Page 7 of Beyond Reason

“It’s about damn time, I thought I was going to bust my knuckles trying to get your atten…” he slowly trailed off, and his eyes widened when he looked at me.

They were soft, sweet. Liquid brown and ringed in pale green.

It was the green that caught me off guard, because I’d only seen that color one other time. But he wasn’t…

He couldn’t be…

And yet I couldn’t shake the familiarity as he crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.

“Fuck. Was all that shit on the computer right? I thought this was—”

“Who are you?” I finally managed the question I should have asked before I fully opened the door. But… the way he glared at me, the way his arms were crossed? The way he leaned back just slightly, but I could see the loose posture of his body, like he was ready to spring into action and fight at the first sign of trouble.

Fuck, he didn’t look exactly like him, but the body language had Xavier written all over it. It made something in my chest burn, something in me ache. I’d been thinking of him earlier, and now this?

What was it about today?

“For fuck’s sake, Axel. Did the gray hair make you senile?”

It was impossible—completely impossible, for so many reasons. That didn’t stop the fissure that I felt opening in my chest, didn’t stop the pain that tore through me like I was back in that moment when I’d gotten the call to show up to a scene.

A messy scene.

And…

“Who are you?” I hissed, vehement this time, trying not to let the agony rocking through my chest show in the way I spoke. The man in front of me glared again, raking his fingers through curly brown hair…

Then shoved past me to walk into the house.

I’d been trained for things like this. I didn’t enjoy it, but I was completely capable of killing someone in a few quick movements. For the most part, my job didn’t entail that kind of danger. For the most part, people were already dead by the time I got to them.

But I still knew how to incapacitate someone, and the man who walked past me was skinny, small. He looked like he’d been sick. It would have been so simple to reach out and grab him by the shoulder, to twist his arm behind his back and break it. It would probably be easier still to throw him to the ground, walk to any of the weapons I had stashed around the house, and just take him out.

I’d been trained to do this.

Instead, my eyes drifted helplessly across the shiny pink scarring of burn marks that trailed along the back of his neck as he pushed past me without invitation … and I just let him.

“Maybe my head is more fucked up than I thought.” My brows knit together. What was he talking about? Then again, anyone who would walk into a stranger’s house like this did have to be a little fucked in the head, didn’t they?

“Excuse me?”

He dropped onto my couch, the ghost of those green eyes fixed on me with a sardonic expression that shouldn’t have existed anymore. “Do you just let anyone wander into your house, Axel?” Then, without missing a beat, he turned his head toward my fireplace and frowned. “Is that a… rug?”

I stared at him like I was seeing a ghost, because that seemed to be exactly what he was. The posture, the stance, the way he talked to me and lounged on my couch like he’d done it a thousand times before.

But…

It was impossible.

And even if it was possible, he was impossible. He couldn’t have been any older than Xavier had been when he’d died.

And…

“Who are you?” I felt like a fucking broken record, but I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take a few steps back and grab one of the weapons I had stashed by the door or take the steps forward that would close the gap between us, so I could kneel in front of him and look at his face.

Look into his eyes.

Look at those rings of green that I’d never seen outside of Xavier’s stare. His eyes had been so unique, the color so vibrant it was almost yellow. Like grass in the summer sun, or a cat’s eyes. Maybe I’d never seen anything like it since he’d died because I’d stopped bothering to really look at people, to really see them.

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