3
You were born of violence.
I chose it.
Takeshi didn’t blink.
His dark gaze zeroed in on her, the black depths of his eyes drawing her in like a magnet. They held a strange note of curiosity, but when she sat up, his upper lip curled, and that flicker of interest twisted into sheer contempt.
Even in Braderhelm Prison, he’d never looked at her that way.
Like he craved her death.
She dug her nail into her thigh, focusing on the sharp pain instead of the crippling anxiety. She waited for him to speak, but Takeshi seemed content to tilt his head and stare, like he was imagining all the depraved ways he could make her suffer.
She took a deep breath, ignoring every instinct that told her to run.
Her limbs protested as she shifted to a more comfortable position. Khalani had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but she noticed the charred redness around Takeshi’s wrists and the trickle of blood leaking down his forearm.
She cleared her dry throat. “How are you feeling?”
He didn’t respond, but the dark look in his eyes spoke volumes.
Of course he wasn’t feeling great. He was chained to a freaking wall.
“My name is Khalani. Khalani Kanes,” she added, hoping her last name would trigger something, a surging flash of memory, but he kept quiet, his cold and hostile expression unchanging.
“D-don’t…don’t you…don’t you remember me?”
Her voice shrank to a pained whisper, no louder than the sound of a heart shattering to a million pieces. Takeshi’s black eyes flickered, and for one second, she thought she saw the barest hint of recognition.
But he said, “You never answered me before. How do you know my name?”
She forced herself to take a deep breath.
“You’ve known me for over a year. We met in Braderhelm Prison.
I was an inmate, and you were in charge of my cell block.
We spent a lot of time together. Escaped together.
You traveled with me all the way to Hermes.
We…” she stopped, trying not to break before she bared herself.
The crease between his eyes hardened as she spoke, and her words spilled faster.
“We were close. Are close,” she corrected. “We were imprisoned in a prison camp and tried to escape. But you got shot.” Her voice cracked, and the tears she fought to hide slipped free.
“I tried to go back for you, Takeshi. I tried so fucking hard. I would’ve broken through the earth’s core to save you. You have to know that. I barely slept. Barely ate. You’re in every breath I take, but it isn’t fucking enough. I need you, Takeshi. Please. Please remember me.”
Takeshi silently watched her weep, his face giving away nothing. She wiped her tears, but they kept coming. An ocean she’d never be able to drown herself in.
Her heavy breathing filled the space as she waited for him to speak. She needed him to say anything to break the silence. Her limbs tensed, about to go crazy and scream, when he finally spoke. “You have me confused with someone else.”
“No. That’s not true.” She touched her chest. “Don’t you feel anything when you look at me?”
“Why would I?” Takeshi cocked his head. “You’re nothing to me.”
Punching her would’ve hurt less.
She’d thought she understood grief. Intimately.
But apparently, even the most broken hearts still have spaces to cut.
“You don’t believe me at all?” She dared to look up, and even chained, Takeshi lounged back like he held the upper hand.
“I don’t indulge in delusional fantasies.”
“It’s not a delusion!” she yelled. “They did something to you. Something to make you forget.”
“My memory is perfectly intact.”
“If that’s true, then how did you get to Hermes?”
“I’m not here to indulge your questions either,” he snapped.
“Then why are you here?”
Takeshi slowly shook his head, sneering at Khalani like she was a pawn who had no idea she was being played.
“You were right about one thing. I did serve in Braderhelm Prison. My superiors transferred me to Hermes to assist with the work camps and help put down the rising insurrection.” His eyes locked on hers, and she stiffened as he leaned forward, pulling the clinking metal chains as far as they’d go, indifferent to the pain in his wrists.
“We know your rebel gang has been plotting to overthrow the government,” Takeshi hissed. “We’d finally found your hideout, but you escaped from the Black Heart and interfered with my mission.”
His voice grew raspier, and Khalani was confident that if he weren’t chained to the wall, Takeshi would’ve finished the job he started in the alley.
“I’m not your enemy, Takeshi,” she whispered. “None of us are.”
“Convenient when I’m the one chained up.”
“You tried to kill me! Do you even remember that?”
“Vividly.” He openly appraised her, scanning her from head to toe as if he were searching for every weakness imaginable. “If you were smart, you wouldn’t be in this cell alone with me.”
Khalani narrowed her gaze, remembering him saying something similar in Braderhelm. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Then you truly don’t know me.”
The tension was practically visible in the space between them.
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, Khalani pretended that this was only a nightmare. Any moment, she’d wake up and hug the real Takeshi. He’d lift her into his arms, kiss her lips, and listen to the three words imprinted on her soul.
But reality didn’t shift on demand.
Dreams stayed firmly out of her grasp, and when she opened her eyes, Takeshi still stared at her like he was deciding which bone he should break first.
She needed a new tactic. Something else to spark his memory.
“You used to paint.”
Takeshi froze, his eyes imperceptibly widening.
“You used to paint for your mother when you were little. She’d hang your drawings everywhere.” Khalani whispered, letting the heartbreaking story he’d once told her ripple across the cell as if it were her own. “But when Hector moved you both to Genesis, you hid all your art under the bed.”
Takeshi had stopped breathing.
“How…how do you—”
“How do I know that?” she finished for him. “You told me.”
Takeshi lowered his gaze, shaking his head. “That’s not true.”
“It is true, Takeshi.”
“It’s not!” he lashed out, clenching his fists. But Khalani noticed the hint of unrest in his eyes. And she pounced.
“Your mother raised you alone. She meant everything to you, and when you couldn’t save her, you enlisted to become a guard.
You carried that guilt for so long. You had so much taken away.
” She paused, her bottom lip trembling. “And through it all, you’re still one of the best people I’ve ever known. ”
Takeshi muttered inexplicable curses to himself, glaring at the floor.
It was working. He was finally beginning to remember!
But Takeshi lifted his gaze, his eyes hardening. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?!” She lifted her hands.
“Doctor Strauss warned me about you. He said there were rebels who would try to manipulate me. Make me believe things that weren’t real. This is all part of your scheme to make me turn on my people!”
“We are your people!”
“You’re all nothing but a stain on this planet, and I’d rather die than be associated with the likes of you.”
Khalani didn’t realize that they’d both risen to their feet. Takeshi surged forward but the chains prevented him from getting any closer. He gritted his teeth as the manacles around his wrists groaned from the force he was exerting to pull free, but they held firm.
There was no mistaking the deadly intent in his gaze.
Takeshi hated her.
Loathed her with every fiber of his being.
Would probably kill her at the first opportunity.
But the man she knew and loved was in there somewhere.
She could almost hear him. Banging at the walls of his enclosed mind. Screaming that he was still there. To not give up.
Khalani lifted her chin and took a few steps forward.
Takeshi snarled at her approach and yanked the chains, but they continued to hold.
Only a spare inch separated them, and she took every inch of him in. His sweaty black hair sticking to his forehead. The ruffled black vest. His clenched jaw and bulging muscles that could break her in half.
Khalani used to believe surviving Braderhelm Prison would be her greatest challenge.
But saving Takeshi from destruction parked itself square at the top.
And as she stared at him, the feeling in her chest took on a new weight. Like a whole world lived inside her.
Before prison, Khalani couldn’t begin to explain why she kept fighting for people who turned their backs on her. Why she continued to push forward when the obstacles seemed insurmountable.
But no matter how fraught or terrifying the journey was, she was willing to do whatever it took to bring Takeshi back.
He’d paint again.
She’d make sure of that.
“I’m not giving up on you,” she whispered. “Doctor Strauss can take away your memories, but he can’t rip away your soul. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you push me away, I’m not leaving. I’m going to sink so deep into your veins, you’ll have no choice but to remember me.”
Takeshi stopped tugging on the chains. He studied Khalani like she was a prey he’d never encountered before.
“You’re assuming I won’t bury you with my blade first,” he stated.
“Is that your plan?” she asked.
“I assure you, it is.”
“Then I look forward to seeing who wins.”
He probably recognized her fear. But if Takeshi had no memory of her, then he didn’t know Khalani was far more stubborn than him.
And more than willing to greet death.
The bitter hatred in his expression shifted, replaced a darker fixation that promised to break her before she could shatter him.
And if that was the case…
Game. Fucking. On.