Page 145 of Without a Trace
We circled. No countdown. No signal.
He lunged. I dropped. Grabbed his wrist mid-strike, twisted, kicked his knee sideways. He caught himself before hitting the ground—but barely. His breath was shallow, his stare unreadable.
Something flickered behind his eyes. Not pride. Not surprise.
Recognition.
Alden tossed Trace a towel. “She’s remembering faster than we thought.”
“She shouldn’t be remembering at all,” Rhett muttered.
I yanked the vest off and let it fall at my feet. My shirt clung to my spine, soaked and heavy, but I barely felt it.
I turned toward the group. “Someone better explain why my body remembers things my brain can’t.”
Zeke’s voice came from behind, dry and clipped. “Because your life wasn’t supposed to go this way. And now that it has—now that the bond’s sealed—they’ll come.”
I turned toward him.
“They who?”
“The ones who thought you were dead. The ones who hoped you were.”
Scarlett
The moment I stepped into my villa, I shut the door harder than I meant to.
The heat clung to my skin, but it was nothing compared to what sat in my chest. Not rage. Not even confusion anymore.
Just pressure.
A bruise blooming in a place I couldn’t touch.
I peeled off the sweat-drenched shirt and tossed it toward the chair, toeing off my boots next. My hands trembled—not from the training. From the knowing. The way Trace had looked at me. The way my fingers moved before my brain caught up.
Something in me had done this before.
I collapsed onto the bed without bothering to shower. My body gave out first, then my thoughts scattered. The ocean pulsed in the distance, a faint heartbeat I couldn’t sync to.
And then—
Darkness.
The road was slick.
Night air cut sharp through the cracked window. I was in the passenger seat. Small. Barely able to see over the dashboard. Myhands were sticky with red—no, paint. Not blood. It had to be paint. I was holding something in my lap.
A silver bracelet.
“I told you not to take that,” the man said.
His voice was smoke and iron. Not unkind, but heavy.
I turned to look at him, but I couldn’t see his face. Only the shape of him. A ring on his right hand. A scar at the base of his neck. The sound of his breathing, too loud for the silence in the car.
“You have to forget, Scar,” he said, voice cracking. “It’s the only way.”
My throat burned.
