Page 109 of Hunted to Be Mine

“Please.” I hated how the word sounded coming from me. “Just water.”

Blackout crossed to the desk where a pitcher waited. He poured and set the glass down, leaving it there. Message received: return to work.

I pushed off the window and forced myself toward the desk. My legs felt detached, lungs failing to catch a full breath. The room tilted sideways, then righted itself.

I reached. Water sloshed as my hand trembled. The glass might as well have weighed fifty pounds. Instead of lifting it, I sank to my knees beside the desk, one hand splayed on the floor to stop the spin.

The spiral tightened, chest cinching until each inhale became a fight. Dark motes freckled my periphery. Hyperventilating, and no control.

“I know you’re still in there somewhere.” The strain in my voice flagged my lie. “Conditioning can’t erase everything. I’ve studied this. I know—”

A sob cut the words in half. Professional detachment broke, clean and merciless. I curled in, arms wrapped around myself.

“You promised.” The sound was almost nothing. “You said you’d come back to me.”

Blackout stepped forward and stood over me. “Your distress is disrupting productivity.”

A laugh ripped out, wrong and sharp. “My distress? You hollowed out a man, turned him into a puppet, and you’re worried about my productivity?”

I forced myself upright, swaying. Panic chewed through me, breath stuttering, pulse too fast to count. Beneath it, something caught fire—reckless and bright.

I made for Specter and stopped in front of him.

“Look at me.” My voice steadied by force. “Really look at me.”

Nothing. Gray eyes stared through me, as if I were another wall.

“Your name is Wolfe Lennox.” I held his gaze as if I could drag memory back by will alone. “You were a contract killer before Oblivion found you. You saved children at St. Elisabeth’s Orphanage. You broke your programming because something in you refused to bend.”

Not even a tremor.

“You held me on that train.” My tone dropped. “You told me I made you feel human.”

I lifted my hand again, fingers hovering near his cheek. The tremor worsened. “Please. Remember something. Anything.”

My chest seized, ribs straining. The room spun. I gulped at air that didn’t help and stumbled back until the glass caught me.

I faced the door where Blackout waited. “Bathroom.” The single word cost more than it should have.

He stepped aside without argument. I lurched into the corridor on instinct, mind split between the clinician naming each symptom and the woman who couldn’t stand another second of this. Two sets of footsteps followed—Blackout and Specter, silent as shadows. I didn’t turn. I couldn’t look at Specter’s emptiness again. Each breath thinned, oxygen refusing to satisfy.

Tears blurred the pristine hall. I dragged my fingertips along the wall for balance. Thoughts fractured like glass: Focus. Training. Count your steps. Five things you can see. Four you can touch. Three… All I saw were gray, vacant eyes; all I heard were parking-garage screams; all I felt was the crush of failing him. I veered away from the bathroom without planning, angling toward my room. Their synchronized tread adjusted behind me, a quiet escort I couldn’t shake.

The corridor stretched too long, the ceiling dropping with every footfall. Escape was a fantasy. They wouldn’t let me go.The elevator appeared, a metal box I refused to share with them. Panic surged harder. I cut for the stairwell and shoved the heavy door with a shoulder that didn’t feel like mine. Just get to your room. Just breathe. Hold it together. The mantra snapped as the darkness at the edges thickened.

My foot hunted for the first step and found air.

For a suspended heartbeat, I floated—caught in the instant before impact. The world slowed. The clinical part of me clicked on with brutal clarity.

You’re falling. Reach for the railing.

The command was clean and simple. My limbs refused. My hands hung uselessly at my sides instead of grabbing hold.

Gravity claimed me. As I tipped forward into nothing, one last coherent thought surfaced—not about concrete or bruises or damage.

Specter.

Not the blank operative behind me. Him.