Page 79 of Beyond Reason

And I—

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Xavier, baby?” He sounded so concerned, so terrified. My eyes trailed along his body and landed on the chain he had around his neck.

The chain I’d never seen him take off. My hand came out in a darting movement, and I tore it from his throat, my brows furrowing together as I stared at the pendant. It was heavy in my hand—it had been heavy in my hand that night, too.

And…

“I remember exactly what happened now, Axel.” Even as I said the words, the sharp sting of a knife, the even deeper pain of bullets tore through my mind. I could remember how wet my breath had felt, how my lungs filled with blood.

How it was so slow, and I was afraid.

“Xavier…”

“I know why I died.”

And it was too much. It was all too much, and all at once. My fingers squeezed around the metal I held so hard I could feel it slicing into my palm, then I was moving. I pushed past Axel before he had a chance to stop me, past Kade who was watching the entire scene unfold with careful, curious eyes… Then I grabbed the keys from the table and ran out the front door.

Chapter 24

Axel

Iknow why I died.

I could still feel the sharp sting of him ripping the necklace from my throat.

“Fuck, is he okay?” Seth sounded concerned, but beneath that there was a level of sympathy and guilt—whatever he’d told him, it wasn’t his fault that Xavier finally remembered. It was going to happen eventually. He’d looked at that birthmark and my necklace every day—it was a miracle it hadn’t happened already, as much as I’d wanted to prevent it.

“No, probably not.”

“What—”

“We’ll be back.” I really didn’t have time to answer his questions. Instinct told me where Xavier had run off to, and it was close enough that I knew he would have no trouble getting there by taking a cab or stealing a car. I knew him well enough to know that it would probably be the latter, but I didn’t expect for my car to be gone when I ran outside.

“Take ours.”

“Seth, don’t you fucking—” But he’d already thrown the keys at me and turned to bury his face against Kade’s throat. I’d deal with the enraged psychopath later, and if they were gone by the time I got back, then maybe we were better off without them to begin with. Kade was so volatile and unforgiving. If I’d had any idea that he had a hand in bringing Xavier back to begin with, I would have figured something else out.

At least they had a nice car.

I hopped into it before he pulled himself away from Seth and peeled out of the driveway. There was every chance that Xavier was going somewhere else, every chance he was running back to Marshall’s condo, or maybe the lake house.

I paused at the end of my driveway with a frustrated groan and pulled out my phone. The only good thing about technology was that almost anything that functioned with electronics could be tracked. My car was no different. The tracker had been a feature offered at the dealership, and I’d agreed to it more out of wanting to get out of there faster and less because I was worried about someone trying to steal from me.

I was silently thanking whoever that obnoxious salesman had been now. When the app pulled up on my phone, I let out a shaky breath.

He was going in the opposite direction of the lake house. The opposite direction of Marshall’s condo.

Xavier was going in the exact direction I thought he would be. I hated it, hated even more that he had a few miles on me now because he was speeding. If I was lucky, he’d get pulled over by a cop and I’d be able to catch up with him.

If I wasn’t…

I didn’t want to think about that option. I pulled out of the driveway and sped after him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to go to the place he was going…

But I didn’t think he needed to be alone once he got there. He’d told Kade his memories were like putting together a puzzle… but this last bit? His brain had obviously tried to hide it from him, tried to protect him from remembering.

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