Page 11 of Beyond Reason

Whatever notes he’d made on the people named Seth and Jayce, they didn’t seem to apply to my situation.

I just wanted…

“Surprise, surprise. I guess I’m too stubborn to die.” I hoped the snark outweighed the unsurety I was feeling. I didn’t like not knowing what was going on. As far as I could remember, I’d always had a plan. I’d always known what I was doing.

Until I met Axel.

He’d always fucked things up, hadn’t he?

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, or who you’re working for,” he growled. “But I can promise you, I’m not someone you want to fuck with. Just because I’m not a killer for pay doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly how to get rid of a body once I’m finished with it.”

The vehemence in his voice arrowed along my body and made my skin tingle. Even though he was threatening me, and even though it made something in my chest ache that he didn’t seem to recognize me…

Apparently, rough and tough Axel had only gotten hotter with age. If you’d asked me before, I would have said it was impossible.

Obviously I was wrong.

Then again, if you’d asked me if I was going to be in a situation where Axel had no idea who I was, and he was suddenly twenty years older than me…

Well, I guess I’d been wrong about a lot of things.

“Listen, Fetterman,” I hissed his last name. “You’ve guarded everything about yourself but your name since the moment I met you. Unless you’ve seriously slipped in the years since I…” I couldn’t make myself say the word died, so I settled on something a little less dramatic. “Since I left, how would I know any of this?” My brows knit together and my arms crossed over my chest again. I wasn’t sure if it was so I could look stubborn or in some strange effort to comfort myself. “Did you get yourself a new boyfriend as soon as I died and cook for him? Because that’s the only way anyone would know.”

Unreasonable.

I was being unreasonable.

If everything I’d been learning over the last few weeks was true, and if the world really had continued to spin while I’d been… gone… I couldn’t blame him if he’d found someone else.

I couldn’t be upset with him.

Of course… I’d never been a reasonable person to begin with.

“You don’t know what you’re—”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” I took a step toward him again, and part of me wondered if it was because I wanted to confront him, or if some tether between us refused to let me be this close to him without trying to put my hands on him. Even if I couldn’t remember what had happened to me, some part of me seemed starkly aware that I’d missed things.

Lots of things.

So much time…

And now…

“Once upon a time, you promised I would be the only person you’d ever love. You told me there wouldn’t be anyone else. Did you lie to me, Axel?”

It wasn’t fair.

I wasn’t being fair.

And I didn’t care.

“Fuck you,” he snapped, but I could hear the pain behind the vitriol. “I’m done playing this game.” He was in my face before I’d even realized he was moving, and the thrill of his proximity stole my breath away.

It made me stupid, apparently.

His hand twisted in my curls and jerked my head back, forcing me to look up at him. It only hurt because I could see the way he searched my face, see the way he was trying to see the truth in what I was saying.

And I could see it when he talked himself out of the reality that was standing right in front of him.

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