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 to Munich, 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.”
“So how many of these do you have scattered around Europe?”
“Enough.” He finished his inspection and turned toward me. “More importantly, not even Dresner knows about them. I set them up under different names, through old channels.”
Blood had soaked through his makeshift bandage, and the stiffness in the way he moved told me he was running on adrenaline and training rather than physical well-being.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing to the bed. “Let me look at those wounds before infection sets in or you pass out from blood loss.”
He hesitated, that fractional pause that spoke volumes about ingrained vigilance. Then he complied, lowering himself to the edge of the bed.
“Take off your shirt.” My tone stayed even, professional.
Specter peeled his shirt away from his skin with a grimace. The fabric stuck in places where blood had dried.
My clinical detachment slipped. His torso was all lean muscle, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, each line earned. No bulk for show, only work-hardened strength. I swallowed as my eyes traced the planes of his chest, the sharp cut of his abdomen.
Then I registered the damage. Fresh wounds marred his skin, an angry gash across his right shoulder, purple bruising spreading beneath the skin of his ribs. Blood had dried in rust-colored trails down his side.
But it was the older marks that stopped me.
A constellation of seams told stories of survival—puckered bullet wounds, jagged knife cuts, burns with deliberate patterns.
Near his collarbone, a pale line that could only have come from electrical burns.
Along his back, thin white lines suggested systematic torture.
Beside his heart, a healed puncture wound that should have been fatal.
I’d read his file, cataloged his injuries in clinical terms. Seeing the physical record of his suffering etched across his skin made something twist in my chest.
“Doctor?” His voice cut through my silence.
I cleared my throat. “The shoulder needs stitches.”
“Do what you need to,” he said, watching me with steady eyes.
I soaked a gauze pad with antiseptic and began cleaning the bullet graze. The wound was ugly but clean, the bullet had torn through flesh without hitting bone or major vessels. He didn’t flinch as I worked, though it had to sting.
“You’ve done this before,” he observed.
“I’m a psychiatrist. I’ve got medical training even if I chose another specialty.” I threaded the curved needle I’d sterilized with alcohol. “I remember having better gear back then.”
“I’ve been stitched with fishing line and vodka. This is luxury.”
The apartment’s silence pressed in around us, broken only by the occasional sound from the street below and the soft hiss of his breath when I began the first suture. His skin was warm under my fingers, the muscle tight.
“You held your own. Kept a cool head,” he murmured, “when Blackout hit us.”
I tied off the first stitch before answering. “Three months of intensive self-defense after a patient attack. Nothing compared to your level, but enough to stay alive in some situations.”
His attention never left my face as I worked, studying me with a steady look that made the small room feel even smaller. I kept my gaze fixed on the wound, refusing to be distracted by his regard or the heat radiating from his skin.
“The patient who gave you that scar on your wrist,” he kept his voice low.
My hands paused for just a moment before continuing. “One of several.”
“You survived. Not many would have.”
“Not many have your talent for reading old wounds.” I started another stitch, the needle slipping through his flesh with minimal resistance. “Or is that another Oblivion party trick?”
“Recognition,” he corrected. “One broken thing identifying another.”
As I worked on the third stitch, my fingers brushed an old scar near his collarbone, a thin white line. His hand came up instantly, catching my wrist, firm, not harsh. For a moment, we froze in that tableau, his fingers circling my wrist, my hand suspended against his skin.
His thumb rested against my pulse point, and I knew he could feel the sudden jump of my heartbeat. His expression eased for a beat, or maybe I imagined it. Then he released me, his hand dropping back to the bed.
“Not that one,” he said simply.
I nodded and continued working, carefully avoiding the area. “Some memories are better left buried.”
“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor? Or advice as a psychiatrist?”
“No.” I tied off the final stitch. “That’s personal experience.”
We let it pass. His bare skin under my hands, the cramped room, the shared fact of old damage. We didn’t name it.
I taped a clean gauze pad over the stitches. “The cut on your arm needs cleaning, but it’s not deep enough for sutures.”
He offered his arm wordlessly, and I shifted my position to access it better. The movement brought me closer, my knee brushing his. Neither of us moved away.
“Why didn’t you run?” he asked as I cleaned the knife wound. “When the facility was attacked, you could’ve headed for an exit. Instead, you followed me deeper in.”
The question caught me off guard. “Survival instinct. With your training, I figured my chances were better with you.”
“That’s rational,” he said, “but it wasn’t what I saw in your eyes.”
“And what did you see?”
His gaze was steady, searching. “Trust. Which is either very brave or very foolish.”
“I’m still deciding which,” I admitted, applying antiseptic to the cut with a bit more force than necessary.
He didn’t wince. “And your conclusion so far?”
I finished bandaging his arm before meeting his eyes directly. “That trust and survival aren’t always at odds. Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “An interesting theory.”
I moved back, creating some distance between us. “How’s your head? Any seizure symptoms since we left?”
“None.” He rotated his shoulder, testing my handiwork. “The episodes seem to be triggered by extremes.”
“Like what?”
He stood, moving to the sink to wash the blood from his hands. The muscles in his back flexed with the movement, highlighting more old marks across his shoulder blades.
“Impressions,” he said, “Emotions. And sometimes…” He turned, leaning against the counter. “Physical contact.”
We both remembered the first kiss and the seizure that followed.
“Yet you just let me treat your wounds without incident,” I said, capping the antiseptic.
“Different context. Different touch.” His expression gave me nothing. “Detached contact doesn’t trigger the response.”
“And what is the opposite of that?”
His gaze went flat. “It’s when the contact carries meaning beyond the physical that the conditioning fights back.”
I should’ve pushed there, but what came out was, “You hungry?”
The non sequitur seemed to amuse him. “Is that your professional assessment of my needs, Doctor?”
“It’s been a long time since either of us has eaten properly.” I turned away, busying myself with the groceries we’d purchased. “And wound healing requires adequate nutrition and fluids.”
“Then by all means,” he said. His tone was dry. “Let’s eat.”
I unwrapped protein bars and set out bottled water. It was hardly a meal, but it would keep us functioning.
Specter pulled a clean black T-shirt from our supplies and slipped it on, covering the constellation of scars. The fabric stretched across his shoulders as he moved to check the window again, peering through a crack in the curtains at the darkened street below.
“We should be safe here for a little while,” he said, accepting the protein bar I offered. “After that, we rotate locations.”
“And go where, exactly?” I leaned against the kitchen counter, suddenly aware of how exhausted I was. “I’m not exactly trained for life as a fugitive.”
“You’ve done well so far.” Just facts. “Adapting quickly, maintaining function under pressure.”
“High-functioning anxiety is my superpower.” The joke fell flat even to my own ears.
He studied me for a moment. “Fear is useful when it sharpens focus without clouding judgment. You balance it well.”
Coming from him, it felt like high praise. I looked away, uncomfortable with both the assessment and my reaction to it.
“What’s our next move?” I asked, steering us back to practicalities.
“Sleep, for now.” He nodded toward the bed. “You take it. I’ll keep watch.”
“You need rest too. Especially with those injuries. And you said it yourself, we’re relatively safe for now.”
“I’ve operated on less.”
“That doesn’t make it optimal.” I crossed my arms. “We need you at full capacity, not leaning on willpower and conditioning.”
His brow lifted. “We?”
“Figure of speech.” I kept my tone neutral. “The point stands.”
“I don’t sleep well with others present,” he said after a pause.
“That makes two of us.” I gestured to the bed. “But we’re adults. We can share the space without making this complicated.”
Amusement tugged at his mouth. “Is that what we are? Adults who don’t complicate things?”
The question carried weight beyond its surface. I held his gaze, refusing to back down. “Right now, we’re survivors who need rest. Everything else is secondary.”
He nodded once, a concession without surrender. “Four hours. Then we switch.”
“Six,” I countered. “Minimum for cognitive recovery.”
“Five,” he said with finality. “And I take the side by the door.”
I didn’t argue further. Five hours was better than none, and I understood his need to position himself between potential threats and the room. It wasn’t protection, at least, not primarily. It was tactical control.
The bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in, with cracked tiles and a rust-stained sink.
I splashed water on my face and stared at my reflection in the speckled mirror.
The woman looking back seemed like a stranger: hair askew, shadows under her eyes, a smear of someone else’s blood on her collar.
When I emerged, Specter had prepared the sofa bed and was checking his weapon. The bed springs creaked as he tested the mattress, his expression suggesting he’d slept on worse.
“I need to check the wound again in the morning.” I set my watch alarm.
He nodded, tucking the gun under his pillow before stretching out on his side of the bed, still fully clothed except for his shoes. His back remained to the wall, giving him clear sightlines to both the door and window.
I lay down on the opposite side, keeping a careful distance between us. The mattress sagged toward the middle, the dip nudging us nearer. I edged toward the outer side.
The ceiling above us was water-stained, the pattern resembling a Rorschach test. I wondered what Specter would see in those random blotches. What hidden meanings his fractured mind might extract from chaos.
“Your breathing changes when you’re analyzing something.” His voice cut through the quiet.
I turned my head to find him watching me, eyes reflective in the dim light from the street lamps filtering through the thin curtains.
“Force of habit,” I said. “Occupational hazard of living in my head.”
“What were you analyzing?”
“The water stains. They look like a Rorschach test.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “And what do you see in them, Doctor?”
“That’s not how it works. The question is what you see.”
His gaze shifted to the ceiling. “I see poor maintenance and a likely mold problem.”
I laughed before I could stop it. “Very literal.”
“Disappointing?” The question seemed genuine beneath its light delivery.
“Unexpected,” I corrected. “But refreshing.”
“I’ve had enough of people searching for answers in my head.”
The statement hung between us, naked in its honesty. I turned to face him fully.
“Is that how it felt at SENTINEL? Like we were mining your mind for answers?”
“No.” He met my gaze. “That’s how it felt at Oblivion. You were just trying to put the pieces back together.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re both fugitives because I couldn’t find answers from my shattered mind.” His voice held no self-pity, just blunt assessment. “Ironic that you came to fix me, and I dragged you into the same broken existence.”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” I said firmly. “I made choices. I’m still making them.”
He watched me for a long beat, testing for lies. Finding neither, he nodded once.
“Then sleep, Doctor Crawford. We have more choices to make tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes, acutely aware of his presence inches away, his heat, the small dip of the mattress with each breath. Despite my exhaustion, sleep seemed impossible with him so close, with danger lurking beyond our temporary sanctuary.
But my body had other ideas. The adrenaline crash hit hard, pulling me down into darkness. The last thing I registered was Specter’s steady breathing beside me.