Page 11 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter eight

Dorian

I listened to Matthew performing his evening customs in the kitchen—cupboard doors closing with soft thuds and water running in brief bursts. He was making dinner. Again. For both of us. Like it was ordinary.

Nothing about it was ordinary.

I shifted on the couch, testing how the stitches pulled when I moved. The pain had settled into something manageable, present but not overwhelming. My body was healing, according to Matthew's daily assessments.

The kitchen sounds stopped. Matthew appeared in the doorway, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dish towel slung over one shoulder.

He wiped his hands on the towel. "Five more minutes. Stir-fry. Frozen vegetables. Nothing fancy."

I nodded. He studied my face momentarily, his steady brown eyes missing nothing. Then he disappeared back into the kitchen, and I heard the sizzle of vegetables hitting hot oil.

My pulse kicked up—not from fear, but from something worse. I was afraid of being safe.

Of sitting in a room without calculating the distance to every exit.

Of breathing without wondering if each exhale might be my last.

Pathetic.

I pressed my palms against my thighs, feeling the rough denim under my hands. They were Matthew's jeans, borrowed and too long in the legs, but they smelled like his detergent instead of antiseptic.

Matthew returned carrying two plates, steam rising from mounds of colorful vegetables and rice.

The aroma hit me first—ginger and soy sauce, sesame oil, and the sharp bite of fresh garlic.

It was real food prepared with attention instead of grabbed from vending machines or stolen from hospital cafeterias.

He set one plate on the coffee table within my reach and settled into his chair across from me. With a fork in one hand, he took a bite and chewed slowly, staring at me.

I picked at the vegetables—bright green snow peas and orange carrots. Everything was hot and properly seasoned.

"You owe me the story." Matthew's voice was calm. He might have been commenting on the weather. "The freeway. The bullet. All of it."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. I set it down carefully, buying time. Three days of surveillance. Start there. Black sedan, government plates. That much was true. Everything else... I'd figure it out as I went.

I swallowed the bite I'd been chewing, tasting ginger. "What do you want to know?"

"Start at the beginning. Before the hospital. Before the accident." He took another bite, giving me space to think. "Hoyle's people are hunting you. Why now?"

It was a fair question. He'd let me bleed on his furniture, and he offered me food while I brought unknown dangers to his doorstep.

"They'd caught up to me and were following me." That part was easy to say. "Three days before the accident. Black sedan, government plates, but not official government."

Matthew's chewing slowed. He listened, filing details away like trauma assessments.

"I ditched my apartment and switched cars twice. Thought I'd lost them in the International District—narrow streets, lots of foot traffic, easy to disappear." I pushed rice around my plate, building small mountains and valleys. "But they were better than I expected. Professional."

"And you're sure it was Hoyle's people? Not his victims?"

I nodded. "Had to be him. No one else has that kind of reach or that kind of patience."

Matthew set his fork down, giving me his full attention. "Walk me through the night it happened."

Despite my injuries, my memories remained crystal clear. Rain on windshields and the taste of copper in my mouth. The weight of blood soaking through the fabric I wore.

"I was driving south on I-5—stolen SUV—dark, forgettable, easy to blend with evening traffic. That's when I spotted the tail."

"How?"

"Glint off a side mirror. Wrong angle for normal traffic patterns. They were hanging back, staying in my blind spot, but they'd made one mistake—forgot to dirty their windshield."

Matthew leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He listened without judging or interrupting, as he probably listened to patients in crisis.

"I tried to lose them at the Boeing Access Road, but a second vehicle appeared." I reached out and traced routes on the coffee table's surface. "They boxed me in between the concrete barriers and the guardrail."

"That's when they took the shot?"

I stopped moving my hands and pressed my palms flat against my thighs.

"Through the passenger window. Muffled crack. Perfect angle. Professional work." My voice went flat. Clinical. Safe. "The bullet cut through the glass first and lost some velocity. That's probably what saved me."

Matthew's mug sat cooling on the coffee table between us, steam no longer rising from the surface. The apartment seemed smaller suddenly, like the walls were listening.

"It felt like being punched from the inside. Like someone had reached through my skin and grabbed something vital." I brushed the spot reflexively, fingers finding the edge of Matthew's careful bandaging through my borrowed shirt. "I remember thinking that was it. That I'd finally run out of luck."

I tensed as I remembered the moment of impact. It wasn't the sharp pain I'd expected. It was a dull, spreading weight that seemed to expand through my ribcage like spilled liquid.

"But you kept driving."

"Shock, probably. Adrenaline. It was like the SUV was moving through water—everything slow, thick, and wrong." I remembered how the steering wheel slipped in my blood-slick palms. "I knew I was losing consciousness. My vision tunneled, peripheral awareness shutting down sector by sector."

The next memories were fragmented puzzle pieces, scattered by trauma and blood loss.

"A delivery truck in the right lane was moving too fast for the fog conditions. I remember seeing its brake lights flare as the trailer started to jackknife."

Matthew watched my hands, tracking every unconscious gesture. "The truck rolled."

"Landed on my SUV. Roof compressed like aluminum foil and the passenger compartment crushed to maybe eighteen inches of breathing room." My voice steadied, detached from emotion. "I was trapped, bleeding, probably minutes from death. Everything went dark."

Matthew urged me to describe more. "But there were other vehicles involved."

"Blue sedan against the guardrail. A woman and a toddler—I heard the kid crying through the twisted metal. I wanted to respond, but I couldn't move or speak. I lay there listening to someone else's panic while my blood pooled under the dashboard."

A beat of silence filled the gap between us. Matthew picked up his mug, discovering the coffee had gone cold. He drank it anyway, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste.

"The fog made everything worse. Emergency responders had trouble finding us. Then someone with steady hands and medical training pulled me from the wreckage."

Matthew reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. "You were unconscious when we pulled you out."

"Completely. Woke up twelve hours later in a hospital bed with no memory of anything after the truck rolled." I hadn't lied, but I carefully omitted some details. "Next thing I knew, nurses were discussing my lack of identification and the police wanting to interview me."

"That's when you ran."

"That's when I remembered why someone had been shooting at me in the first place." I picked up my fork again, stabbing at a piece of broccoli. "Hospitals keep records. Records can be accessed. I couldn't afford to stay."

Matthew finished his cold coffee and set the mug aside.

"Stop." His voice cut through my rehearsed narrative. "You're talking to me like I'm a debrief officer. Like I need a clean story instead of the truth."

"What?" My voice was defensive with a higher pitch. It likely confirmed Matthew's suspicions.

"You're lying." It was a statement of fact, not an accusation. "Not about the accident, or about being shot, but you're leaving out the parts that matter."

"I told you what happened."

"You told me a story about random violence and bad timing. What you didn't tell me is why someone wanted you dead badly enough to stage a professional hit on a public highway."

Suddenly, my breathing came in short, sharp bursts. The room's edges began to blur.

"I can't—" My hands trembled. I pressed them against my thighs, trying to calm them.

"Hey." Matthew's voice broke through the noise in my head. "Dorian, look at me."

I tried to focus on his face, but it kept shifting.

"I'm not—" I started, then stopped. Started again. "I'm not built for this part."

I'd undergone training to withstand interrogation, compartmentalize pain, and function under extreme stress. But none of that prepared me for this—

Being asked to tell the truth not under threat, but under kindness.

"What part?"

"The telling. The explaining. The—" I gestured vaguely at the space between us. "This."

I could have shut down and walked it back. Lied more convincingly. But instead, I stayed. Something in Matthew's eyes—steadfast and unflinching—held me in place. For once, I didn't want to disappear.

Matthew stood and crossed over to the couch, settling beside me but leaving space, not crowding. He didn't speak immediately. He sat there while I tried to reassemble my scattered defenses.

When he finally moved, it was to rest his hand on my knee. I flinched and then relaxed. My hands stopped shaking.

I leaned slightly toward him, drawn by the steady certainty of his presence. My breathing began to slow.

"Good?" he asked quietly.

Matthew's thumb moved slightly, just a whisper of contact against the inside of my knee.

"I've done things I'm not proud of." Unshed tears began to burn in the corners of my eyes. "Not in combat or self-defense. It was part of the job."

Matthew's hand didn't move. His expression didn't change. He listened.