Page 26 of Hunted to Be Mine

I let the curtain drop and turned back to the rumpled bed. The evidence of our shared night lay in plain view: the dip in the mattress where his body had been, the pillow still bearing the impression of his head. I picked it up, intending to straighten it, when his scent hit me, clean sweat, antiseptic from the wounds, and something else. Something distinctly him.

My fingers tightened on the cushion. This wasn’t professional concern I was feeling.

“Stop it.” I dropped the pillow too fast.

I headed for the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. The woman in the mirror looked back with unforgiving clarity. There was no room for attraction or distraction, not with Oblivion hunting us, not with Specter’s mind still fractured, not with our survival hanging by a thread.

Yet my thoughts kept circling back to last night, the careful distance we’d maintained on the bed that had somehow disappeared by morning. I’d woken briefly before dawn to find myself curled toward his warmth, not quite touching but close enough to feel the heat of him. He’d been awake, staring at the ceiling, but he hadn’t moved away.

That moment of quiet acknowledgment felt more intimate than his deliberate provocations had ever been.

I dried my face on a threadbare towel and returned to the main room. Where was he now? Had he simply stepped out for supplies, or had something happened? The clock on the wall read 8:17. We’d gone to bed after midnight. Five hours, he’d said. He was keeping his word about the sleep rotation.

I walked a slow loop around the flat, taking stock of our situation. My medical bag remained where I’d left it. The gun was gone, with Specter, presumably. The kitchenette revealed nothing but a half-empty bottle of water and stale bread. Not much to work with.

On the small table by the window, I noticed something new. A folded piece of paper, held down by a cheap pen.

The note was written in tight, controlled script:Securing perimeter. Back by 0900. Stay inside. S.

Relief loosened beneath my ribs, chased fast by irritation at the reaction. I shouldn’t care where he was beyond our mutual survival. I shouldn’t have noticed the depression his body left in the mattress or the scent on his pillow. I was his doctor, not his…

Not his what? That was the question hanging in the stale apartment air.

I refolded the note and sat at the table, watching the minute hand crawl toward nine, telling myself that hitch in my chest was about survival, not anticipation.

Pointless.

My focus needed to be on practical matters, not whatever this pull toward Specter meant. I pushed away from the table and rechecked the apartment with a new purpose. If we were going to survive, I needed information.

The floorboard. The burner phone.

I knelt at the spot where Specter had extracted it last night, prying up the loose board with my fingernails. The phone satnestled in its hiding place, anonymous and untraceable, or so Specter had claimed. My fingers hovered over it. Using it was a risk, but we couldn’t stay blind. I needed to know what had happened at SENTINEL, needed to know if Mattie…

I shut down the thought before it fully formed. I couldn’t afford to consider that she might not have survived.

I grabbed the phone and powered it on, watching the bootup screen, breath held. Five bars of service. No GPS icon. I opened the browser, navigating through proxy servers like Specter had shown me during our brief tutorial last night. His warning replayed: “Ten minutes maximum. Any longer and you’re asking to be traced.”

The secure browser inched along. I entered my private email credentials, not the SENTINEL account, but my personal one, the address only a handful of people knew. The loading wheel spun too long, each rotation stretching my nerves thinner.

Finally, the inbox appeared. Mostly spam. Advertisements. And then…

A message from Mattie. Sent five hours ago.

My fingers trembled as I tapped it open. She was alive. The relief hit so hard, I caught myself against the wall.

S,

We’re alive, D and me. Minor injuries only. Using secure channel. D says you’re probably off-grid with package. Smart move. SENTINEL’s mainframe was compromised during attack, partial breach, unknown what data was accessed. D working to secure systems now. Be extremely cautious. Will contact when safe or have more info. Trust NO ONE outside the immediate team.

Stay alive. That’s an order. You owe me a meal.

-M

The message’s clipped, staccato style was so unlike Mattie’s usual warm communication that it drove home the severity ofour situation. At least Damon and Mattie were alive and well. I read it three times, relief giving way to cold analysis.

Partial breach. Unknown what data was accessed.

My mind ran through the implications. SENTINEL’s systems contained everything: personnel files, safehouse locations, operational protocols. Our medical records, psychological profiles. If Oblivion had gained access to even a fraction of that data… At least Specter’s safehouse wasn’t on those records.