Page 32 of Marked to Be Mine (Erased #1)

I gripped the bathroom sink, knuckles white as I forced my body to obey.

The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across my face.

In the steamed mirror, a stranger stared back—half-operative, half-something I couldn’t name.

Water dripped from my hair down my neck, evidence of my attempts to cool my overheating system.

Puddles gathered at my feet where I’d splashed cold water over my face, neck, chest—anything to eliminate that mind fog.

“Your recovery rate exceeds standard parameters,” Specter observed from the doorway, maintaining tactical distance. “The antagonist is fighting the compound, and your body is helping. However, your neural pathways have been permanently altered.”

His assessment carried the cool detachment of a scientist observing a lab specimen—I represented an anomaly in his data. Something unprecedented.

“How long until full function?” I asked, testing my left arm. The muscles responded, but with a tremor that wasn’t there before.

“Impossible to predict. Prima generation was experimental—inconsistent baselines. You shouldn’t be conscious yet, much less mobile.”

I closed my eyes, drawing strength not from training protocols but from something they never intended to install. Images of Maeve flooded back—not as mission parameters or tactical variables, but as something warm and real.

“We were together…before I collapsed.” The statement should have triggered warning systems, yet felt more authentic than any mission brief I’d ever received.

Much to my surprise, though, the recollection didn’t trigger nosebleeds or synaptic pain.

Instead, it steadied my pulse like an anchor in the storm.

Specter tilted his head, observing my physiological response with scientific interest. “Fascinating. The emotional connection appears to stabilize your system.”

More fragments reassembled into a coherent narrative—Maeve caring for me as the poison advanced, holding my head as convulsions wracked my body, her voice steady when my programming fractured.

Her fingertips on my face, wiping away blood from my nose, eyes, and ears.

How she refused to leave when I ordered her to save herself.

Each memory strengthened me in ways no conditioning protocol could anticipate.

“The emotional variables were considered design flaws in the Prima generation,” Specter continued, watching my struggle.

“They tried to correct it with Secunda. With me.” His expression remained clinically neutral, but something flickered behind his eyes—the ghost of what might be envy. “Perhaps they were wrong.”

I straightened, testing my balance. The weakness remained, but didn’t overwhelm me. I splashed water on my face one final time, wiping away the last traces of blood from my nose and ears .

As I moved toward my weapons, something caught the corner of my vision—a flash of red on the nightstand where Maeve had slept. My poker chip. She must have placed it there before leaving.

I approached it slowly, as though approaching a bomb. I picked it up, rubbing my thumb across its surface. The texture against my skin unlocked something buried deeper than any program could reach.

Cigar smoke. Whiskey glasses catching the low light. A private room in the back of a club. High-stakes game. My poker chip stacked among others, but distinctive. My lucky charm.

The memory flowed like water finding its path, without resistance. No headache. No nosebleed. Just clarity.

Brock sat across from me at the poker table, younger, with more hair and fewer lines around his eyes. His expression was different—respectful, almost deferential.

“It’s your turn, buddy,” he said, inhaling the thick cigar smoke. His eyes locked on mine. Realization quickly settled in.

He wasn’t my handler in this memory. He was my—

Partner.

The realization struck with the force of a tactical shock—Not handler and asset. Partners. Equals in the criminal underworld. This was the way we celebrated after a business well done.

Another flash hit: a hotel room with blood-spattered walls. A gun in my hand, my personal weapon. Brock stood beside me, surveying our handiwork.

“Clean shot,” he said, nodding with approval. “That’s why they always ask for...”

More fragments cascaded through my consciousness with increasing clarity.

A client slid an envelope across a table. “We specifically requested ...” More static where my name should be, a hole torn in the fabric of identity. Perhaps it didn’t even matter. All I could think about was Brock. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Brock’s jaw tightened at the edges. The client barely acknowledged him, despite two of Brock’s attempts to address them.

After the client left, Brock arched his brow at me.

“I don’t think we should’ve taken on this job,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

I fought the urge to laugh. “They paid half the price upfront, Brock. It’s a standard procedure. No different from any of the other jobs we had taken on. You need to relax.”

“Seriously, I don’t.”

“Brock, man, you need to let it go. I’m doing it. Whether you approve of it or not.”

Another scene: Brock answering a call, his face darkening as he listened. “No, I understand you want…” Static again, like interference on a radio frequency. “But we’re a package deal.”

The client’s voice, tiny through the speaker, “Then maybe we only need one of you. ”

My fingers manipulated the poker chip with reflexive dexterity, flipping it across knuckles in a fluid motion my Marionette training never included. The movement belonged to someone else—to me, before I became Reaper.

The memories accelerated, revealing a pattern as clear as target acquisition.

Now, I could see it as clear as day. Brock grew increasingly resentful as clients specifically requested me over him.

I couldn’t fully recall what we did together, just that he hated that I was better at it than he was.

My reputation eclipsed his. The partnership became unbalanced.

If I wanted to, I could have taken it all.

Then, the clearest memory yet emerged with perfect tactical detail… Tactical teams surrounded a warehouse. Brock stood just outside the perimeter, watching me through the window as I realized I’d been set up.

“You’re worth more to me as property than as a partner,” he said through my earpiece. “I’d say I’m sorry it had to come to this…but I’m not. Not even the slightest bit.”

My voice responded—unfamiliar yet undeniably mine, with a confidence that didn’t belong to Reaper. “I will remember this. And I will find you.”

Brock’s laugh cut through the connection with cruel amusement. “That’s the beauty of it.” White noise obliterated my name again, a surgical excision. “Why bother? Your memory is empty, so why bother?”

The chip rotated faster between my fingers, driven by rage building within me—cold, focused, and entirely different from the programmed aggression of conditioning .

Now, it was all hitting me at once. I could recall more of the shattered memories of the life I’d left behind, tailoring them together, so they made sense.

The amount of information that flooded my mind was overwhelming, but Brock had partially done me a favor with the programming when it came to this.

I was able to catalogue them methodically, one by one, in a way that made sense.

Mission flashes interrupted like intrusive code—targets I had eliminated. But now I saw them differently. The banker in Geneva. The technology executive in Singapore. The political fixer in Buenos Aires. All people who had crossed Brock during our partnership years before.

He’d been using me—using Oblivion’s resources—to settle his vendetta. Using me as his weapon against those who slighted him.

And still, my own name remained a maddening absence—a white noise that represented the most fundamental theft. Brock hadn’t just betrayed me; he had erased me.

I pocketed the poker chip; its weight was now a talisman connecting me to the man I was. My movements combined accuracy with the muscle memory of my original training—a deadly fusion of both identities.

Specter observed from the doorway, his clinical gaze cataloging every micro-expression that crossed my face.

“Your memories are returning,” he observed. “Without the usual physical distress.”

I met his eyes. “Not all of them. Just enough.”

“Enough for what? ”

I checked my weapons with methodical efficiency, each movement flowing with a lethal grace that felt like my own, not programmed.

“Enough to know Brock wants more than just Maeve. He wants to use her to destroy me, to watch me shatter as I finally remember everything he took.”

My name remained frustratingly beyond reach, but Brock’s betrayal was clear. I didn’t need my name to know what I must do.

I laid out three tactical knives on the coffee table, testing each edge against my thumb. Beside them sat four handguns, field-stripped and reassembled faster than my training protocols dictated. My fingers moved with unfamiliar flourishes—muscle memory from someone I used to be.

The safehouse had transformed into an arsenal, weapons arranged with meticulous care.

Specter worked silently across the room, his movements mirroring mine with professional efficiency.

Neither of us acknowledged the surreal contrast—how the morning light streaming through the windows created an illusion of normalcy that mocked our preparations.

As I sat on the bed, my foot brushed against fabric—Maeve’s t-shirt.

I paused, my hand hovering before making a decision my programming would flag as compromised behavior.

I lifted it to my face before I could analyze the impulse.

Her scent lingered—jasmine and something uniquely her.

I hesitated, neural pathways battling between tactical efficiency and human impulse, then folded it before tucking it inside my tactical vest, directly over my heart.

“Brock won’t expect me to be functional so soon.” The tactical assessment flowed naturally, but my voice contained undertones that training never instilled—colder in some syllables, warmer in others.

I holstered the Glock, then spun a second handgun with a flourish that belonged to someone else—to the man who owned the red poker chip.

“Is she making you stronger or compromising you?” Specter asked from across the room, voice clinically detached but eyes sharp with professional assessment.

The question should have triggered defense protocols, warnings of mission compromise. It didn’t. Instead, clarity bloomed in my mind.

“Both,” I answered, certainty replacing doubt. “And that’s why Brock won’t understand what’s coming for him.”

I felt my programming attempt to reassert control—the familiar pressure building behind my eyes like hydraulic force against a failing dam. Instead of pain, there was only a fading echo as my altered neural pathways rejected the intrusion. Something fundamental had changed.

Glass exploded inward with a sound like ice breaking.

Shards sprayed across the room as a bullet punched through the exact spot where my head had been seconds before.

Specter and I dropped simultaneously into a combat stance, weapons drawn, moving in perfect synchronized motion despite never having trained together .

Three more shots tore through the apartment in sequence—professional rhythm, not panic fire.

“Single shooter. Rooftop across the street. Professional,” Specter assessed, our backs pressed against the wall beneath the shattered window. His expression darkened. “This was too fast. Brock must have had a contingency team ready once he secured Maeve.”

The implication struck harder than any bullet could. “Or Maeve told them our location under interrogation.”

The thought of what methods they could have used to extract that information sent something beyond rage coursing through me—a cold, lethal focus sharper than any conditioning protocol. My hand tightened around my weapon until my knuckles turned white.

Specter analyzed the bullet trajectories embedded in the opposite wall. “Shooter’s targeting you specifically. Shots. They’re not trying to hit me.”

A moment of tactical calculation passed between us, an unspoken professional assessment.

“Go. Now.” Specter checked his weapon with efficient movements, sliding a fresh magazine into place. “Vila Madalena. I’ve entered coordinates on your phone. I’ll handle this and follow.”

I hesitated, strategic logic warring with newfound loyalty. Leaving an ally behind contradicted no operational protocol, yet something in me resisted .

“Every minute we fight this battle is another minute they have Maeve.” Specter’s voice hardened to tactical clarity. “She’s the priority, before she disappears into the system.”

Another bullet punched through the wall, plaster dust exploding in a white cloud.

I gathered essential weapons with an economy of movement, securing them against my body while maintaining cover. “Remind me what my survival probability was after that compound?”

Specter reloaded his weapon, expression grim as a morgue attendant. “Less than 10%.”

A smile formed on my face—not the empty mimicry of human expression I’d been trained to display, but something dangerous and genuine, belonging to the man I was before Reaper. “Then Brock’s odds of surviving today are about the same.”

Specter nodded once, positioning himself to provide covering fire. I moved toward the back exit, muscles coiled for the hunt to come.