Page 10 of Beyond Reason

Up to him.

That was different, too. I’d been taller than him before.

It didn’t seem to matter though, because there was a moment of recognition that flared through his expression, chased on the wings of impossibility.

“I get it, baby. Trust me. I barely believe it myself, but… here we are.” I pushed away from him and stepped closer to the fireplace. There really was a white rug burning down to cinders. Did he still burn evidence in his house sometimes when he was too tired to go to the incinerator he had on his other property?

Some things never changed.

“You—”

“Need a shower. And maybe something to eat. Oh, do you still cook that pasta dish your Ma taught you?” Every second I was with him, more memories trickled into my mind. A dozen nights curled up on his couch, eating pasta stuffed with cheese and meat while I forced him to watch some terrible horror movie with me.

He hated it.

For a man who cleaned up dead bodies for a living, he was easy to jump when scared.

And…

“How do you know about that?”

I put my hands on my hips impatiently. I hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with information, but maybe there was a part of me that was convinced he’d know—that he’d see me, see my eyes, and he’d know it was me.

Maybe a part of me wanted him to feel me, to see me… to show me that I was really real, that I was here… and that all of this wasn’t some kind of batshit delusion I was under, because there was still a small part of me that couldn’t believe it, even though I’d spent two weeks reading about the facility where Marshall had worked and going through his condo. He’d been a real person. The experiment they’d been running on past lives and reincarnation had been a real thing.

And even though I couldn’t remember much about who I’d been before, I knew that I wasn’t him. I wasn’t Marshall… I was Xavier…

So…

“Don’t you recognize me? Fuck, I know I’ve lost a few pounds… and a few inches… and I’m in a completely new body, but damn. I thought I meant more to you than that.”

Did I detect a small string of truthfulness in what I said? Shit, I’d meant it as a tease. Of course, he probably wouldn’t recognize me.

I didn’t even recognize me when I looked in the mirror.

But still…

“I know what… who you’re pretending to be. But…” It was there in his eyes, a hope so fragile I could have shattered it with a puff of my breath, and behind that a pain so bottomless I was surprised he could breathe around it.

Fuck… Had I done that to him when I left him?

Had he really loved me that much?

“Axel—”

“It’s impossible,” he snapped. “He’s dead.”

Dead.

There was that word again, and it sent the same shiver of dread up my spine as it had when I was reading the file about the experiment Marshall had been working on. Bringing dead souls back to life—bringing people who had died in the past into the present.

Which meant somewhere along the way, I’d fucked up… but it was all a blank. There was void, nothingness. There were just flashes and memories of Axel, and thoughts of who I used to be.

There was Marshall’s knowledge and instinct, and tiny hints of the life he’d lived before I overtook it.

But there was no Marshall lingering in my mind.

And there was no memory of what had happened to me.

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