Chapter 17
Selina
The water stain on the ceiling looked like a map to somewhere I’d never want to go. I’d stared at it for an eternity. Evening pushed shadows across the dingy Zagreb hotel room, and the blot darkened with them.
Close to four hours had passed since Specter had slipped out with a kiss and a promise to be quick. Routine surveillance, he’d said. Simple perimeter check of the first warehouse Damon had flagged. No engagement, no risks. Blah, blah, blah.
My watch slid beyond the mark. I paced the narrow strip between bed and window—peeling wallpaper, old water damage tracking down the wall in thin lines.
The single lamp cast more shadow than light, and the room seemed to contract.
After three terrible places in a row, I swore I’d blow money on a ridiculous hotel when this ended. Deep bathtub. Room service for days.
A noise in the hallway made me go still. I listened hard. Just the ice machine. Not his steps. Not him.
My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since the stale train-station sandwiches. I dug in my bag and pulled out vending-machine chips. The foil crackled loudly when I tore it open.
First bite: dust and salt. I kept chewing, eyes on the crude map Specter had sketched before he left.
Two industrial warehouses circled in ballpoint, possible Oblivion transfer sites from Damon.
The first was marked with an X. The site Specter went to “check from the outside only.” That was hours ago.
He had slid the gun into his waistband. “Just sight lines and access points. Back before you know it.”
I crunched another stale chip. The cheap burner phone on the nightstand stayed dark. No messages. No calls.
Suppose something went wrong. Say Blackout recovered faster than we had expected. And if—
No. Stop. Professional detachment. Clinical assessment. Not the time to spiral.
I forced my mind to the trip here. The cramped train compartment that had turned into a temporary refuge.
The gentle sway that rocked us to sleep after we’d…
Heat climbed my neck. His body moving against mine in the dark.
His voice rough, my name on his lips. The care he took with his ribs even then.
I’d watched his face soften as he slept. The vigilant operative gone for a while, replaced by something quieter. Almost calm.
The contrast constricted my chest. Whatever boundaries I’d drawn were gone, and I was in uncharted territory. What was I now? Not just his doctor. Not just an ally. Something deeper. More complicated. More dangerous.
I checked my watch. Three hours, seventeen minutes.
Back to analysis. Not the man I’d touched. The operative he’d been made to be.
“Enhanced conditioning,” the files had said. “Trauma response integration. Memory compartmentalization.”
Munich. The way pastry filling had triggered the children, and he’d snapped from lover to killer in a breath. How empty his eyes had become as his hands closed around my throat.
My fingers rose to where the marks used to show. Faded now. Not forgotten.
What else was buried in him? Which words, images, or sounds could flip him into something I couldn’t reach?
“I don’t always know who I am,” he’d told me in the dark. “Sometimes I wake up and have to remember which version is real.”
I crushed the empty bag and tossed it toward the trash can. Missed. The sound was too loud in the quiet.
Three hours, twenty-five minutes.
What if Kruger had managed to get the trigger out before the sniper dropped him? He’d been mid-sentence when the round hit.
I went to the window and eased the thin curtain back. The sky was completely dark now. Streetlights turned rain-slick pavement into yellow patches. A couple hurried past, bent to the cold. A taxi crawled by, roof light on.
No sign of Specter. But honestly, would I even notice him sneaking back in?
I rested my forehead on the cool glass and tried to sort my thoughts. The professional and the personal kept shoving at each other—the doctor who knew the implications of his conditioning versus the woman who’d whispered his name with his breath warm against my neck.
I’d crossed a line I couldn’t step back from. On the train, with his arms around me, it had felt right, like the only honest choice. Whatever was broken in him answered something solitary in me. I reached for it anyway.
The truth wouldn’t budge: I’d lost objectivity. I was invested in a way that violated everything I’d ever enforced. And worse… I didn’t regret it.
Three hours, forty minutes.
I returned to the sketch and traced the path he would’ve taken. Fifteen minutes on foot, he’d estimated. Even with careful recon, he should’ve been back.
Unless something derailed him.
Or someone nudged him off course.
The thought hit low and hard. Maybe Oblivion had assets here we didn’t know about. Maybe someone recognized him and used the right words.
He’d described it to me: trapped behind glass, watching his body move without him. The terror when he came back and realized his hands were on my throat.
“I couldn’t stop it,” he’d said. “I was screaming inside but couldn’t make my hands let go.”
Three hours, forty-seven minutes.
I breathed in and forced focus. Panic wouldn’t help. Delays happened. He could have found something worth a closer look. Or he might be making sure no one followed him back. He could be fine.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The old springs protested. The drawing blurred as my eyes burned.
Before I knew it, I grabbed the burner and dialed Mattie. The connection clicked and buzzed while I counted rings. One. Two. Three.
“Dr. Prieto’s phone.” Not Mattie. A deep, formal male voice.
Despite everything, I smiled. “Damon? Why are you answering Mattie’s phone at…” I checked my watch. “Eleven at night?”
A beat of silence. “Security protocol. All communications are monitored during active operations.”
“Uh-huh.” I leaned against the wall, feeling the wallpaper peel under my fingers. “You two joined at the hip now? Or just the phone?”
A low grumble. “Dr. Crawford, this is a secure line intended for—”
“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.”
“And as my friend?”
She sighed. “As your friend, I think your feelings are clouding your judgment. You want to protect him. That’s human. But right now, not knowing his triggers makes him easy to manipulate. The truth might hurt him, but lies will definitely destroy him.”
The words landed like a punch. True, and I hated them.
“There’s something else.” I stared at the map’s edge with my thumb. “I’m afraid of who he’ll be if everything comes back. What if the man I’m with isn’t the real him? What if the real Specter wouldn’t know me? Wouldn’t want me?”
“That’s a real fear,” Mattie said. “But think about this—his conditioning is cracking because something inside him is fighting back. Oblivion didn’t erase him. And whatever’s between you two? That’s not programming. That’s real.”
I saw him on the train again, the way he had looked at me, the way he had touched my face like it mattered. The way he had said I made him feel human.
“What if it changes how he feels about me?” It slipped out before I could stop it.
“Ah.” Mattie didn’t gloat. “There it is.”
“I’m not being professional.” The admission scraped on the way out. “I crossed every line.”
“We’re way past professional. We’re in survival mode. Sometimes survival means connection.”
I thought of Specter’s hand in mine. His body pressed to mine in the dark. The way he gave up control and trusted me.
“I can’t lose him, Mattie,” I whispered. “Not to Oblivion. Not to his past. Not to himself.”
“Then don’t shield him from the truth,” she said. “Stand with him while he faces it. That’s what he needs. Not shelter. Strength.”
A sound in the hallway tightened my shoulders, then faded. Just another guest.
“You’re right.” The words tasted like surrender and relief. “I know you’re right.”
“Of course, I am.” Her voice lightened. “Promise me when this is over, we’re doing a real girls’ night with real alcohol, and you’re telling me everything. And I mean everything.”
I laughed. “Deal.”
“Be careful, Selina. Both of you.” Warmth bled out of her tone. “And remember: Oblivion gave him the conditioning, but who he is now? That’s his choice. Don’t take that from him by deciding what he can handle.”
When we hung up, I stared at the phone. Mattie’s words kept replaying: The truth might hurt him, but lies will definitely destroy him.
She was right. I couldn’t protect Specter by keeping him from his past, no matter how much I wanted him safe. That wasn’t my call. All I could do was stand with him when it came.