Page 48 of Traitor

But my scars will always remind me.

The one on my throat, slashing through my skin like a twisted signature. The one on my arm, still fresh, still raw, still branding me with a past I can never outrun.

And Bones.

Even after everything, even after his betrayal, his name still lingers in my head, like a wound that never quite stops aching. I want to forget him. I want to erase every memory, every whispered promise, every time he pulled me close and made me believe I was safe. But forgetting isn't healing.

And I need to heal myself.

I swallow hard, forcing down the lump in my throat. My gaze flickers to the agent's pen, smooth and silver, resting on the table. A simple object, waiting for me to pick it up, waiting for me to decide who I am now.

Then, the name comes to me.

A bitter, sharp-edged kind of clarity settles in my chest, and I almost want to laugh. It's fitting. Too fitting.

Temperance Brennan.

The name slides into place, locking into my mind like it was meant to be there all along. I grip the pen tightly, pressing the tip to paper, and I write it down.

It's not just any name. It's the name of a woman from a TV show I used to watch late at night when the clubhouse was quiet, when I needed a distraction from the life I'd fallen into.Bones.That's what they called her. That's the nickname she was given by her partner, a man who challenged her, infuriated her, but somehow understood her.

It's poetic, in a way.

I choose it because I need a constant reminder. Of what love can do. Of what trusting the wrong person leads to. Of how I let myself be destroyed.

Bones put his mark on my skin, on my soul, on my fucking heart, and even now, he still lingers in the spaces I try to forget. Like a curse.

I don't want to forget.

I want to remember.

I want to carry the weight of what he did to me. I want to look at my name every single day and remind myself why I will never love like that again. Why I will never let someone carve their own name into me and walk away like I was nothing.

The agent glances at the paper, then back at me. If he recognizes the name, he doesn't say anything. He just nods. "Temperance Brennan," he repeats, making it real, mine.

I lift my chin, forcing steel into my spine, into my voice. "Yeah."

I slide the paper back to him, watching as he stamps it with approval, finalizing the transition. My past life is gone. Elyna Holloway is dead and buried. And Temperance Brennan rises from her ashes.

The past may have shaped me.

But this time, I decide who I become.

The day I sign the papers for WITSEC, I stop being Elyna Holloway.

The name is stripped from me, erased like it never existed. I become Temperance Brennan, a woman with no past, no ties, no connections. The FBI agent across from me slides my new identification across the table. A new name, a new birthdate, a clean slate.

It doesn't feel real.

Even after everything, after signing my statements, after watching them take notes and record my words with quiet, calculated precision, it still doesn't sink in. Maybe because I spent too long belonging to someone else. First, the Crimson Riders. Then, the Iron Vultures. Even Bones. I was never just me. I was always someone's possession, someone's girl, someone's fucking problem.

But now?

Now, I'm no one.

And for the first time ever, I'm free.

The FBI gives me a list of locations. Places far from the reach of the MC world, where there are no clubs. Where I can disappear. Cities, small towns, remote places. I scan the options, my fingers tracing over names, but none of them feel right. I don't want a city. I don't want crowded streets or neon signs or anywhere that smells like whiskey, motor oil, and regret.

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