Page 76 of Hunted to Be Mine

“Oh, stop it, Damon,” Mattie cut in, faint at first, then louder. “He thinks if he sounds official enough, I won’t notice he’s been hovering like a very expensive security drone.”

“I do not hover,” Damon said from farther away.

Mattie laughed, warm and unguarded. “He’s been sleeping in a chair outside my temporary lab for three days. It’s like having a very grumpy security blanket.”

I laughed for the first time in days. “Careful, Mattie. That’s how it starts. First, they’re guarding you from international assassins, and next thing you know…”

“I can still hear you both,” Damon said, voice more distant.

“Good!” Mattie and I said together, then cracked up again.

For a moment, the pressure in my chest eased. It felt almost normal. Like a call between friends, not me hiding in a dingy hotel, waiting for a conditioned assassin to come back from a recon run.

“Selina.” Mattie’s voice lost the teasing. “Are you okay? Is Specter with you?”

And there it was again. “I’m fine, but he’s been gone almost four hours. He went to check one of the warehouses Damon flagged.”

“Alone?” Her tone sharpened.

“He insisted.” I stared at the sheet on the bed. “Just an outside look. No engagement. He should’ve been back hours ago.”

She didn’t answer at first.

“I’m sure he’s being thorough,” Mattie said finally, careful. “His training would make him cautious.”

“That’s not why I called.” I pressed my forehead to the glass again. Cold, grounding. “I mean, not entirely.”

“Talk to me.”

“I’m worried about his mental stability. The blackouts. The trigger phrases we still don’t understand. Kruger was about to tell us something important before he got shot—something about Specter’s conditioning.”

“The file mentions multiple layers of programming.” Paper rustled on her end. “Damon’s been helping me go through what we pulled from the facility.”

“Damon’s been helping, huh?”

“Focus, Selina.” She was smiling; I could hear it.

“Sorry.” I bit my lip. “The thing is… there’s this conflict I keep running into. The doctor in me knows digging into Oblivion’s files could tell us how to neutralize his conditioning. But the woman in me…” I stopped.

“The woman in you is afraid of what it’ll do to him.” Her voice softened.

“What if finding his past ruins who he is now?” I kept my voice low.

Static hissed. She must’ve covered the mouthpiece and said something to Damon. A door closed.

“Okay, he’s gone to check perimeter,” she said. “Now we can talk. Are you sleeping with him?”

I almost dropped the phone. “Mattie!”

“That’s a yes. I’m not judging. We’re all surviving however we can. But I need to know where you are with this. It affects your clinical judgment.”

I sank onto the bed. “It’s not just sex. It’s… I don’t even know what to call it.”

“When did it start?”

“Since Munich. But it’s been building since the facility, if I’m honest.” I swallowed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Doctor hat on,” she said. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I know trauma. The more he remembers, the more whole he becomes, even if it hurts. He can work through it. Pain is real. Amnesia isn’t safer.”