Page 28 of Hunted to Be Mine

His eyes lifted to mine, giving nothing. “Because of me, you mean.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you thought.” He sipped his coffee, gaze never leaving mine. “But tell me something, Doc. Will running onempty make us more effective? Will skipping meals and proper rest somehow honor the dead?”

“That’s not…”

“Survival isn’t pretty.” He didn’t pause. “It’s not heroic. It’s eating when food is available. Sleeping when you can. Taking the small moments of safety when they appear, because they won’t last.”

The hard truth of his words silenced me. I looked down at the food between us: this small island of normalcy in a sea of chaos. The warmth of the cup in my hands, the rich scent of pastry, the quiet of the apartment… it created an illusion of safety so convincing that for a moment, I almost believed it.

And that was dangerous.

“Five minutes.” I took another bite. “Then we plan.”

“Ten.” He nudged the jam toward me.

I wanted to argue, but the food was working already, clearing the fog from my mind, steadying my hands. Perhaps this was strategy after all, not wasting time, but preparing for what came next.

“Fine. Ten.” I drank again.

I set the cup down. “We need to make therapy our priority, even now. Especially now. Your conditioning is breaking down, and we need to use that momentum.”

Specter’s expression hardened. “Not a good idea.”

“The timing is perfect…”

“The timing is that I’m the only thing standing between you and Oblivion right now.” His voice went flat. “What happens if I blank out during an exercise? What happens if I seize while we’re moving locations or evading a tail? You think you can drag my unconscious body to safety?”

I leaned forward, the clinician in me surfacing. “That’s precisely why we need to work on this now. The seizures are coming because your mind is trying to integrate fracturedmemories. With proper guidance, we can accelerate recovery without triggering neurological events.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can’t guarantee it, but I’ve worked with similar cases. Not identical, nothing is identical to what Oblivion did to you, but comparable trauma responses, memory suppression, identity fractures.”

Specter sat across from me, his breakfast forgotten. I could read the conflict in him. He wanted to believe me. He wanted to be whole again. But trust didn’t come easily to a man conditioned to view everyone as either a target or a threat.

Specter looked up, a quick flash of surprise, gone. “With Oblivion hunting us?”

“Especially with Oblivion hunting us. They’re desperate to get you back because your conditioning is breaking down. The more we can recover of your true memories, the better advantage we’ll have against them.”

He set down his coffee cup with deliberate care. “And if I blank out again? If I have another episode?” His voice lowered. “Or worse, if something in my programming activates and I hurt you?”

The concern in his voice seemed genuine, which only complicated things further.

“That’s a risk we have to take. Look, I’ve been thinking about exercises that might help accelerate memory recovery without triggering events.”

“You’ve been ‘thinking about exercises.’” He gave me a look, a skeptical edge to his voice. “When, exactly? Between the explosion, the firefight, and our midnight escape?”

“I multitask well under pressure.”

That earned me a ghost of a smile.

“There are grounding methods.” My tone became clinical. “Ways to tether you in the present while we carefully probe thepast. Your mind isn’t completely erased; it’s compartmentalized. The spells happen when those compartments start to bleed together too quickly.”

Specter sat very still across from me, face set, but something softer around the edges.

“What kind of techniques?”