm Consortium,
but she knew two of the three members to be dead.

“No you didn’t….ISA planted the memory, wanting you to think that you did.”

“No….”

“Yes Marlena”

“No….I remember walking into the room where he was trying to rape my
sister and I shot him.”

“No, ISA wanted you to think that and a lot of other things….they
figured that if they were able to make your childhood more traumatic
for you than it already was that you’d forget the key details that
they wanted you to forget.”

“The money and the tape,” she whispered.

“The tape?” John asked confused.

“Yes….exactly…..the ISA has been looking for the money for years but
with all their high tech gadgets and child psychologists they were
unable to get the location of the safe or the combination out of your
head.”

“Torres?”

“He disappeared before the ISA got there….ISA figured that starting a
major crime war between the three families was easier than mitigating
any damage or loss…..They mistakenly thought that if they instigate a
feud we’d betray each other and reveal the contents of the safe…..They
want the tape more than the money.”

“The tape?” John asked, confused by the rapid-fire conversation
between Marlena and Stefano.

“Don’t ask…I’ll tell you later,” Marlena said as tears formed in her
eyes. She knew the contents of that tape, something that she
desperately wanted to forget and hoped that no one would ever see. She
was strong, she was a survivor, and she could do this. Turning around
she walked over to the painting and fingered the space where her
father had been. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why all of this secrecy? Why all the drama.”

“Because we are Dimeras and we can’t help it.”

“Why did you make me compromise my dignity? WHY? You’re my uncle?” she
asked him, her back still to him. She didn’t have the strength to see
his face or John’s when he answered the question. She desperately
wanted to hide and to forget that it had ever happened but knew that
she couldn’t. She missed Stefano rolling his eyeballs at her, annoyed
that she was once again revisiting this issue. Out of all the things
in her past, this one incident should bother her the least.

“What are you talking about?” John asked again, perplexed. Marlena had
never been involved with Stefano. Sure the man had been after her for
years, but it was never reciprocal.

“John, please let him answer the question,” Marlena interrupted,
hoping that John would hear the seriousness in her voice.

“I have no explanation for that Marlena,” he said as he stared up at
John, taunting him. “Regardless of our blood relation you have grown
to be an enchanting creature…I simply wanted a taste of what has
driven so many men mad with desire, what has driven John mad with
desire.”

“You bastard,” John hissed as he lunged toward Stefano, the truth
finally dawning on him. Marlena had slept with Stefano.

“Stop,” Marlena screamed at him, turning around and placing the butt
of the gun against his temple. “You should have known better…I didn’t
know who you were….”

“It’s a moot point, why relieve it.”

“You’re just a sick old man…I really want to kill you, but I can’t,”
Marlena said as she removed the gun from his temple and placed it on
the table and walked away from him. “I should I should for everything
that you’ve ever done to me or to my family and most especially Roman
and John…you played with our lives like you were God…you’re not,
you’re just a sick old man.” She was stronger than him and had always
been. His answer just validated what she knew, he was mentally ill and
there was no acceptable explanation for his actions. Rather than dwell
on this issue anymore and make it a defining moment in her life she
accepted it for what it was and moved on mentally. Forgiving him for
what he had done gave her the focus that she needed.

“That doesn’t mean that I can’t,” John said as he approached the table.

“No John, he’s not worth it,” Marlena said as she grabbed his strong
arm, feeling his muscles as they tensely contracted with each
movement. He was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

“Listen to her John, she is a wise woman.”

“Shut the hell up Stefano,” Marlena seethed at him. “You are in no
position to be saying to either one of us, got that.”

Stefano nodded.

“I’m the one calling the shots from now on, got that? You are going to
your study and call the family. Within 12 hours I want all of my
uncles sitting in that living room,” she said as she pointed to the
room with her finger. “Together you are going to devise a plan of
protection for my family and that includes not only John and myself,
but also Noah and Rachel, Carrie, Belle, Brady and Chloe, Sami, Roman,
Shawn and Caroline, Bo and Hope, and Kayla and Kimberly. I don’t care
what happened in the past that you feel you need to get revenge for.
From now on they are off limits. Got that?”

She waited for confirmation from Stefano before she continued. “Within
twenty-four hours I will be entering Salem University Hospital to see
my babies for the first time in almost nine months. No secret service,
no ISA agents, FBI, CIA, NSA or any other police force will be there
then or after. You will use your connections to get them off my back.
And lastly you will find Eric and bring him home.”

“And what do I get out of all of this?”

“Besides doing something decent and right for the first time in your
pathetic life, at the end of it all, after all my demands have been
met I will give you the code that you so desperately want. You get the
money, I get the tape.”

“You drive a hard bargain, you would have made your father proud, you
truly are a Dimera.…”

“No, I’m a Black and don’t you ever forget that….the clock is ticking
so I suggest you make those calls now….in twelve hours if my demands
aren’t met I will kill you….After all I have nothing to lose.”

Seeing the determination in her eyes, Stefano rose from the table and
quickly left the room.

As soon as he left, Marlena’s strong resolve dissolved. Sobbing, she
sought solace in John’s strong protective arms. Slowly, John rubbed
her back and shoulders. Words were necessary, both well aware of what
had just transpired with Stefano. “Love you,” he whispered as he
kissed the top of her head. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m okay,” she told him as she pulled out of his warm embrace and
smiled up at him. No matter how many times he had touched her in the
past it was always like it was the first time. So much time and
memories had been lost, but what they had could never be destroyed and
would never end. Against every odd they had repeatedly found one
another. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Remember those words you spoke to me on the beach long ago?” John
asked as he took Marlena’s hands in his and gazed into her eyes. “Do
you remember?”

Looking into his blue eyes, Marlena felt complete. Allowing the
enormity of the love, faith and trust lingering behind those blue eyes
to wash over her no longer frightened her. She was secure in who she
was.

“You told me that although the future is uncertain, knowing that I was
by your side meant more to you than I’d ever know. I hope you still
feel that way and know that I’ll always be here for you Doc, always.”

“Just as you’ve always been even when I didn’t know it…In my past I
have found my future.”

“I’m not sure I understand Marlena…what did you find, besides me,” he
laughed as he took her hand and kissed it gently, eyebrow raised.

“I found something that was always there, someone that was always
there I just didn’t know it….I found myself.”

Finis.