Chapter 20
Specter
The hotel door had barely clicked shut when Selina hit me, arms around my neck, mouth on mine. Her kiss tasted like relief tangled with fear.
“You’re freezing,” she murmured against my lips, pulling back just enough to see me. Her hands framed my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “And bleeding.”
I leaned into her touch. “Barely. Scrapes.”
Water pooled off my clothes onto the carpet. She didn’t care. The headache that had started back at the plant hammered behind my eyes, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from her. I toed off my boots.
“I thought…” Her voice snagged. “When the comms went out…”
“Signal jammer.” I shrugged out of my wet jacket. “You couldn’t hear, but Blackout was there.”
Her fingers stilled on my buttons. “You fought him again?”
“Not directly. More like hide and seek.” I caught her wrist and gave a quick squeeze. “I’m okay.”
“Define okay.” She tugged me toward the bathroom, sliding into doctor mode despite the worry in her face. I followed, dropping the papers I’d grabbed on the coffee table along with the guard’s phone I’d lifted before he could hit the alarm. “Sit before you fall.”
I sat on the closed toilet lid while she grabbed a towel and the first-aid kit. My body felt heavy, muscles barking from the rooftop sprint and the detour through half the city.
She dabbed antiseptic at my temple. “Hold still.” Her touch was steady, but her mouth had flattened. “This one’s deeper than you’re admitting.”
The antiseptic burned. I hissed. “Scrape from when I jumped to the next building.”
“You jumped between buildings?” She went still, then kept working.
“Seemed smart at the time.” I tried to smile. It didn’t stick. My head throbbed.
She moved to my ribs where I’d flinched earlier. “Anything else you’re hiding?”
“Nothing worth mentioning.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She helped me peel off the wet shirt, clinical focus undercut by the way her fingers lingered on my skin. “Drink this.” She pressed a glass into my hands.
I drained it. Didn’t realize how dry my throat was until then.
“Were you followed?” She reached for a clean towel.
“Don’t think so. Lost Blackout at the warehouse after he went over the edge.” I stopped her hand as she pressed the towel to my chest, steadying it. “It was strange. He sensed me even when I went invisible.”
She met my eyes. “Same training. Same conditioning.”
“Yeah.” I threaded our fingers. “But he doesn’t have you.”
She smiled, and for a second, the pressure eased.
“What happened with Blackout? You said he went over?” She applied a butterfly bandage to my brow.
“Rooftop chase across half the industrial district.” I rubbed my shoulder, wrenched on one jump. “Lost him near the canal. He’s persistent. He’ll report back to his handlers.”
Selina nodded, already shifting to planning. “We need to move locations.”
She went to the radiator and grabbed the dry clothes hanging there.
“You should rest,” she said, handing me a clean shirt. “We can look at what you found in the morning.”
“No. I need to know.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m functioning.” I stood. Muscles complained. “Selina, it’s all there. Who I was. What I did. I can’t wait.”
Her features softened. Her thumb grazed my stubble. “Okay.”
I pulled on the dry clothes and followed her to the table with the files.
We spread the papers out. Operation reports. Medical records. Assessment forms. Fragments of a life cataloged by the people who broke it.
I skimmed columns and dates. “Anything useful?”
“Maybe. We need to confirm what’s actually yours. Probably not all of it,” she said, sorting pages.
I nodded, but the paper with the photograph snagged at me. A man with my face but not my eyes stared back. When I tried to read the handwriting beneath it, a sharp spike lit behind my temples.
I pushed it to Selina. “This. What’s it say?”
She picked up the photo, turned it over carefully. She read the back, lips parting. The room went quieter.
“Are you ready for this?”
I wasn’t. Who is? I nodded anyway, bracing.
“A name. Wolfe Lennox.” Her tone was careful, measured.
The name landed like a hammer. My skull lit up. The room tilted. My knees gave out. I hit the floor, a strangled sound tearing loose. I hadn’t expected it.
“Specter!” Selina’s voice came from far off.
A shock shot from skull to spine, every nerve firing. My vision fractured—shards of now and then.
A dark apartment. Money stacked on a table. The weight of a gun in my hand.
“Stay with me.” She knelt beside me, hands on my shoulders. “Focus on my voice.”
Blood on white tile. A woman screaming. My finger on the trigger.
“It’s attacking me,” I gasped, gripping my head. My body jerked as the programming fought the breach.
A warehouse. Not tonight’s. Men kneeling in a row. Gunshots. Mine.
Selina wrapped herself around me, anchoring me while I thrashed.
The flashes came faster, ragged and mean. Not Specter’s clean edges; something rougher.
Knuckles splitting on someone’s jaw. Bone cracking. Satisfaction.
Another version of me stared back. A man who liked the hurt he dealt, who killed for cash, who betrayed and slept fine. Wolfe Lennox hadn’t been a victim. He’d picked this.
“No,” I groaned, trying to pull away. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not leaving.” Her hold tightened.
“My body’s gearing up. I’ll hurt you,” I warned, barely hearing my own voice. “If I black out…”
“You won’t.” She cupped my face. “Look at me. Here.”
I forced my eyes open. Found hers. The room spun, but her face held steady.
A dark-haired woman, crying. “Wolfe. Please.”
Her face cleared, familiar in a way that hurt. Sister? Friend? Lover? I knew her, and I knew I’d done damage.
More pieces slammed in, fighting for space with Specter’s training. Two selves at war. Neither fit.
Men in masks pinning me down. A needle in my neck. Screaming until nothing came out.
“Subject demonstrates unusual resistance.” A clinical voice. “Increase the dosage.”
Agony beyond anything I’d known. Mind scraped hollow.
“Let me die,” my voice rasped. “Just let me die.”
“Death would be wasteful, Mr. Lennox. You have skills we can use.”
“They’re coming,” I gasped, slipping. “Both of them. Specter. Wolfe. I can’t—”
“You can.” Her voice cut in. “You’re not just Specter or just Wolfe. You’re both. And not only that.”
My fingers dug into the carpet, tearing fibers. The conditioning hit back harder, punishing the access. Nausea climbed.
A dark corridor. Blood on my hands. Not metaphorical, warm and sticky. A life I ended.
Money changing hands. “Cleanest job I’ve seen, Lennox. Not a trace.”
Pride. A cold kind. Being the best at something awful.
“Make it stop,” I pleaded, dignity gone. “Please. Cut it out.”
She wiped my tears with her thumb. “I can’t cut it out. But I can get you through.”
Another surge. Faces of people I’d killed, in both lives, crashed over me. Too many. Blood I’d never wash off.
A contract killer. That’s what I was. Professional. Expensive. Ruthless.
“He doesn’t leave witnesses,” someone said, almost admiring. “Like a ghost.”
Ghost. Specter. They hadn’t made a killer. They’d harnessed one.
“I’m not worth saving,” I managed. “Either of me.”
“That’s not true,” Selina said, sharp and sure. “The man who tried to save those kids at St. Elisabeth’s deserves a chance.”
It crested. Something in my head tore loose. Stitches ripping. Black rushed in, hungry.
A final image, clearer than the rest. A man in an expensive suit.
“Wolfe Lennox. Quite the reputation.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I have an offer for your… particular talents.”
My voice, cocky: “I don’t come cheap.”
“Oh, I know. But I always get what I want, willing or not.”
Dresner. The name rose from nowhere. Dresner, before he owned me.
“I’m losing it,” I rasped. “Can’t hold on.”
Selina did something I didn’t expect. She slapped me, hard. The shock cut through the fog.
“Come back.” She leaned in. “Stay with me, damn it.”
For a beat, the sting grounded me, but I felt myself sliding. Worse, my body geared up without me: muscles tensing, combat routines coming online. If I went under, Specter might take the wheel.
Training sessions. Killing without thinking. Not learning—remembering. Muscle memory they kept because they needed it.
“He’s responding well to conditioning,” a voice noted. “The existing framework helps.”
Existing framework. They didn’t build me. They repurposed me.
“Get away from me,” I warned, trying to shove her back. “Not safe.”
She didn’t move. She grabbed my face and kissed me, hard. Another shock—no pain this time. Her mouth demanded an answer.
Slowly, it eased. Not gone, but enough to breathe. I slumped into her, shaking.
“Wolfe,” she whispered against my lips.
The name still hurt, but dulled now. A bruise instead of an open wound.
“I don’t know who that is anymore,” I said.
“We’ll figure it out,” Selina said, pressing her forehead to mine. “Not everything tonight. But we will.”
I wanted to believe her. Wanted a path through the split, through the blood. But the weight of it all pressed down hard.
“Stay,” she said, feeling me fade. “Keep your eyes on me.”
I tried to answer. The dark pulled anyway. Last thought: I’d chosen this long before Oblivion chose me.
Relief flickered, and the world went dark.