Chapter 8
Selina
The kiss deepened, his mouth insistent against mine.
My fingers curled into his shirt as his hands spanned my waist, lifting me a fraction.
With a quick shift, he turned us, pressing my back against the counter.
I felt the edge dig into my spine, but couldn’t bring myself to care.
That instinctive part of me, the part I’d been denying since first seeing him, finally acknowledged the truth: I’d wanted this from the beginning.
His palm slid beneath my shirt, heat searing against my lower back. I lost my breath’s rhythm as his lips traced my jaw, then my neck, finding the pulse there. My brain split in two: the doctor cataloging his technique, the woman surrendering to it.
“Specter,” I said, not sure if I meant to stop him or urge him on.
Three sharp knocks at the entry shattered the moment.
We froze, mouths still a breath apart. Every trace of desire vanished from his expression, replaced by cold focus. His fingers found his gun before I registered him moving, his body angling to shield mine.
“Behind me.” He moved toward the entrance in quiet, controlled steps.
I ducked behind him, heartbeat hammering for entirely different reasons now. My mind spooled through worst-case scenarios: Oblivion’s tactical team, SENTINEL’s retrieval unit, local police. No matter who waited on the other side, we had nowhere to run.
Specter reached the door in complete silence, weapon held low against his thigh. He pressed his eye to the peephole, body coiled. I watched his shoulders, waiting for the signal to run or hide.
Instead, they lowered.
“Stay calm.” His tone was for me alone. “And look… domestic.”
Before I could ask what that meant, he tucked the weapon into the back of his waistband, covered it with his shirt, and unlocked the door. He opened it just enough to reveal a middle-aged man in a faded brown cardigan, clutching a clipboard. The man looked bored, impatient, and ordinary.
“Herr Müller,” Specter said, his voice suddenly warm. “Guten Morgen. What brings you here?”
The landlord grunted something that might have been a greeting, his eyes moving past Specter to land on me. I tried to look “domestic,” whatever that meant, straightening my rumpled shirt and praying my mouth didn’t advertise what we’d been doing.
“Water damage inspection,” the landlord said in heavily accented English, holding up his clipboard like a shield. “Unit above flooded. Need to check walls, ceilings.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
“Of course.” His entire demeanor softened, the lethal edge tucked away. “Please, come in. We were just having breakfast.”
I watched as Specter stepped aside, allowing the landlord to enter. The same hands that had killed yesterday now gestured apologetically as he rubbed the back of his neck, playing at sheepish.
“My girlfriend and I…” He sent me a glance so convincingly affectionate, I almost believed it. “We are just visiting Munich for a few days.”
The landlord barely spared us a second glance as he moved around the apartment, tapping walls and examining corners with practiced indifference. “Tourists,” he muttered, as if this explained everything about us.
I followed Specter’s lead, staying close to him, one hand resting lightly on his arm like we were indeed a couple interrupted during breakfast rather than fugitives hiding from assassins.
“Nothing here,” the landlord concluded after a cursory inspection that took less than two minutes. He made a notation on his clipboard. “If you see wet spots on ceiling, call office.”
“We will,” Specter said, already moving toward the door. “Danke schon.”
The landlord left with a final grunt, not bothering to look back as Specter closed and locked the door behind him. We stood in frozen silence, listening to the heavy footsteps recede down the hallway, followed by the stairwell’s complaint.
When the sound finally faded, I exhaled an unsteady breath. The absurdity hit me all at once—hiding from professional killers only to be interrupted by a building inspection—and a bubble of nervous laughter rose in my throat.
“That was…” I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to contain the edgy giggle threatening to escape.
“Not tactical, clearly.” The charming tenant vanished between one breath and the next. He moved to the window, carefully peering through the curtains. “Just an actual landlord doing his job. Bad timing.”
The laughter died in my throat as I watched him switch personas so effortlessly. “You were different with him. Your tone, your stance …”
“Basic tradecraft,” he said, letting the curtain fall back into place. “Always have a cover story ready. Always blend with your environment.”
“It was…” I searched for the right word. “Impressive.”
He turned, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Only impressive?”
The hint of flirtation brought me back to what we’d been doing before the interruption. Heat rose in my cheeks as I remembered his hands on my skin, his mouth on my neck. We’d blown past professional boundaries.
Before I could formulate a response, Specter winced, his hand lifting to his temple.
My clinical instincts kicked in immediately. “Headache?”
“It’s nothing.” He dropped his hand, but I’d already crossed the room to him.
“Sit,” I told him, guiding him to the nearest chair. “Let me see your eyes.”
He complied with surprising docility, allowing me to tilt his face toward the light. I examined his pupils, equal and reactive, with no sign of the dilation that had preceded his seizures.
“Just a headache,” he said as I pressed my fingers to his wrist, checking his pulse rate. Normal rhythm, perhaps slightly elevated. “I’m not going to collapse.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, shifting fully into doctor mode. “Your neural pathways are under significant stress. The breakthrough memories, the conditioning breakdown, and it’s all taking a physical toll.”
He caught my wrist as I moved to check his temperature, his grip steady but firm. “I know my limits, Doc.”
I met his gaze, refusing to back down. “Do you? Because ten minutes ago you were ‘testing a theory’ that could’ve triggered another seizure.”
A shadow of a smile touched his lips. “That theory panned out just fine.”
“This time.” I pulled my hand free. “What exactly were you testing?”
He leaned back, regarding me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Whether I could kiss you without my brain trying to shut down.”
The blunt honesty caught me off guard. “That was… reckless.”
“I needed to know.” He didn’t look away.
“Know what? If you could kiss someone without convulsing? That’s hardly…”
“If I could feel something real.” His tone dropped. “Without my brain shorting out.”
His words silenced me. I sat in the chair opposite him, medical training warring with the sudden urge to reach for his hand.
“Your conditioning,” I said carefully, “was designed to isolate you. To prevent emotional connections that might compromise your effectiveness as an operative.”
He nodded once, eyes never leaving mine. “They didn’t erase the capacity for feeling. They just made sure it hurt when it happened.”
“Yes.”
One syllable that carried the weight of everything they’d stolen from him. I absorbed what it meant, that he’d risked a seizure, risked our safety, just to determine if he could still experience connection without punishment.
“I’m going to try something different,” I said, moving behind his chair. “A grounding technique that might help with the headache and potentially access memories without triggering seizures.”
He stiffened as I positioned myself behind him. “What does it involve?”
“Touch,” I admitted. “But clinical touch, focused on pressure points.”
The distinction felt necessary, even as I recognized its hollowness. Touch was touch, and my body still hummed from our earlier contact. But I needed this boundary, this pretense of professional distance.
“I need you to close your eyes and focus on your breathing,” I said, placing my fingertips lightly on his temples. “Inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four.”
To my surprise, he complied without argument, eyes closing, shoulders dropping as he followed my direction. I began applying gentle pressure in slow, methodical circles, working from his temples across his forehead and back.
“Focus on the physical sensation.” I kept my voice even. “The pressure, the temperature of my fingers, the circular motion.”
His breathing deepened, the muscles beneath my fingertips relaxing incrementally. Encouraged, I continued the technique, moving to the base of his skull, finding the hard knots of tension there.
“When I ask you to access a memory, picture opening a door,” I said, keeping it low. “Just a crack, just enough to peek inside. If it becomes overwhelming, focus on my contact; it will anchor you to the present.”
I guided him back to the moment before the pain. “Not the pain itself, but what came just before. Was there an image? A word? A feeling?”
He was silent for so long I thought he might not answer. Then, so quietly I almost missed it, he whispered: “Green.”
“Dark?” I kept the circles steady.
“Tunnels.” A fine tremor ran through his shoulders. “Hills—no, mountains.”
I kept my touch consistent, maintaining the anchor. “What else do you see?”
“White walls. Cold.”
“Is this from a mission?” I asked carefully.
“No. Before. Training. The facility.”
“That place. I remember it.”
“Tell me about it.”
His eyes remained closed, but I could see them moving beneath his lids, tracking through memories as they surfaced. “It’s where they took us. Somewhere in the mountains. Somewhere with seasons.”
“Who is ‘us’?” I asked.
“The subjects. The ones who survived phase one.” His voice took on a distant quality, as though reciting information rather than reliving experience. “Six of us, I think. No, seven. Seven started there. Not all finished.”
I resumed the gentle circles at his temples, keeping him anchored as he ventured deeper into the memory. “What happened there?”