Chapter 23
Xavier
I woke slowly.
Disoriented. Heavy. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, all the pieces connected but operating on a slight delay.
Where was I?
The ceiling above me was unfamiliar. White plaster, cracked in places. A water stain in one corner shaped vaguely like a face. Not the car. Not Geneva. Definitely not the hell of CuraNova’s sterile corridors.
Turned my head. The guest room. The boarding school.
How did I get here?
The last thing I remembered clearly: Hellhound driving.
The escape vehicle tearing through Geneva’s streets, sleet hammering the windshield.
Havoc in the passenger seat, fingers flying over his laptop, cracking encryption.
My head pounding like someone was taking a sledgehammer to my skull from the inside.
The world tilting sideways. Consciousness sliding away like water through my fingers.
After that... nothing. A blank space where memory should be.
Hours gone. Erased.
Fantastic. At least I was getting practice at losing time. Maybe I’d get good at it eventually.
Tried to sit up. My body protested, every muscle sore, joints stiff like I’d been locked in one position too long. But I managed it, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
The room spun briefly, then settled.
Looked down at my palms. Resting on my thighs. Still.
No tremor.
Stared at them for a long moment, waiting for the familiar shaking to start. The left especially had been getting worse, the tremor spreading from fingers to wrist to forearm.
Nothing.
Flexed my fingers. Steady. Controlled.
First time since the pumping station.
The pressure behind my eyes, that constant vise squeezing my skull for weeks, was gone too. Absent, as though someone had opened a release valve I hadn’t known existed.
The recollections were still there. All of them. Integrated. Heavy. Real.
Special Forces. Master Sergeant Xavier Hale. The fabricated arrest. Eighteen months of conditioning in Dresner’s facility. Strapped to chairs, electrodes firing, chemicals burning through my veins, my identity stripped away piece by piece until nothing remained but obedience.
You are Blackout. You have no past.
Fifty-five missions. Fifty-five kills.
The folder from Dresner’s office sat like lead weight in my mind. Every name. Every target. Every life I’d ended.
But the fragmentation was gone. The recollections didn’t feel like someone else’s anymore. They were mine. All of it. The soldier, the prisoner, the weapon, the man trying to crawl back from the void.
Didn’t know if that was better or worse.
Movement beside me pulled my attention away from the spiral.
Clare.
She was curled on top of the covers, still fully dressed. One hand resting near mine like she’d fallen asleep reaching for me. She’d turned toward me, exhausted even in sleep. Dark circles under her lids. Tear tracks dried on her cheeks.
She’d stayed.
Watched over me while I was unconscious. However long that had been.
My ribs tightened.
Tested my voice carefully, feeling the words form in my throat. Still rough. Still damaged from the conditioning and the seizures. But functional.
“Clare.”
The word came out as a rasp. Barely audible. But real.
She didn’t wake. Too exhausted.
Watched her. The steady rise and fall of her chest. The way her hair fell across her cheek, copper catching the dim afternoon light filtering through frost-covered windows.
She was still here.
After everything. After watching me seize, watching my heart stop, watching me come apart at the seams, she’d stayed.
Carefully, so as not to wake her, I shifted closer. Covered her hand where it rested on the mattress between us.
Whatever happened, the implant was deactivated. The chemical overdose stopped. My brain no longer drowning.
Wasn’t dying anymore.
The relief should have been overwhelming. Should have flooded through me like warmth, like vindication, like proof that we’d beaten Dresner’s kill switch.
Instead, all I felt was weight.
Remembered everything now. And I had to tell Clare all of it.
The kills. The conditioning. Maeve, my sister, hunted by Oblivion because she loved me enough to keep searching. The fabricated arrest. The eighteen months of systematic torture that broke me down and rebuilt me into something that followed orders without question.
What if she looked at me differently after? What if the man she’d been fighting to save turned out to be someone she couldn’t love once she knew the truth?
Pushed the thought away. Focused on the warmth of her palm under mine. The proof she was real and here and choosing to stay.
For now, that had to be enough.
Clare’s lids fluttered open.
Disoriented for a moment, then focusing on me. Instant alertness flooded her expression. Nurse mode engaging before she was fully awake.
“Xavier.” She sat up quickly, fingers going immediately to my wrist. Checking my pulse. “How do you feel? Any pain? Dizziness?”
Her touch was cool against my skin. Professional. Efficient.
Managed a small smile despite everything. “I’m okay.”
The words came easier than yesterday. Still rough, still damaged, but functional. Progress.
“No tremors.” Held up my steady palm.
Her gaze tracked the movement. Recognition flickered across her features, relief so intense it looked almost like pain.
“Your fever’s down.” Her other palm pressed against my forehead, checking temperature. Clinical assessment running on autopilot. “Vitals seem stable.”
Then she stopped. Realized she was in full medical mode while I was here. Awake. Looking at her.
“You scared the hell out of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” She cupped my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “You’re alive. That’s what matters.”
The moment stretched between us. Quiet. Tender. Both of us exhausted but together.
Then reality crept back in.
“You’ve been unconscious for twenty-four hours. Your body needed to recover. The seizures, the heart failure, the implant shutdown... it was a lot.”
Twenty-four hours. A full day lost to unconsciousness and recovery.
Processed that. Tried to remember anything after the car. Came up blank.
“The implant?”
“Deactivated. Chemical release stopped. Brain damage halted.” Her professional mask slipped back into place, but I could see the emotion underneath. “You’re stable, Xavier. Actually stable.”
Something in my ribs loosened. The deadline that had been hanging over us like an axe was gone.
Wasn’t dying anymore.
Should have felt relief. Joy. Something other than the heavy weight of everything I now remembered.
“Do you want water?” Already reaching for a bottle on the nightstand. “You need to stay hydrated.”
Took it. Drank. The cool liquid soothed my damaged throat.
When I lowered the bottle, Clare was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Careful. Tentative. Like she was afraid to ask the question hovering between us.
“You said...” Her words were barely above a whisper. “Before you fell asleep. You said you remember everything.”
There it was.
Nodded slowly. “Yeah. I do.”
Clare went still. Processing. Then her expression shifted, concern mixing with relief mixing with desperate hope.
“Maeve. Do you... do you know who she is?”
The name hung between us. The ghost that had been haunting her since I’d called out during the seizure.
Met her gaze. “My sister.”
For a heartbeat, Clare didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
Then relief washed over her.
She pressed a palm to her mouth. Tears welled.
“A sister. Not... not a wife.”
“No.” Reached for her wrist, pulled it away from her lips. Held it between both of mine. “My sister. Maeve Durham.”
She made a sound, half-laugh, half-sob.
“I thought... I was so terrified you were married. That I was...”
She couldn’t finish.
“You thought you were the other woman.” Understanding hit me. The way she’d pulled away after the seizure. The wariness in her gaze. The walls she’d tried to rebuild.
She’d been protecting herself from caring about someone who might belong to someone else.
“I’m an idiot. You were dying, and I was obsessing over...”
“You weren’t an idiot. You were scared. That’s different. And maybe a little bit jealous.”
Pink crept up her neck despite everything. “Shut up.”
The laugh that followed was shaky. But it was there. She softened. “Tell me about her.”
Took a breath. Let the recollections surface.
“Foster care. We entered the system together after our parents died. I was ten. Mae was thirteen.” The nickname came naturally. “She was fierce. Even then. Asked questions nobody wanted to answer. Dug for truth when everyone else wanted comfortable lies.”
Clare settled on the edge of the bed, still holding my palm. Listening.
“I protected her. Dislocated a foster father’s jaw for raising a hand to her. Got us moved to a new placement after that.”
“Good.”
“She became a journalist. Investigative. The kind who doesn’t let go when she smells corruption.” Warmth crept into my tone despite everything. “Last time I saw her was at Malone’s, a dive bar we often went to. I told her someone was watching me. Warned her not to believe what they’d tell her.”
My ribs ached.
“She rolled her eyes. Thought I was paranoid.” The recollection was sharp, clear.
Mae laughing at my concern, telling me I’d been watching too many conspiracy documentaries.
“Three weeks later, I was arrested. Fabricated charges. Armed robbery, aggravated assault. They framed me so clean it looked airtight.”
Clare’s grip tightened on mine.
“They declared me dead four months later. Cerebral hemorrhage. Body cremated. No remains.”
“But she didn’t believe it.”
“No body, no proof.” Met her gaze. “She’s been searching for me. Six months, according to Dresner’s files. Tracking leads. Following ghost stories across continents.”