Page 21 of Hunted to Be Mine

Concern for Specter shoved everything else aside, even the fact that as a psychiatrist, I was mesmerized by how their minds controlled their bodies. Specter was fighting brilliantly, but every time he moved to protect me, it cost him critical advantage. The realization twisted hard. I was the liability here.

A deep, bone-shaking concussion slammed through the corridor, not close enough to kill, but violent enough to spiderweb the overhead piping. Some sort of gas roared down, blinding us in a choking white curtain. The smell was horrid, making my eyes water and breathing hitch.

Somewhere in the haze, multiple sets of boots flooded into earshot. Through streaming eyes, I saw Blackout freeze, head tilting as if listening to orders only he could hear.

Specter seized the opening, hooking my wrist and hauling me into the blind zone of the gas. The roar drowned my questions as we retreated along the wall, using the hiss and whiteness as cover.

Behind us, I caught one last glimpse: Blackout standing absolutely still in the mist, a weapon in his hand, but not firing. Without knowing what gas filled the room, it would have been suicide to shoot. His voice cut through once, low and certain, aimed at me through the cloud:

“We’ll finish this.”

Specter pulled me through a maintenance door that had been blown partially off its hinges. We stumbled into a service corridor lit only by emergency strips along the floor.

“Keep moving,” he said, his breathing ragged. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye, and he held his left arm stiffly against his side.

“You’re hurt.”

“Irrelevant.” He pushed forward, scanning the corridor ahead. “That gas was CS mixed with something else. Won’t kill us, but we need to get clear before it affects our breathing.”

We pressed on through the labyrinth of service corridors. Each step took us deeper into the belly of the facility, away from the surface and any hope of conventional escape. The sounds of conflict grew more distant, replaced by the mechanical groans of damaged infrastructure.

I couldn’t shake the image of Blackout’s hollow eyes, or the way they’d tracked me through the smoke. Not angry, not determined—something far worse. Absolute certainty.

“He’ll keep coming, won’t he?” I said, already knowing the answer.

Specter didn’t look back. “Yes. Until he completes his mission or dies trying. That’s what Quinta-generation means. No hesitation. No doubt.”

“And no hope of breaking the conditioning?”

This time he did turn, his expression unreadable in the emergency lighting. “I don’t know. But right now, that’s not our biggest problem.”

“What is?”

“Staying alive long enough to find out.” He gestured toward a heavy maintenance hatch set into the floor. “And that starts with getting underground before this whole place comes down around us.

Chapter 6

Selina

The safehouse door clicked shut behind me. I turned the deadbolt with a dull thunk, then added the chain anyway. Neither would stop a determined operative, but they might buy a few seconds.

The Munich apartment was barely livable, just a single room with a kitchenette wedged into one corner and a narrow door that presumably led to a bathroom. The tired sofa bed dominated the center, its faded brown upholstery worn thin at the edges. A floor lamp cast amber light across the space, throwing long shadows against the yellowed wallpaper.

Specter went to work, checking the perimeter. He tested the window frames, examined the phone jack, and ran his fingers along the baseboards and light fixtures. His pace stayed economical despite his injuries, each action deliberate.

I set our hastily purchased supplies on the scratched coffee table. We’d stopped at an all-night pharmacy and discount store during our roundabout route from Lake Constance toMunich, acquiring only what we needed: bandages, antiseptic, painkillers, a change of clothes, and some non-perishable food.

My hands remained steady as I unpacked the medical supplies, muscle memory from years of clinical work taking over. But my mind ran between cold analysis and a fixed awareness of where he was as he moved through it. The apartment felt small with him in it, as if the walls leaned in.

“Are you sure this place is secure?” I aligned gauze pads and tape in a neat row.

He paused by the kitchenette, pressing against a loose floorboard until it gave way. From the small cavity beneath, he extracted a burner phone and what looked like a gun wrapped in oilcloth.

“As secure as it gets,” he said, tucking the gun into his waistband. “When I started regaining fragments, I set up contingencies. Places to disappear to if things went sideways.”

“And we just happened to be near one of your boltholes?”

His mouth ticked at one corner. “Luck favors the prepared. This was the closest safe point to our position.”