Page 61 of Beyond Reason

He only paused for a second before he spoke. “What do you mean?”

Ah, that wasn’t a mask. That wasn’t Axel pretending. I wasn’t sure if he really knew how to pretend, and I could see the emotions painted all across his features. The worry, the slight hint of anger, because I had a feeling that he knew exactly what I meant, and he just didn’t want to hear it.

I didn’t want to say it.

I didn’t want to pick this particular fight with him, but apparently, I couldn’t control myself.

I didn’t need a sudden burst of clarity to know that I’d never known when to shut up.

“I know I look pretty now, Axel, but I can’t just be a househusband for the rest of my life. We both know what I’m good at.”

I could almost see the pain streak across his face, and a small part of me wanted to take the words back. If I hadn’t meant them so much, I probably would have. But the truth was, I did. I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. I couldn’t let Axel take care of me for the rest of my life, even though I was more than sure he had the money to do just that.

“Why?”

“Axel—”

“No, wait. I mean why do you have to go back to that?” He frowned. “There’s a million things you could do, Xavier. You’re… You have a whole new life. You’re a whole new person with a new identity. You could keep yourself safe this time around.”

A whole new life.

A whole new person.

Marshall.

Had I somehow predicted that this would happen when I’d woken up in a mood this morning? Or had I manifested it into being because I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut?

“I’m not a nine-to-five kind of guy. We both know that.”

“It could be different, though. Once we hunt down this company—”

“Who said I want to hunt them down?” I cut him off again. I was apparently really good at that today. I stared at him across the table and felt something in my chest squeeze tight. I refused to do this—I refused to wonder if he wanted me to be someone else. “I don’t want to get anywhere near them, Axel. I don’t want to be anywhere near a place that might just snuff me out to get their pet scientist back.” It came out harsher than I meant, and I couldn’t resist driving my point home. “It almost seems like you want him back, too.”

He was silent, and if I didn’t know him better, I would have taken it as an omission. I could see the emotions as they streaked across his face; hurt ran so deep it nearly etched lines at the corners of his eyes before a white-hot streak of anger chased the pain at its heels and settled in the stern press of his lips.

“You fucking know better, Xavier. I never said that.”

“You just did. You want some perfect little pretty thing to keep at home, someone safe.” I pushed back from the table abruptly and threw my arms wide. “Newsflash, Sunshine, I’m never going to be safe. I’m never going to be someone who isn’t in danger. I’m a killer. It’s all I know—it’s what I am.”

I felt flush, hot and angry. It was even worse, because a dozen new memories were trying to fly into my mind—all the times we’d fought. How sometimes it was just screaming, how sometimes it came to blows. We were both so physical, so passionate about one another.

It made sense. I knew we’d done it. But now I was feeling it—all of it, all at once.

And somewhere on the heels of that, I was feeling the stabbing insecurity that he’d realized in the time I’d been gone that someone else might have been safer for him.

That some other version of me might have fit better than I did.

Fuck, I couldn’t kill myself, or I’d be hunting the asshole down.

But… the pain on his face, the anger? It was too much. It was trying to force more memories to the surface, something that felt so violent and overwhelming that it was strangling me, threatening to leave me dizzy.

“I… Fuck. Fuck this. You want Marshall? Fine. Because I can guarantee he wouldn’t want some jackass who spends his time cleaning up after killers.”

Lies. He’d worked for a company that revived killers. He probably would have taken one look at Axel and proposed.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I whirled and headed toward the door, and Axel’s voice at my back didn’t stop me. “Where are you going?”

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