Page 16 of Beyond Reason

I wondered if that was why I opened my bedroom door like a damn fool and silently padded to the living room.

His jacket and pants were on the floor.

Xavier was stretched across the couch in a t-shirt and boxers.

And even though he didn’t look like the person I remembered, everything about him screamed familiar, screamed right.

Maybe I was too tired to fight it. I knew I was too tired to stop myself from making my way across the room and sitting in the empty space he’d left for me.

Chapter 5

Xavier

“Iwas wondering when you were going to stop tossing and turning and come out here.”

“There’s no way you heard me in my bedroom.” His eyes narrowed and told me my guess had been right. Broad arms crossed over his chest, and it made me realize yet again how different things were.

He was so much bigger than me. Once upon a time, I’d been taller.

Once upon a time, there was no situation I could think of where Axel could best me in a fight, where he could overpower me.

Right now, if he wanted to, he could roll over on this couch and pin me down. He could probably break me, and the weak state of my body wouldn’t let me fight back. I’d felt the power in him while we were in the alley. I’d felt it when he kissed me, when his arms wrapped around me, and he squeezed me so tight I wondered if I’d break.

I felt it, and I felt his desperation. Even though I could see the distrust sparking in his eyes. No matter how much he wanted to believe what was happening was impossible, his body couldn’t lie.

Every memory of him that was slowly resurfacing told me he’d never been very good at lying to me. From the very beginning, from the first moment we’d met… because I could remember that.

It was all coming back in bits and pieces, and every little moment stolen from my past and brought to the present told me I was exactly where I needed to be.

I sat up on the couch, pulling one knee to my chest so I could lean my chin on it as I looked him over. He looked different, but so much of him was familiar. So much of him silently begged for me to reach out and touch him… but now that he wasn’t caught up in the act of chasing me with a desperation I didn’t remember, I wasn’t sure if he’d let me.

I settled on memorizing the new lines on his face as I teased him. “Maybe I couldn’t hear you, but I know you. You can’t leave anything alone. And you never could sleep when I was out here, could you?”

When I smiled, another little arrow of pain streaked across his features. It had been happening since I first walked into the house, since he’d seen me standing there in the doorway. He watched me with some strange mixture of desperation and agony that had no place being in the same expression.

If I thought about it too hard, I knew I’d realize exactly why.

I’d apparently died, after all. Even though I couldn’t remember how.

Axel had all the answers, though—he knew everything.

I needed the information locked away behind his broken expression… but watching him watch me, I wasn’t sure how to get it.

“There’s no reason you should know anything. I’m still not sure this isn’t some kind of trick to get—”

“To get what, Axel?” I cut him off. “A place to sleep? Somewhere to rest and recover from everything that happened to this body before I got into it?” I dropped my leg down and leaned toward him. I didn’t miss the way he recoiled, the way his fists clenched like it was hard for him not to reach out and touch me. “I have nothing to gain from tricking you.”

“People have wanted to kill me before.”

“And? I’m sure I killed them, I just…” I paused, frowning. “I can’t…” For just a moment, my eyes drifted shut, and I tried to force myself to remember what he was talking about. People trying to kill him—someone trying to hurt him. Instinct told me I would have done anything to stop them, but trying to force the memory only gave me a small burst of words.

Send a message, you have to—

“Fuck!” My hands flew to my head as a spike of pain rocked through my body, nearly violent enough to black out my vision.

I didn’t have to see to recognize the sensation of a callused hand cupping my face, and as my vision slowly swam back into focus, I let myself melt into the warmth of Axel’s palm.

“What just happened?”

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