Chapter 26
Selina
I floated in darkness, drifting through layers of awareness. It felt almost pleasant. Pain circled the edges, a patient predator. I let myself sink deeper, into the blank where nothing could touch me.
Awareness pulled at me anyway, each layer heavier than the last. My eyelids refused to lift. A sharp pinch in my arm. Cotton on my tongue. They had hit me with something strong.
Antiseptic reached me first.
The weight on my left forearm wasn’t just heaviness. A cast. The steady beeping wasn’t just any machine logging vitals.
SENTINEL. Back in their medical ward, probably. Mattie would come with gentle questions and worried eyes. Damon would lurk in the doorway, pretending not to care under that deep scowl.
Memory slammed in: the laboratory, Specter’s vacant stare, my breathless pleading, the stairwell.
My eyes snapped open. Panic surged hard enough to steal air. Blinds shut out daylight. Private room. Expensive. Quiet, aside from the monitor and the rasp of my breathing.
Two silhouettes stood watch near the exit, and my stomach dropped.
One shifted. His outline was unmistakable even in the dim light. Specter. Or what wore his face. Beside him, Blackout didn’t move at all. Both watched with the same lifeless attention.
Air wouldn’t go down. Seeing him that way crushed my chest until it felt ready to crack.
Another blast of memory: the tumble down the stairs, his screams in the garage, Dresner smiling while he carved out what remained of the man I—
The man I what? Loved? The word was a blade. I had missed my window. I failed Specter. Wolfe.
I rolled toward the wall. I couldn’t look at that hollow where he should be. Where Wolfe should be. A sob rose; I swallowed it. I was past tears, somewhere emptier.
The door opened. Light spilled from the hall. I didn’t turn. Whatever came next didn’t matter.
“Patient is conscious.” Blackout’s voice could have come from a speaker. “Vital signs stable.”
Approaching footsteps were lighter, not Dresner’s. A nurse appeared, face neutral while she checked monitors.
“Good morning, Dr. Crawford,” she said, pleasant on the surface, gaze skittering past mine. “How are you feeling?”
Silence from me.
She checked the cast, adjusted the IV, tapped notes into a tablet. “You’re very lucky. A fall like that could have been much worse.”
Lucky. I almost laughed. In what universe did this qualify as lucky?
“A break in your left forearm,” she went on. “Multiple contusions. No concussion, remarkably. The cast stays on for approximately six weeks.”
Six weeks. As if I had a future outside whatever Dresner decided.
Blackout stepped closer as she finished. “Status.”
She flinched, then steadied. “Stable. Sedation is wearing off. Pain control appears adequate. No neurological red flags.”
Her glance touched me, then slid away.
“I’ll inform Dr. Latsa you’re awake,” she said, and moved for the door. “He’ll want to examine you himself.”
After she left, Blackout closed the distance to my bed. “The Director has been informed of your incident.”
I met his stare—emerald and empty. At the door, the man wearing Wolfe’s body stood like a mannequin.
“Incident?” My voice came out raw. “Is that what we are calling it?”
Nothing shifted in his face. “Your fall was unexpected and disrupted the schedule.”
“How inconsiderate of me.”
“The Director is returning to address your situation. Transfer to a secure facility is delayed until his arrival.”
Ice threaded my veins at that. Dresner, coming back for me. The threat didn’t need dressing.
“I assume that’s meant to frighten me.”
“It is a statement of fact.”
I closed my eyes, fatigue pressing hard. “Where am I?”
“A public hospital. You were brought here for initial treatment. When the Director arrives, you will be moved to an Oblivion location for continued recovery and work.”
Work.
My gaze drifted toward the figure by the door. In the dim, his profile resolved: strong jaw, the set of his shoulders. The body matched the man I knew. Inside, nothing.
I curled in, ignoring the burn along bruised ribs. I couldn’t look at either of them—Blackout with that dead-green stare or the shell that used to be Specter.
“Leave me alone,” I whispered.
“That is not possible. Security protocols require—”
“Please.” The word broke. “Just… stand by the door. Don’t speak to me.”
He held still for a beat, then returned to his post. The quiet that followed hurt worse than his flat delivery.
I studied the wall and let the monitor’s steady blips wash over me. Each sound marked another second inside this trap. Another moment without the man who had looked at me with recognition, who had kissed me like I was the only real thing left.
Gone. Scrubbed clean because I had defied Dresner.
Failure pressed until I could barely inhale. I should have been smarter. I should have played along long enough to find leverage. Instead, my resistance cost him everything. He came for me, tried to pull me out, and they stripped him bare.
My chest tightened, each breath a grind. Training whispered labels—shock, trauma—urging me to focus on survival, on steps. The other part of me, the woman who’d held him through nightmares, wanted to disappear into the dark.
I retreated inward, where Dresner couldn’t touch me. Where I didn’t have to see what was left of the man I hadn’t saved. Where none of this existed.
When the Director arrived, he would face a shell of his own making. I felt beyond his reach, broken along lines he couldn’t map.
The monitor went on, counting down to his return. To whatever came. It all felt meaningless.
I had lost Specter. I had lost myself. In that loss, Dresner had won.
Sleep became an order I obeyed. Not just for the pain—the throb in my left arm, the purpled ache along my side—but for the raw wound of seeing Wolfe stand there and stare through me.
The bed held me, but rest fractured. Nightmares bled into waking; I hovered between. In dreams, I reached for him and watched him slip away.
Hours later, wet tracked from my temples into my hair. I didn’t wipe it. Why bother.
Medication tugged me under again, deeper, where edges softened and pain couldn’t find me.
A touch grazed my cheek, feather-light. A trick of sleep.
Again, fingertips traced my jaw with reverence. I kept my eyes closed. If I looked, it would vanish.
Familiar. The path along my cheekbone, the slide to my lower lip. He had touched me like this on the train to Zagreb, when he thought I was sleeping. Mapping me with careful hands. A sound broke out of me, small and helpless.
The hand returned, fingers threading into my hair, tucking it behind my ear. A brush along the shell, finding the tiny freckle there. He’d found it once when he memorized every mark with his mouth.
My pulse kicked. The monitor tattled with quickened beeps.
“Breathe, Selina.” A whisper. Barely sound. “Just breathe. Don’t open your eyes yet.”
I went still, afraid to move, to inhale, to hope. That voice. Not the dull cadence from the parking garage—this one was intimate, the one from shared beds and stolen hours.
You’re dreaming, I told myself. Not real.
“It’s me,” came the faint murmur. “I’m here.”
“How?” The word slipped out. I kept my eyes shut. If I looked, I might lose him.
Hope flared, painful and bright. This felt real. He felt real.
“Open your eyes,” he said, so soft it felt like a hand on my skin. “Slowly. No reaction. You can’t give us away.”
I blinked into the dim. He leaned over me, those storm-gray eyes full of recognition, warmth, something deeper I hadn’t let myself name.
I flinched on instinct, the lab flashback snapping at me. His grip tightened around my hand, steadying me.
“No, no. I’m sorry.” Shame burned.
“It’s okay.” His gaze never left my face. “I get it.”
My free hand rose, trembling as I traced him: the hard line of his jaw, the small scar at his temple, the crease that cut deeper when he worried. My Specter. My Wolfe.
“How?” The question cracked. “I watched it. I watched what they did.”
He flicked a glance toward the door and back. “Dresner misread what you’ve done to me.”
“I don’t understand.” My eyes searched him for an answer. “He used the words. You screamed. Then he said something in your ear and you just—”
The last word wouldn’t come. Those screams still hung in that garage in my head. The instant when Wolfe vanished from his own face.
“Was it fake? Did you know to pretend?”
His fingers tightened around mine; his thumb traced a circle against my skin. Another glance at the door. Back to me.
“I didn’t fake it,” he said. “It hurt like hell, Selina. Like acid poured into my brain. I wanted it to stop so badly, I didn’t care how.”
A tremor ran through him. I reached up with my good hand, needing to feel his skin under my palm.
“Then how…?”
“I don’t know exactly. The words were working. I could feel myself slipping, piece by piece. Then I saw your face.”
He held my gaze, stripped bare.
“You were crying. That anchored me. I could feel them tearing at everything they built, but I kept locking on you. Your eyes. Your hands on me. I hid a part of myself and held on.”
A tear slid into my hairline. “But you didn’t respond. You didn’t blink when I said your name.”
“I couldn’t. I had to sell it. Dresner needed to believe I was just another Blackout. If he suspected—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
My fingertips traced his jaw again; tension coiled there. “All this time? You’ve been pretending the whole time?”
He nodded, a muscle ticking. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Watching you unravel in that lab. Watching you stumble in that hallway. And then…” His voice thinned. “Watching you fall and doing nothing. Standing there while you—”
The pain in it made my grip tighten.
“Every instinct said to move, to catch you. But if I had broken character, he would’ve known. He’d reset me for real, and then I wouldn’t be able to get you out.”
“Get me out?” The words scraped. “How?”
“I came to play a long game.” His eyes cut to the door again. “Learn the protocols. Wait for the perfect crack. When you fell… I needed a new plan. Fast.”
My mind kicked into professional gear despite the chaos. “You’ve been watching for an opening.”
“Yes. Any opening.” His thumb brushed away a tear I hadn’t noticed. “I was ordered to leave and get Dresner from the airport as he took an early flight here. But I stalled and saw Blackout leave fifteen minutes ago. It was my chance.”
I clutched his hand through the ache. “How long?”
“I don’t know where he was going so we have to act now.” His attention flicked to the monitor and back. “A nurse rounds every thirty. She checked you twenty minutes ago. That gives us—”
“Ten minutes until she returns.” Calculations snapped into place. “And then?”
“Then we move.” A flicker of a smile. “The rest is… flexible.”
I pushed up. Pain flared along my ribs. He braced me with careful pressure.
“I’m not in fighting shape.” I glanced at the cast. Sitting up made the room tilt.
“You don’t have to fight. That’s on me.”
He slipped into the tiny bathroom and came back with a small duffel I hadn’t clocked. He set it on the chair, unzipped it. Clothes: loose jeans, a soft sweater, socks, slip-ons.
“Where did those come from?” Hope and suspicion tangled.
“Staff locker room.” His face stayed composed, but a spark lit behind his eyes—his old dark humor surfacing. “Hospital security is less of a challenge than Oblivion’s.”
A broken laugh jammed in my throat and came out rough. “I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered. “I thought you were gone.”
His gaze found mine, gray and intent. “Part of me is missing. There are gaps. Blank spaces. But you—” He caught my hand, gentle despite the strength there. “You’re the constant. They couldn’t erase you.”
Something tight in me eased, a knot I’d carried since he collapsed in that garage. I grabbed his shirt with my good hand.
“Kiss me,” I whispered. “I need to know you’re here.”
Only a heartbeat passed before his mouth met mine. Desperate. Certain. The world slid back into place.
He kissed me like air, and I took him in. His hands framed my face with impossible care, a contrast to the fierce press of his mouth.
I kissed him back and let pain fall away—the ribs, the cast, all of it.
The reality crashed over us again. We were still inside Oblivion’s web. The monitor sped up, tattling my pulse.
“Shh.” He brushed a softer kiss across my lips. “We have a plan. We have time. First, rest until the nurse returns.”
He eased me down, arranged the blanket, pushed hair from my face. “Save your strength,” he whispered. “When she leaves, we will go.”
He pressed his mouth to my brow, a promise sealed warm against my skin. “I won’t lose you again,” he said. “Not to Dresner. Not to anyone.”