Chapter 18
Clare
I’d been hiding in our room for six hours.
Pathetic. Professionally embarrassing. Totally justified.
The laptop screen glowed blue-white in the darkness. My eyes burned from staring at search results that gave me absolutely nothing.
Maeve + Xavier =No fugitive matches found.
Maeve + France border crossing = 1,247 results, none relevant.
Maeve + Oblivion = Nothing, of course.
I tried variations, different spellings, alternate search engines. The VPN layers Havoc had configured on his secured laptop made everything crawl at a glacial pace, but I kept battering away at dead ends anyway.
Six hours of this. Nothing to show for it but eyestrain and spiraling thoughts.
My second coffee had gone cold hours ago. I drank it anyway, the bitterness coating my tongue like punishment. Exactly what I deserved.
Outside the window, twilight bled across the frost-covered grounds, transforming the abandoned school into something from a gothic novel. Beautiful in that desolate, haunting way. The kind of beauty that made you feel like the only person left alive in the world.
I wasn’t hiding.
I was researching.
Gathering critical information to better manage my patient’s deteriorating neurological condition.
“Liar,” I muttered to the empty darkness.
That voice drifted through my head, soft and devastatingly sad. You can’t save everyone, Clare.
“Shut up.” I typed another futile search. Maeve + missing person river Geneva.
The laptop churned. Offered me nothing useful.
I should have been researching seizure protocols. Mapping the progression of chemically-induced brain deterioration. Finding anything in the medical literature about slowing a neurotoxic cascade through Xavier’s grey matter.
Instead I was hunting ghosts. Chasing the shadow of a woman whose only crime was existing somewhere in Xavier’s erased past.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Xavier was dying. Two weeks, maybe three before the chip’s malfunction destroyed enough brain tissue to render him a breathing vegetable. His memories, his personality, everything that made him Xavier, all being systematically obliterated by chemicals designed to keep him compliant.
And I was sitting in the dark, eaten alive by jealousy over a name he’d whispered during seizure confusion.
For sure you got your priorities right, Clare. Absolutely brilliant allocation of limited time and resources.
But I couldn’t stop the spiral.
I’d tried being logical about it. Clinical. The name could mean anything. Sister, childhood friend, someone he’d known years ago who resurfaced in the chaos of a misfiring hippocampus.
Except it hadn’t sounded like that.
The way he’d said it, Maeve, had carried weight. Longing. The kind of ache that came from missing someone who mattered.
What if she was his wife? His girlfriend? What if Xavier had an entire life waiting somewhere beyond his fractured memories, and I was just the convenient warm body keeping him grounded while his real world stayed locked behind conditioning protocols?
What if I was the other woman?
The thought made something ugly twist in my chest.
I’d been the other woman once. Freshman year, before I knew better. Didn’t realize the charming pre-med student had a girlfriend until she appeared at my dorm room door, mascara-streaked and shaking, asking how I could do this to her.
I’d felt like the worst kind of person. Like I’d stolen something precious that had never been mine to take.
And now here I was again. Potentially. Maybe.
Except Xavier didn’t remember her. Couldn’t explain. Couldn’t tell me whether I was breaking someone’s heart by touching him, kissing him, falling for him like gravity had shifted and he was the only solid thing left.
The not-knowing was eating me alive.
And beneath the jealousy, beneath the sick fear of being that woman again, lurked something worse.
What if my judgment was wrong? What if Xavier needed Maeve, and I was standing between them? What if by keeping him here, by convincing him to stay, I was making the same mistake I’d made in the past?
Trusting myself when I shouldn’t.
I’d thought I had time with... Thought I knew better. Thought one more shift wouldn’t matter.
I’d been catastrophically, fatally wrong.
How could I trust my own judgment now? How could I believe I was helping Xavier when my track record for recognizing who needed what and when was written in blood?
So I sat in the dark and searched for ghosts.
A knock at the door made me jump.
I didn’t answer.
Another knock. Softer this time.
“I’m fine,” I called out. My voice came out rough. “Just resting.”
The door opened anyway.
Of course it did. His room too.
Xavier stood in the doorway, backlit by the hallway light. He’d showered since this afternoon, hair still damp, thermal shirt replaced by a plain black t-shirt.
Hours ago, Hellhound and Havoc had carried him inside. Limp. Unconscious.
They’d laid him on this bed. I’d monitored his vitals for twenty minutes. Pulse, pupils, breathing, until his eyes opened like nothing had happened.
Then he’d gotten up. Showered. Walked out as though his brain hadn’t misfired hard enough to knock him unconscious.
Now he stood there looking perfectly fine.
He looked good.
He always looked good. That was part of the problem.
He came inside. Closed the door behind him. Crossed to where I sat on the bed with the laptop and settled beside me.
Close enough that our thighs touched.
I wanted to pull away. Wanted to maintain distance. Keep the walls up.
I didn’t move.
Xavier studied my face in the laptop’s glow. His brow furrowed with concern.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. Deflecting. But also genuinely worried, this afternoon’s seizure had been violent. “Any lingering symptoms? Headache? Confusion?”
He shook his head. Held up three fingers against his thigh.
Pain level three. Better than this morning’s four.
“Good. That’s good.” I kept my voice clinical. Professional. “You should still take it easy tonight. No strenuous activity. Rest as much as possible for a little while.”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed slightly. He reached for the notepad on the nightstand. Scribbled something. Turned it toward me.
You’ve been avoiding me. Why?
My stomach knotted. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been researching. Medical protocols for seizure management, potential complications from...”
He wrote again. Underlined it twice.
Don’t lie. Please.
The “please” broke something in my chest.
I looked away. Stared at the dark window. “You remembered a woman. Maeve. What if she’s... what if you’re married? What if I’m...”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
The notepad rustled. Xavier wrote for longer this time. His handwriting was steady despite this afternoon’s intention tremor. Finally, he turned it toward me.
I don’t know who she is. But I know I want to be here. With you. That’s all that matters to me right now.
Simple. Direct. True.
And completely missing the point.
“You don’t understand.”
He wrote: Then help me understand. What’s really wrong? Not just Maeve.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. The words stuck in my throat like broken glass.
Xavier touched my hand. Gentle. Questioning.
His eyes held mine in the dim light. Patient. Waiting.
Tell me. Please.
I tried to deflect. Started to make another excuse about being tired, about needing space to process the seizure, about...
The notepad pressed against my knee. One word.
Please.
The last wall cracked.
“I’m terrified of failing you.” The words came out raw. Broken. “I failed someone before. My sister. Emma.”
Xavier went very still.
“I never told you the whole story. About why I can’t let people wait.
Why I have to show up now, immediately, every single time.
” I pressed my palms against my eyes. “Emma was my younger sister. Four years younger. Our mom died when I was sixteen. Cancer. Our dad... he shut down afterward. Emotionally checked out. So I raised Emma. Became the person she turned to for everything.”
The notepad rustled. Xavier wrote: Tell me.
So I did.
I told him about nursing school. About working double shifts at the hospital to pay off student loans. About Emma calling me that Friday night, four years ago.
“She said she wasn’t doing well. Asked if we could meet. I told her I was working doubles all weekend, short-staffed. Asked if it could wait until Monday.” My voice cracked. “She said it could. But she sounded... I should have known. Should have heard it in her voice.”
Xavier’s hand found mine. Squeezed.
“She called six times that weekend. Saturday, Sunday. I answered some of them. Told her to hold on. Just until Monday. Promised we’d talk all night Monday.
She just had to wait.” The words tasted like ash.
“Her last text came Sunday at eleven PM. ‘I really need you, Clare. Please.’ I was asleep. Didn’t see it until morning. ”
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t face the judgment I knew would be there.
“Emma died by suicide Sunday night. Around eleven-thirty. Overdose of pills she’d been stockpiling. Left a note.” I recited the words I’d memorized, carved into my brain like a scar.
I tried to hold on. I couldn’t. I’m sorry. Tell Clare I love her and it’s not her fault. But I needed her and I couldn’t wait anymore.
Silence filled the room. Heavy. Suffocating.
“I told her she’d be okay. Promised her tomorrow. She didn’t make it to tomorrow.” My hands shook. “I trusted my judgment. Thought I knew how bad it was. Thought I had time. I was wrong. She died waiting for me.”
The notepad pressed against my knee again. Xavier’s handwriting was fierce, urgent.
You didn’t kill her.
“I made her wait when she couldn’t wait. That’s the same thing.”
“No.” His voice came out rough, barely a rasp. The word forced through damaged vocal cords that still didn’t work right. “Not.”
The sound made my breath catch. Two syllables. Broken.
His hand went to his throat, frustration tightening his jaw. He grabbed the pen again.