Page 17 of Beyond Reason

“I don’t know.” I paused. If I was smart, I’d keep my mouth shut and enjoy the feel of him. Apparently, I wasn’t smart. “I thought you didn’t care… or believe me.”

“I don’t.” His hand jerked back, but not before he brushed a wayward curl from my forehead. “But you were obviously in pain.”

“So? I’m a stranger, right? Either that or you know who I am, and you just don’t want to admit it.” Shit, did I sound smug?

“What happened?” he asked again, affectation flat and ignoring what I’d just said and the obvious triumph in my tone.

“I don’t know. There’s so many blank spaces in my memories. It just…” I trailed off with a shrug. He didn’t need to see all the vulnerable, weak places I’d come back with. It was already obvious that the body I was in wasn’t as capable as the one I’d had before.

He didn’t need to know there were pieces of my mind that felt just as small and broken.

“You don’t remember everything?” He hedged the question carefully, and I glanced at him again through my lashes. I wasn’t sure if he sounded happy or irritated. I just knew I could sense traces of concern beneath the words. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, I knew that he knew the truth.

I could tell by the way he’d kissed me in the alley, by the way he was looking at me now like I might fly apart if he glanced away.

I could tell because he’d come out of his room to see me just like he used to—I could still remember that. I could remember so many nights facing each other just like this.

And I could remember what it usually led to.

Like I was on strings cut by some puppet master, I let myself fall forward with a soft groan. He didn’t move when I laid my head on his thigh, but his fingers didn’t instantly come down to stroke through my hair like they used to.

He didn’t push me away though, and I knew he was completely capable of it. That, in and of itself, was telling.

I threw one arm over my face, wondering if obscuring the unfamiliar would make him relax, would make him accept what was happening a little more. “I’m just… tired, Axel. If this is hard on you, imagine how it is for me.”

He didn’t say anything, so I pressed on.

“I have proof, you know.”

That did make him speak. “What are you talking about?”

“When I woke up in the hospital, Marshall Lister had a phone, his wallet, and a flash drive. I’m guessing he smuggled it out of the building where he worked.” I would have rolled my eyes if they were open. “I guess his moral compass was pointing to his boss being very corrupt. I don’t know what he was planning on doing with the information, but it’s all there. I can show it to you. Experiments, reincarnation, making soldiers out of killers and selling them to the highest bidder.” I peeked at him over the top of my arm and arched a brow. “Makes sense that they brought me back, huh? I bet I would have made them a pretty penny if the place hadn’t burned to the ground.”

I had no idea if they’d actually brought me back on purpose. There was nothing in all the information Marshall had stolen that said anything about me. I did see a familiar name that gave the entire thing more credibility. Kade Neil was dangerous, probably one of the most dangerous men I’d ever known. The man labeled Clayton Black was a complete mystery… and I had no idea who Seth or Jayce were. But it was all there in the files—doses of medication, and how exactly they’d lured them into the facility. Some of it was encrypted, but I'd seen enough. There were grainy videos of two boys being strapped down and injected with syringes… and for just a moment, my mind tried to recollect the same.

A needle to my neck? To my chest?

But it was a blank.

I stopped trying to recall it before another spike of pain shot through my head. I was better off letting things come back to me naturally.

“Why were you in the hospital? Do you know what happened?” Like he could read my mind and he wanted to contradict what I was trying to do, Axel’s voice was hushed curiosity spilling through my thoughts.

“I don’t. I had a concussion and burns. Whoever Marshall was, he went through some real shit before he… died.” I hesitated on the word. Was he dead? If I was reading the information correctly, the soul never really died, did it? Was he just there somewhere, passive and waiting in the background for some later life? Was he a part of me?

It didn’t feel like he was, and I didn’t want him to be. Just looking at his notes, he seemed good. Pure even.

That wasn’t the kind of person I was. That wasn’t the kind of person I’d ever be. Whoever Marshall Lister had been, he was in the past now. I was happy to take his body, but that was all.

“This is all…” Axel paused, like he was trying to figure out the exact words to say. Finally, he shrugged. “Impossible.”

“It sounds that way, yeah.”

He was quiet for another second. “So you can’t remember everything?”

I nodded and sighed, closing my eyes and turning my head so my cheek pressed against his thigh. He didn’t stop me or push me away… but his fingers did move behind the curls at my neck to trail against the burn scars on my skin. It still felt weird, half numb and stretched tight.

I was glad I couldn’t remember it happening.

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