Page 86 of Beyond Reason

Axel

“Xavier?”

It was the first word that came out of my mouth, and I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or relieved when he didn’t answer me right away. I was pretty sure he’d gotten away, that I’d kept him safe.

But there was no way for me to know. They might have found him. They might have found him, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

My eyes turned to the doorway of a very blank, very dark room. The man who stood there looked familiar—I’d seen his picture on the flash drive.

Nathaniel West. Tall and slender, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was older, but he didn’t look weak.

In fact, he was looking at me like a shark circling its prey.

The expression made me clench my jaw.

“So… Xavier Benham, hm?” Just hearing his name come from the stranger’s tongue was enough to make my gut twist, make my body burn. “Tell me, is he the only personality residing within the body? Or do we still have access to Marshall Lister as well? I knew Dr. Northman had employed one of our potential subjects, but I never thought he’d become such a vital asset.”

If I told him it was just Xavier, that would make him disposable, wouldn’t it?

If I told him Marshall was there, they’d keep going after him.

The only right answer was no answer. I stared at him with a passive expression and kept my lips pressed together.

The curve of his smile told me that he wasn’t surprised, but the way he looked me up and down let me know he was delighted.

That never bode well. There were people who tortured information out of you because they had to, and people who enjoyed what they were doing. I had a feeling I was being subjected to the latter.

“You realize what we’re doing here is a scientific miracle, don’t you? The capability of waking latent personalities within a human? We could bring back brilliance from prior lives, the most talented, critical minds.”

Was he trying to use logic on me? I knew what they were doing. Even though I wasn’t one of the most talented, critical minds, it didn’t take a genius to realize he was going to use this power the same way every other rich asshole used power.

To get richer.

It wasn’t about helping anyone.

I stared blankly at him, and hoped he’d get the message that talking wasn’t going to do him a damn bit of good. If he was going to torture me, I’d honestly rather he just get on with it.

Unless talking was part of the torture.

“We could change everything. We could change the entire world. The only problem is…” That charming smile dropped. “We’ve had two of our facilities burned to the ground, and the head of our location where your Xavier came from developed a new strand of our serum without passing it through us first, based on some drug a college student took. Imagine our shock when we realized it wasn’t backed up to the servers. Dr. Northman was trying to go rogue with our little experiment—the only thing he managed to do was lose information on how to synthesize an even more potent version of our drug and his new strand in the process. All because he was arrogant and underestimated his test subjects.”

It took me a second to realize he wasn’t dumping all of this information out of some need to confess his frustrations. He was watching me carefully, waiting to see if I would react. I vaguely recognized the name Northman, and I knew they’d developed multiple variants of the drug that brought Xavier back to me, but I kept my face straight.

“All of that information is now trapped in Marshall Lister’s mind. He was the genius that helped Northman synthesize everything. And records indicate that someone with his passcode downloaded and deleted information the day the facility burned. Now, Mr. Fetterman, tell me, wouldn’t you go to any lengths to get back what was stolen from you?”

That finally caught my attention. I met his dark gaze and tilted my head.

I would. I would go to any lengths necessary to make sure Xavier was safe.

“I see. Well then, we’ll have to see if we can change your mind.” Nathaniel stood and raised two fingers—when a man came through the door, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

I could recognize muscle when I saw it, and when he stepped forward and his fist connected with my jaw, I closed my eyes.

I could do this.

For Xavier, I could do anything.

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