Chapter 11
Jada
Once again, I was running with Hunter. But this time felt more dangerous than the others. This time, if we were caught, I already knew what was going to happen. My lungs burned, my breath coming in ragged gasps, but I kept running. Terror wouldn’t let me stop.
Hunter ran beside me, his stride controlled, purposeful. He wasn’t winded. Wasn’t even fazed. Just ten minutes ago, I’d watched him take down three of Copper’s men at the same time, moving like a trained weapon—calculated, lethal. I’d never seen anyone fight like that. I’d never seen anyone move like that.
The knife wound on his bicep should have slowed him down. It hadn’t.
I couldn’t say the same for myself. I was barely keeping up, my legs trembling, my body aching from the unrelenting sprint. Every instinct screamed at me to look back. To check. To see how close they were. But Hunter never did. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly how much time we had. I had to trust him.
Gunfire cracked through the night. I flinched, sucking in a sharp breath as the sound echoed off the alley walls.
Hunter didn’t react. “Faster,” he ordered, his voice low, steady. “You can do it. I know you can.”
His belief in me meant everything. My boots slipped slightly on the wet pavement, but I caught myself and pushed harder.
Another gunshot. Closer this time.
Hunter grabbed my wrist again and yanked me down a side alley, shoving me ahead of him. My shoulder clipped the rough brick wall, but I barely felt it. My pulse pounded in my ears, every nerve firing at once.
“They’re gaining,” I rasped, breathless.
He didn’t respond. He just kept running. Kept leading.
Another shot. Shouting.
Hunter yanked me into another alley, his grip firm but not painful. A set of headlights swept past the alley mouth, and before I could react, Hunter shoved me back against the cold brick wall, his body close, shielding me. I barely stifled a gasp as a black SUV screeched past, the window rolling down. The gleam of a gun barrel caught the streetlight.
I stopped breathing.
Hunter’s fingers tightened around my wrist, his grip a silent command. Stay still. Stay quiet. The vehicle hesitated at the intersection just ahead, the brake lights glowing red, before it roared forward and disappeared.
I exhaled sharply, my heart still hammering. Hunter didn’t wait. He pulled me forward, leading me deeper into the alley, his eyes scanning every shadow, every movement. We weren’t safe. Not yet. Tires screeched down the block. They were turning around.
“Here,” he said, voice low as he angled his chin toward a rusted fire escape. “Climb.”
I looked up, my stomach twisting. The ladder was pulled up, the lowest rung too high to reach.
Before I could object, Hunter bent slightly, interlacing his fingers. “Step up.”
I hesitated, but the urgency in his expression had me moving. Placing my foot in his hands, I barely had time to brace before he boosted me up like I weighed nothing. My fingers scraped against metal as I grasped the railing, my arms shaking as I hauled myself higher. The metal groaned beneath my weight.
Hunter followed, climbing with effortless speed despite the injury to his arm. He barely made a sound, while I felt every rattle of the old structure, every tremor in my grip.
At the top, I pulled myself over the ledge onto the flat rooftop, my chest heaving. Hunter was already beside me, eyes scanning the skyline.
“We’re going to have to jump.”
I blinked. “What?”
He motioned to the next building over. A narrow gap, not even five feet wide. It might as well have been a canyon.
Hunter didn’t hesitate. He backed up a step and leaped. Landed in a crouch. He straightened and turned to face me.
“You can do it. Take a few steps back, run, and jump. Don’t look down.”
Panic clawed up my throat. My legs felt frozen, my breath shallow. “I?—”
“Trust me, Jada.” His voice was steady, unshakable. “I know you can do this.”
He had more faith in me than I had in myself. “I don’t know.” I was starting to hyperventilate. I began pacing back and forth.
“Hey.” His voice was once again calm. “Look at me.”
I stopped. Met those green eyes. “You can do this. I’m not going to let you fall.”
I believed him. He hadn’t let me down even once up to this point. I swallowed hard, took a step back, then ran forward and pushed off.
For a split second, I was weightless. Air rushed around me, my heart stopping?—
Then my fingers grasped the ledge.
Before they slipped. I let out a squeak.
Hunter’s hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. His grip was like iron, unyielding. “I’ve got you,” he said, no strain in his voice as he pulled me up with ease.
I collapsed onto the rooftop, my pulse thrumming in my ears.
He crouched beside me, fingers still wrapped around my wrist. “You good?”
I nodded, breathless.
“Let’s go.”
We climbed down another fire escape. There was no sign of the car or Copper’s guys. We slipped into one final alley, and I saw his truck just ahead. Relief crashed over me. We bolted for it, both of us getting in quickly. I would’ve driven like a maniac, but once again, Hunter kept his cool. My hands were clenched into fists in my lap, my body still wired from the chase. Hunter, on the other hand, drove like we hadn’t just barely escaped with our lives. Like he wasn’t bleeding. Like this was just another night.
I couldn’t stop staring at his arm, the dark stain spreading across his sleeve. “You need to stop the bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” I snapped, but he didn’t even blink, just kept driving.
“We’ll patch it up when we get back to the safe house.”
We drove in silence. Adrenaline continued to course through me as I thought about what Copper had said. That I had been the one who’d come to get the memory-loss drug. I’d been more than just complicit in my own demise; I’d been an active part of it.
And no antidote. I wasn’t sure how to make my head wrap around that. Since waking up in that cabin, my plan had been to figure out who I was and how to get my life back. Now, it was starting to look like that wouldn’t be an option at all.
We made it back to the safe house and found it exactly as we’d left it—quiet, unassuming, just another forgotten corner outside of the city. Hunter pulled into the garage and killed the engine, before stepping out like he wasn’t injured at all. I followed, my legs shaking so badly I nearly tripped over the threshold.
The door locked behind us as we went inside. My hands still trembled, my nerves still frayed. I turned to find Hunter leaning against the counter, his injured arm hanging loose, blood still seeping through the fabric. Enough was enough.
“Sit,” I ordered, grabbing the first aid kit I’d found in a kitchen cabinet when doing my taste tests the other night.
“I don’t need?—”
I shot him a glare that cut him off mid-sentence. “Sit.”
His lips twitched, almost like he wanted to argue just to be difficult, but he sank onto the stool, resting his forearms on the counter. I stood next to him, gently pulling up his sleeve to assess the damage.
The gash wasn’t very deep. Still, it had to hurt. I cleaned the wound, bracing for some kind of reaction. A wince. A hiss. Something.
Nothing.
I glanced up. His expression didn’t even flicker.
“This is nothing,” he muttered, watching me work like I was tying his shoelaces instead of patching up a knife wound. “Use the butterfly bandage. We don’t need to stitch it.”
I swallowed, carefully removing the bandage from its packaging and placing one-half on one side. Once again, there was no reaction from him as I pinched the wound edges together and stuck the other half of the butterfly closure on the other side of the wound.
But the words lingered. This is nothing . As if this was normal for him. Maybe it was. But to me, it was another reminder of just how different we were.
I’d just finished before his phone buzzed on the counter, cutting through the silence. He barely looked at the screen before answering.
“Jace. Talk to me.”
I stepped back, still holding on to his arm, watching as his expression shifted—eyes narrowing, jaw tightening.
Then, “Shit.”
I stiffened, releasing his arm. “What?”
He ended the call and exhaled through his nose, his posture turning rigid. “Alan Ard is dead.”
The words didn’t register at first. “What?”
“He was killed in his cell last night.” Hunter’s eyes met mine, sharp and unreadable. “Cops are probably going to want to talk to me. Or at least Roger Crane, the ID I used.”
Hunter pushed off the stool, pacing a slow line across the kitchen, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “They’ll be looking for a suspect. I don’t trust the system enough to think they won’t try to pin this on me in some way.”
Panic curled up my spine. I didn’t know much, but I knew that if the cops were after Hunter, that was bad.
“What do we do?” My voice wavered.
“Jace is covering my tracks as much as he can, but I need to lie low.” He turned to face me. “No more slipups. No more chances for them to see me.”
The walls of the safe house suddenly felt too small. Too thin. A fresh wave of anxiety crashed over me. “Everything keeps getting worse. Alan is dead. The cops are after me and now you too. There’s no antidote, and my life is gone for good.”
Hunter leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching me. “We’re going to figure it out.”
I looked up at him. “You don’t believe that.”
His jaw tightened. “Jace is still looking. He may find something Copper didn’t know about.”
“Stop.” My voice trembled, but I forced myself to meet his eyes. “You promised you wouldn’t lie to me.”
Hunter exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. He didn’t look away, didn’t try to sugarcoat it. “Okay. Then, yes, you’re right. Finding a cure… It’s a long shot.”
Hearing Hunter say it somehow made it worse. Made it more real.
A sharp pain lanced my chest, like something inside me had cracked open. A sob slipped out before I could stop it, my hands flying up to cover my mouth. I sucked in a shuddering breath, but it didn’t help. The tears kept coming, hot and relentless, blurring my vision.
This was the first time I’d cried, and now that the dam was broken, I couldn’t seem to stop.
Hunter walked over and pulled me into his arms. He didn’t try to get me to stop, or whisper meaningless words. He just stood there, strong and solid, as my emotions crashed against him.
Eventually, I exhausted myself. He led me over to the couch and helped me sit down.
“Why are you even here? Why are you helping me when all it’s done is cause you pain and trouble?”
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“I know what it’s like to not recognize the person in the mirror,” he finally said. “To wake up and feel like a stranger in your own skin. To wonder if you’ll ever be okay again. Not because of a drug, granted, but I still understand the feeling.” His jaw ticked, his throat working as he swallowed. “I know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind. The nightmares. The exhaustion. The not knowing if you’ll ever feel normal again.”
My breath hitched.
Hunter’s voice softened, but it didn’t lose its intensity. “If I can help you, I want to.”
I blinked hard, trying to clear the tears that still clung to my lashes. “I don’t know what to do.”
He crouched in front of me, his hands bracing on his knees. “I do.”
I studied him, searching his face. “What?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I know where we can go. If you don’t mind trusting me.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Trust wasn’t something that came easy—not when my whole life was a blank slate. But Hunter had been the one constant in all of this. The only thing that felt solid when everything else was slipping away.
He hadn’t let me fall on that damned rooftop, and he wasn’t going to let me fall now.
I exhaled shakily. “Okay.”
His eyes flickered with something unreadable, something fierce. His fingers brushed against my cheek, warm and grounding.
And then he kissed me.
Soft at first. Seeking. Like he was letting me decide if I wanted this. If I wanted him .
I did.
I leaned into him, my fingers gripping his shirt, holding on to him like he was the only thing tethering me to this world. Maybe he was.
His lips were firm, like the man himself. Gentle, but not hesitant. I moaned as his hand slid into my hair, rooting me to him.
Eventually, he pulled back, and I let out a small whimper of protest. He kissed my forehead. “We both need to get some sleep. It’s been a traumatic day. When we decide to do this, I want us both to know for sure it’s for the right reasons.”
When . Not if. Somehow that made it okay.