Chapter 6
GABE
The convoy brings more contractors, not answers.
Three black SUVs pull into the yard, and men in tactical gear pour out like ants from a disturbed hill.
They're efficient, professional—securing the scene, checking on their downed colleagues, speaking in clipped tones that suggest military training.
One of them, a man with graying hair and cold eyes, approaches Zeke with credentials that get him immediate deference.
I keep Mara behind me the entire time, hyperaware of every weapon, every position, every potential threat. My body won't relax despite the ache in my ribs and the exhaustion pulling at my limbs. These men move the way I do—trained killers pretending to be civilized.
The gray-haired man studies me from a distance, makes notes on a tablet, but doesn't approach. Doesn't ask questions. Just watches with the kind of assessment that makes my skin crawl. He's evaluating me, cataloging my capabilities, measuring me against some standard I can't remember.
After what feels like hours but is probably only forty minutes, they load their three downed operatives into one of the SUVs. The big man with the injured arm glares at me as they help him into the vehicle, hatred clear in his eyes. I stare back until he looks away first.
The gray-haired man finally approaches, stopping a careful ten feet away. "Andrews."
"Who are you?" My voice comes out harder than I intend.
"Someone who will be in touch." He hands Zeke a business card. "When his memory returns, call that number. It's in everyone's best interest that we have a conversation."
"And if I don't want to talk?" I ask.
His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Then we'll have a different kind of conversation. One you won't enjoy."
Mara's hand finds mine, squeezes once. The gray-haired man notices, his gaze flicking between us. Something shifts in his expression—calculation, maybe, or recognition that I have something to lose now.
"Take care of yourself, Andrews," he says, and it sounds like a threat.
Then they're gone, loading into their vehicles and disappearing down the mountain road in a small convoy. The whole operation takes less than an hour—efficient, professional, leaving no trace except tire tracks in the snow and the lingering sense that this isn't over.
Zeke stays behind with the two men who came with him who he introduces as Nate and Caleb. While Zeke asks questions I can't answer and takes notes I know won't help, the other two check the perimeter and make sure the property is secure. After about an hour, they're ready to leave.
Mara walks them to the door, and I hear the low murmur of their conversation—Zeke warning her, probably, telling her to be careful. When she comes back to the kitchen, she finds me standing at the window, watching the empty road.
"They're really gone," she says quietly, coming to stand beside me.
I nod, studying my reflection in the glass. My knuckles are bruised and swollen, my ribs ache from movements I don't remember learning, and there's dried blood on my borrowed shirt from the cut on my cheek. But we're alive. Mara's alive. That's all that matters.
Behind me, I hear her moving around the kitchen, the familiar sounds of her making tea.
"They'll be back," I say without turning around.
"I know." Mara's voice is steady, but I can hear the exhaustion underneath. "Zeke knows too. He's putting together some kind of watch rotation with Nate, Caleb, and some of the others."
I finally turn to face her. She's leaning against the counter, holding two mugs of tea, and the sight of her—whole, unharmed, here—makes my chest tight. "You should have stayed inside."
"We've had this argument already." She crosses to me and holds out one of the mugs. "You lost."
"Mara...”
"No." She sets both mugs down on the windowsill and steps closer, close enough that I can smell her shampoo and see the determination in her eyes. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to protect me and then tell me I can't do the same for you."
"It's different."
"Why? Because you're trained to fight and I'm not?" Her laugh is sharp. "Gabe, I watched you take down three armed men like it was nothing. You don't need my protection. But I'm going to give it anyway, because that's what people do for each other."
The words hit me harder than any punch I took today. People do for each other. Like it's simple. Like it's not the most complicated thing in the world.
"What if I'd failed?" The question comes out rougher than I intended. "What if they'd gotten past me and hurt you because I brought them here?"
"But they didn't." She reaches up and touches my face, her fingers gentle against the bandage Dr. Sage applied to my cheek. "You didn't fail. You protected me, and I'm grateful. But you're also hurt and exhausted, and you need to let someone take care of you for once."
Her touch is doing things to my ability to think clearly. "I'm fine."
"You're bleeding through your shirt." She tugs at the flannel, revealing the dark stain spreading across my side where I took an elbow to the ribs. "When were you going to mention this?"
"It's not that bad."
"Gabe." Her voice drops, becomes softer. "Please. Let me help."
I want to argue, to maintain some kind of distance, but the truth is I'm tired of being alone inside my own head.
Tired of not knowing who I am or what I'm capable of beyond violence.
When I look at Mara, I see something I can't name but desperately want—acceptance, maybe, or understanding.
The certainty that whoever I was before doesn't matter as much as who I choose to be now.
"Okay," I say quietly.
She leads me to the bathroom, where the light is bright and unforgiving. I strip off the ruined flannel while she gets the first aid kit, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. The bruises are worse than I thought—purple and black spreading across my ribs where the attacker landed his hits.
"Sit," Mara instructs, pointing to the closed toilet lid.
I sit.
She works in silence at first, cleaning the scrapes and cuts with gentle efficiency. Her hands are warm against my skin, and I find myself hyper-aware of every point of contact. When she reaches the worst of it—a gash along my ribs that's still seeping blood—I hiss through my teeth.
"Sorry." Her fingers pause. "This needs stitches, but I can butterfly it closed for now. Dr. Sage can look at it tomorrow."
"Whatever you think is best."
She glances up at me, and something in her expression makes my breath catch. "What I think is best is for you to stop acting like you have to handle everything alone."
"I don't know how to be any other way." The admission slips out before I can stop it.
"Everything I know about myself comes from watching my body react to threats.
I don't remember learning to fight, but I can recognize and take apart a tactical team.
I don't remember my past, but apparently it's dangerous enough that professional killers want me dead. "
"Or want you back." Mara applies the butterfly bandages with careful precision. "Those men today—they were trying to capture you, not kill you. There's a difference."
She's right. The tranquilizer darts, the attempt to negotiate, the focus on containment rather than elimination. "Which means whatever I was involved in, someone thinks I'm valuable enough to recover."
"Or threatening enough to silence." She finishes with the bandages and sits back, her eyes serious. "Either way, you're not facing it alone. Not anymore."
The certainty in her voice breaks something open in my chest. Before I can think better of it, I reach for her, my hand cupping the side of her face. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you care so much about what happens to me? You don't know me. Don't know what I might have done before I lost my memory."
Her hand covers mine, warm and solid. "I know you now.
I know you tried to send me away to keep me safe.
I know you put yourself between me and danger without hesitation.
I know you're gentle when you think no one's watching, and fierce when someone you care about is threatened.
" She leans into my touch. "That's enough. "
"Mara..." I don't have words for what I'm feeling.
"Tell me to stop," she whispers, and I realize she's moved closer, close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her green eyes. "Tell me this is a bad idea, and I'll go back to my room and we can pretend this moment never happened."
I should. I should tell her to stop, to put distance between us, to protect herself from whatever disaster I'm inevitably going to bring down on both our heads. But I've never been good at doing what I should.
"Don't stop," I say, and then I'm kissing her.
She tastes like chamomile tea and something sweeter.
Her hands slide up my chest—careful of my injuries—and tangle in my hair, pulling me closer.
The kiss starts gentle, tentative, like we're both afraid of breaking this.
But then she makes a small sound in the back of her throat and gentle becomes urgent.
I stand, pulling her with me, and she comes willingly. My hands find her waist, slide under the hem of her sweater to touch bare skin. She's warm and real and here.
"Gabe," she breathes against my mouth. "Are you sure?"
I pull back enough to look at her, to see the want and worry in her expression. "Yes. Are you?"
"Yes." No hesitation, no doubt.
We make it to her bedroom somehow, shedding clothes between kisses and careful touches.
She's beautiful in the firelight—all curves and soft skin and strength.
When I hesitate at the door, suddenly aware of how little I know about being intimate when it matters this much, she takes my hand and pulls me inside.
"We don't have to rush," she says, reading my uncertainty. "We have time."
"I don't know if I've done this before," I admit. "Not like this. Not when it matters."