Page 70 of Beyond Reason

Xavier

It was weird, being around people that knew exactly who I was and how I’d gotten here… and didn’t care. As much as I hated the thought of it, I’d expected I would always have to masquerade under some kind of new alias if I wanted to venture out into the world again.

Hell, in the days I’d spent at his condo, I’d talked myself around to the concept of taking up Marshall’s name. It wasn’t exactly my favorite idea in the world, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to let Axel use it… but it would probably be easier than trying to get a bulletproof new identity if I wanted to go back to work. The problem with being in the business of death was that the people who hired you had pockets deep enough to pay you.

That meant they had pockets deep enough to see exactly what they were paying for.

Around Kade and Seth, I didn’t have to worry about being anyone other than myself… and even if Kade was still just as standoffish as before—maybe a little more so every time I caught him glaring at me—Seth seemed genuinely happy to be here. He kept searching me out, even though I could have told him Axel was definitely the one who was more like him when it came to being a good person.

Because Seth was a good person.

Any time I asked him a question, he was more than happy to volunteer the information. I knew they’d gone after Nathaniel West in Paris, but only managed to shut down another one of his facility sites. They’d just missed killing the man who was now making my life hell.

Seth had already made up his mind that Axel and I were people he could trust, even though everyone else in the house was trying to figure out exactly how far this alliance could go.

He’d been the one who insisted they stay in the area, and he’d been the one who accepted Axel’s almost reluctant invitation of a room to stay in while they were here. I had a feeling Axel had only done it because we both knew if anyone was going to make sure no one from the facility got anywhere close to the house, it would be Kade.

Not for my sake, obviously.

He kept Seth tucked to his side most of the time, and when he didn’t, the threat of death clearly written across his face any time he looked at me was more than enough to let me know I’d be carved nerve by nerve if I hurt the smaller man.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good to remind him again that I had nothing to do with whatever Marshall had or hadn’t done to them before—that I couldn’t even remember that life and what he’d done to get on Kade’s shit list. Whatever it was, it didn’t bleed over into the muscle memories that he’d left me behind, so clearly trying to kill Seth wasn’t deeply ingrained in his thoughts and feelings.

At least I’d finally gotten to meet the reason I was in this mess to begin with. They were the people Marshall had been trying to save—well, at least Seth was. Jayce was obviously no longer in the equation. It shouldn’t have made me feel better, seeing the way Kade moved like his own person, the way he was here and real the same way I was.

If there was any part of the lab rat left in me, I might have felt bad knowing a psychopath had replaced what was probably a normal college student—Marshall had felt bad about it. I was just jealous that Kade had found a body that looked so much like the one he’d been in before. Fuck, he was actually a little bigger than he’d been… either that, or Marshall was just so short that I couldn’t tell the difference.

It took a few days of nothing happening, listening to bits and pieces of conversation and the story of how Seth and Kade had just gotten back from burning a building down in Paris, before I finally caved and invited the smaller man to come and look at the information on the flash drive.

I’d been on the fence, but it was obvious that I wasn’t going to give them any information that they didn’t already have an idea of… and if there was anything on the damn thing we could use to our advantage, they might be able to spot it better than I could.

In the end, it just turned into Seth flipping through the files with his brows knit together and his lower lip caught between his teeth. The majority of the information was on the components of the drugs they’d pumped us all full of, on the before of the experiment with Seth and Jayce… The rest of the files were encrypted or locked behind a password that the muscle memory Marshall left me with didn’t know how to unlock. The few bits we could access were about reincarnation.

It made me wonder if Marshall had created the passwords before he died, or if he’d grabbed information that even he didn’t have access to in hopes that he’d be able to crack it later.

The only thing showing Seth the file did was make him glance at me with a guilty expression.

“Marshall really was just trying to do the right thing, wasn’t he?”

He was. Trying to do the right thing had gotten him killed—had brought me here. His mistake.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? He’s gone now.”

Seth looked down at his hands with a miserable expression. “I can remember how it felt to put the needle into him, you know? How it felt to knock him to the ground. I remember his expression. He looked… hurt.” Seth shook his head. “Not physically, though there was that. He looked devastated that Clay tried to kill him… I mean, I guess he succeeded, right?”

Was I supposed to comfort him? I didn’t know how to do it without being completely insincere.

“I don’t think he would have held it against you, Seth. It wasn’t like you were the one who did it, anyway.” I still didn’t know much about Clay, though I’d heard them say his name a few times now. I’d managed to keep my curiosity at bay for the most part. “He was a killer, right? So he was just following instincts.”

“Clay was…” Seth paused, but only for a second. “Complicated. I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. Honestly, if he hadn’t done it, I’m sure Kade would have just put a bullet in Marshall’s head. So…”

The thought struck me suddenly, and I didn’t like how it twisted in my chest. I couldn’t imagine a world where any chance I might have had to come back was snuffed out. I couldn’t imagine not being here with Axel now, not being with him.

But it could have been that simple—Kade could have shot Marshall instead of Clay giving him the drug, and I wouldn’t have been here.

“Whether you feel guilty about it or not, I’m glad Clay was the one steering.” I couldn’t even try to sound sympathetic.

“Yeah, I guess it all happened for a reason. Two people who were always meant to find each other.” He glanced over at Axel and Kade where they stood in the kitchen—Kade was bent over a gun that he was cleaning with meticulous care, and I was pretty sure Axel was explaining something about the way the design had changed since Kade had last been alive. “I wonder if everyone is always so lucky.”

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