Page 76 of Beyond Reason

I decided to put him out of his misery before Kade came out here and threw me over the porch railing.

“I… It’s a bit different, yeah. I mean…” I pointedly didn’t look at Axel when I spoke, dropping my gaze to my hands instead. “I know how much I cared about him before, but it feels… intense now.” I wasn’t sure how to explain it, or how much I wanted to explain to a complete stranger. But honestly, who else would understand this more than someone who’d gone through it?

“And you can’t remember anything about the man you were before?” That slightly pained expression was back, but this time he was smart enough to turn so Kade couldn’t study his face.

It didn’t stop the man from staring harder until Axel said something, and he reluctantly pulled his attention away.

“No, not really. I have… It’s almost like muscle memory. When I woke up, I knew how to use my phone to figure out where Axel was, but I didn’t remember Marshall using it.”

Seth frowned, biting his lower lip again. “They were talking about figuring out a way to make sure that past memories didn’t exist anymore. It makes sense that they’d make sure you still knew how to navigate the world around you without remembering who your body belonged to before.”

“You sound like you know a lot about it.” I really was in the right place if I wanted answers, even if I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to know.

“It’s kind of hard not to when a company decides to completely upend your life and change everything.” He’d started picking at the frayed strings of his hoodie again.

If I’d been someone else, maybe someone with a little more tact, I might have left him alone. It was obvious that the topic distressed him, at least on some level… but I wasn’t sure when I’d ever have this opportunity again, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

“So… you and Kade were both given the same drug as me? Or some variant of it, right?”

He forced his eyes from his fingers and looked at me. For just a second, they were still wide and just a little glassy looking, but they slowly narrowed the longer he stared.

Maybe I’d misjudged him—maybe there was more to Seth than doe-eyed innocence.

Or maybe that was the lingering effects of whoever Clay had been.

“Why are you so curious, Xavier? Stop dancing around it and just ask me what you really want to know.”

Well, shit. I hadn’t expected some pint-sized puppy to see right through me.

“I need to make sure that there’s no chance they can bring whoever Marshall was back.” I wasn’t sure why I gave him the honesty he was seeking, but I didn’t seem to have it in me to lie.

Not when he was glaring at me with hazel eyes that seemed to demand the truth.

And not when I could see a world of pain and anger, surrounded by edges that were still so soft, in that stare.

“I already told you—”

“I know what you told me, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to believe it until you tell me again,” I snapped. I was tired of playing nice, tired of constantly worrying that the life I’d been given was going to be ripped away from me.

I was tired of worrying about—

“You know, Marshall wasn’t such a bad guy. If there was a way they could let you both—”

“No.” I cut him off, and I was shocked by the vehemence in my tone. If he wanted to know whether I felt more or not, all he needed to do was listen to me now. This wasn’t me.

I didn’t care this much.

I didn’t feel this much.

And I’d certainly never experienced terror gripping so violently in my chest that it felt like it was trying to claw out my lungs. I could feel it, though, like a living breathing thing that wanted to tear me apart from the inside out.

It had nothing to do with my fear of facing death again, because I didn’t remember facing it the first time. No, this fear had to do with life, the life that I’d taken. The life that should have still been standing here.

And how that life might have fit with Axel more than I ever could have.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean no. If there's any chance that Marshall still exists somewhere, I don’t want to know. If there’s any way they could bring him back so he could have his happily ever after, I’m sorry, but it’s not happening.” Seth’s eyes widened, and I shrugged one shoulder. “Look, if everything you’ve been telling me is true, and Axel and I are soulmates—if every variation of us forever are meant to be together—I refuse to let him meet Marshall. I refuse to even give him a chance to realize that he might have fit better with him than he does with me.” That trembling terror from before flickered from ice to flame, trying to burn me up from the inside out. “I’m all he needs.”

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