Page 124 of Marked to Be Mine

I opened my eyes slowly, calculating.

Concentrated focus shifted my perception from pain to purpose. Room dimensions: six by four meters. A standard isolation room in a high-security medical wing. Two cameras—one above the door, one in the corner to my right, covering blind spots. Motion sensors framed the windows. The glass was reinforced, likely bulletproof. Two guards positioned outside the door—one seated, one standing. Their shadows moved in predictable patterns across the small window.

The light from outside indicated early evening. Approximately 19:00 hours. The room darkened briefly as clouds passed, their shadows racing across the floor like memories I couldn’t quite catch.

I mentally inventoried potential weapons. IV stand: steel, detachable. Heart monitor: breakable glass, circuit boards, wiring. Bedsheet: tearable, usable as a garrote or binding. Basic toolkit for someone with my training.

Door to hallway: three point four meters. Keypad entry—six digits based on the guard’s finger movements when he entered earlier. The beeps had distinct tonal variations that betrayed the sequence.

The flash drive. The memory hit with unexpected force, sharper than the pain in my leg. Did my failsafe work? The explosion in Brock’s office should have triggered theautomatic upload to Maeve’s secured server. Assuming the connection wasn’t interrupted, she had access and could decode the files already.

Something close to satisfaction passed through me. Unfamiliar. Warm. Whatever happened next, I’d fulfilled my objective. Oblivion would be exposed. Their networks were compromised. Their operations were disrupted. The thought of the Director’s face when he realized what I’d done brought the closest thing to pleasure I’d felt in years. I let myself hold that image for a few seconds before discarding it. Emotions were weaknesses they’d exploit.

I visualized Ronan and Maeve crossing the border. Safe, for now. The journalist was unexpected—her persistence, her unwillingness to abandon Ronan despite logical arguments. Initially, I calculated her as a liability. I was wrong. Her stubbornness was an asset.

She’d find something in those files I’d sent that even I couldn’t decipher. Maybe my identity before I became Specter. Before I became…

A name floated just beyond reach. A life I couldn’t remember but sometimes felt pressing against the walls of my mind.

No. Focus on the present. Escape parameters.

Patience was critical. But every day, the risk increased. They’d transfer me soon. Interrogation would begin once they believed I was stable enough to withstand it.

I’d been here before. Different walls. Different restraints. Same objective.

Escape. Survive. Disappear.

I registered a distinctive pattern at the electronic door lock. Six rapid beeps followed by a hydraulic hiss. Different tempo than the guard’s entry. I instantly feigned deeper sedation—muscles slack, breathing pattern adjusted to simulate REM sleep, eyelids barely cracked enough to track movement without detection.

Not the doctor with his clipboard and predictable questions. Not the guard with his bored, mechanical sweep of the room. A woman.

She stepped directly into the shaft of late sunlight bleeding through my window. The golden light captured her like a spotlight, illuminating her in sudden, perfect clarity. Dark brown hair pulled into a practical bun, though a single tendril had escaped to curve along her jawline. In my world of assessments and calculated risks, this small imperfection made no sense as a detail I should notice.

I cataloged her automatically: mid-thirties, approximately 168 centimeters tall. Slim but toned build. Her stance suggested endurance over raw strength, hinted at a fragility she’d learned to disguise. No visible weapons. Lab coat over dark slacks. ID badge clipped at her waist rather than hanging from her neck—unusual. No wedding band. No visible scars on hands or face.

Then she turned, and her hazel eyes locked directly onto mine.

Something shattered inside me.

My carefully constructed psychological architecture fractured as if hit by a psychological strike. The break spread through my conditioning with catastrophicefficiency, neural pathways lighting up that should have been dormant. Nothing in my training prepared me for this. Not the experiments, not the reconditioning, not the years of psychological fortification.

She saw me. Not Specter the asset. Not the prisoner.Me. How was this even possible?

A flash behind my eyes—her voice, soft but determined. Her hand on mine. The scent of lavender and antiseptic. Then nothing.

My tactical mind scrambled to categorize her—asset? Threat? Variable? But the algorithms failed against the impact of her presence. Something buried beneath layers of programming and pain recognition protocols responded to her in ways I had no classification for.

I’d survived six different black sites. Withstood interrogations that would break even hardened operatives. I’d escaped facilities designed explicitly to contain subjects with my capabilities. None of that prepared me for the destabilizing effect of her recognition.

I forced my breathing to remain steady, my muscles to stay slack. But internally, every system screamed for immediate extraction. Whatever connection she was activating—real or implanted—was tearing through defenses I didn’t know could be breached. The longer I remained, the greater the risk of complete cognitive fracture.

Analysis: If I survived Oblivion’s interrogation but lost my mind in the process, the mission would fail. If this woman continued to dismantle my psychological architecture,recovery would become impossible. The conclusion was inescapable.

She was more dangerous than the organization that created me.

I needed to escape. Now.

Before I remembered why her eyes felt like home.

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