5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Xavier

" I was wondering when you were going to stop tossing and turning and come out here."

"There's no way you heard me in my bedroom." His eyes narrowed and told me my guess had been right. Broad arms crossed over his chest, and it made me realize yet again how different things were.

He was so much bigger than me. Once upon a time, I'd been taller.

Once upon a time, there was no situation I could think of where Axel could best me in a fight, where he could overpower me.

Right now, if he wanted to, he could roll over on this couch and pin me down. He could probably break me, and the weak state of my body wouldn't let me fight back. I'd felt the power in him while we were in the alley. I'd felt it when he kissed me, when his arms wrapped around me, and he squeezed me so tight I wondered if I'd break.

I felt it, and I felt his desperation. Even though I could see the distrust sparking in his eyes. No matter how much he wanted to believe what was happening was impossible, his body couldn't lie.

Every memory of him that was slowly resurfacing told me he'd never been very good at lying to me. From the very beginning, from the first moment we'd met… because I could remember that.

It was all coming back in bits and pieces, and every little moment stolen from my past and brought to the present told me I was exactly where I needed to be.

I sat up on the couch, pulling one knee to my chest so I could lean my chin on it as I looked him over. He looked different , but so much of him was familiar. So much of him silently begged for me to reach out and touch him… but now that he wasn't caught up in the act of chasing me with a desperation I didn't remember, I wasn't sure if he'd let me.

I settled on memorizing the new lines on his face as I teased him. "Maybe I couldn't hear you, but I know you. You can't leave anything alone. And you never could sleep when I was out here, could you?"

When I smiled, another little arrow of pain streaked across his features. It had been happening since I first walked into the house, since he'd seen me standing there in the doorway. He watched me with some strange mixture of desperation and agony that had no place being in the same expression.

If I thought about it too hard, I knew I'd realize exactly why.

I'd apparently died, after all. Even though I couldn't remember how.

Axel had all the answers, though—he knew everything.

I needed the information locked away behind his broken expression… but watching him watch me, I wasn't sure how to get it.

"There's no reason you should know anything. I'm still not sure this isn't some kind of trick to get—"

"To get what, Axel?" I cut him off. "A place to sleep? Somewhere to rest and recover from everything that happened to this body before I got into it?" I dropped my leg down and leaned toward him. I didn't miss the way he recoiled, the way his fists clenched like it was hard for him not to reach out and touch me. "I have nothing to gain from tricking you."

"People have wanted to kill me before."

"And? I'm sure I killed them, I just…" I paused, frowning. "I can't…" For just a moment, my eyes drifted shut, and I tried to force myself to remember what he was talking about. People trying to kill him—someone trying to hurt him. Instinct told me I would have done anything to stop them, but trying to force the memory only gave me a small burst of words.

Send a message, you have to—

"Fuck!" My hands flew to my head as a spike of pain rocked through my body, nearly violent enough to black out my vision.

I didn't have to see to recognize the sensation of a callused hand cupping my face, and as my vision slowly swam back into focus, I let myself melt into the warmth of Axel's palm.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know." I paused. If I was smart, I'd keep my mouth shut and enjoy the feel of him. Apparently, I wasn't smart. "I thought you didn't care… or believe me."

"I don't." His hand jerked back, but not before he brushed a wayward curl from my forehead. "But you were obviously in pain."

"So? I'm a stranger, right? Either that or you know who I am, and you just don't want to admit it." Shit, did I sound smug?

"What happened?" he asked again, affectation flat and ignoring what I'd just said and the obvious triumph in my tone.

"I don't know. There's so many blank spaces in my memories. It just…" I trailed off with a shrug. He didn't need to see all the vulnerable, weak places I'd come back with. It was already obvious that the body I was in wasn't as capable as the one I'd had before.

He didn't need to know there were pieces of my mind that felt just as small and broken.

"You don't remember everything?" He hedged the question carefully, and I glanced at him again through my lashes. I wasn't sure if he sounded happy or irritated. I just knew I could sense traces of concern beneath the words. Even if he didn't want to admit it, I knew that he knew the truth.

I could tell by the way he'd kissed me in the alley, by the way he was looking at me now like I might fly apart if he glanced away.

I could tell because he'd come out of his room to see me just like he used to—I could still remember that. I could remember so many nights facing each other just like this.

And I could remember what it usually led to.

Like I was on strings cut by some puppet master, I let myself fall forward with a soft groan. He didn't move when I laid my head on his thigh, but his fingers didn't instantly come down to stroke through my hair like they used to.

He didn't push me away though, and I knew he was completely capable of it. That, in and of itself, was telling.

I threw one arm over my face, wondering if obscuring the unfamiliar would make him relax, would make him accept what was happening a little more. "I'm just… tired, Axel. If this is hard on you, imagine how it is for me."

He didn't say anything, so I pressed on.

"I have proof, you know."

That did make him speak. "What are you talking about?"

"When I woke up in the hospital, Marshall Lister had a phone, his wallet, and a flash drive. I'm guessing he smuggled it out of the building where he worked." I would have rolled my eyes if they were open. "I guess his moral compass was pointing to his boss being very corrupt. I don't know what he was planning on doing with the information, but it's all there. I can show it to you. Experiments, reincarnation, making soldiers out of killers and selling them to the highest bidder." I peeked at him over the top of my arm and arched a brow. "Makes sense that they brought me back, huh? I bet I would have made them a pretty penny if the place hadn't burned to the ground."

I had no idea if they'd actually brought me back on purpose. There was nothing in all the information Marshall had stolen that said anything about me. I did see a familiar name that gave the entire thing more credibility. Kade Neil was dangerous, probably one of the most dangerous men I'd ever known. The man labeled Clayton Black was a complete mystery… and I had no idea who Seth or Jayce were. But it was all there in the files—doses of medication, and how exactly they'd lured them into the facility. Some of it was encrypted, but I'd seen enough. There were grainy videos of two boys being strapped down and injected with syringes… and for just a moment, my mind tried to recollect the same.

A needle to my neck? To my chest?

But it was a blank.

I stopped trying to recall it before another spike of pain shot through my head. I was better off letting things come back to me naturally.

"Why were you in the hospital? Do you know what happened?" Like he could read my mind and he wanted to contradict what I was trying to do, Axel's voice was hushed curiosity spilling through my thoughts.

"I don't. I had a concussion and burns. Whoever Marshall was, he went through some real shit before he… died." I hesitated on the word. Was he dead? If I was reading the information correctly, the soul never really died, did it? Was he just there somewhere, passive and waiting in the background for some later life? Was he a part of me?

It didn't feel like he was, and I didn't want him to be. Just looking at his notes, he seemed good . Pure even.

That wasn't the kind of person I was. That wasn't the kind of person I'd ever be. Whoever Marshall Lister had been, he was in the past now. I was happy to take his body, but that was all.

"This is all…" Axel paused, like he was trying to figure out the exact words to say. Finally, he shrugged. "Impossible."

"It sounds that way, yeah."

He was quiet for another second. "So you can't remember everything?"

I nodded and sighed, closing my eyes and turning my head so my cheek pressed against his thigh. He didn't stop me or push me away… but his fingers did move behind the curls at my neck to trail against the burn scars on my skin. It still felt weird, half numb and stretched tight.

I was glad I couldn't remember it happening.

"It's all bits and pieces. My life comes in little… shrapnel shards of memory."

"What about the person you… The person your body was?"

"I don't remember anything specific. It's all muscle memory. I know how to work a phone, but I don't remember him buying it. It's strange." It seemed like such a superficial explanation of knowing how to do things, how to move through rooms that I'd never been in, but it was the best I could do. "But that doesn't matter. It's not his life I want to remember, it's mine." I opened my eyes and glanced at Axel through my lashes. "Ours."

He tensed, his fingers that had been playing over my marred flesh freezing in place.

"I don't think—"

"You're the only one who can help me. You're…" I paused. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to keep me here and help me remember who I was, what had happened… but at the same time, did I want to admit aloud how he was the first thing I'd thought of? How his name had been on my lips before I was aware they'd been forming words?

From the way he was looking at me—like he was wondering if it would be a good idea to dump me on the floor and run back to his room—I had a feeling it might make things worse. I pressed my lips together to bite down the words and let my eyes slide away from his. "You're one of the only people left alive, aren't you? People like me don't last for very long unless we're very careful or very lucky."

I'd been both for such a long time that I was a strange mixture of curious and afraid to know what had changed.

Axel knew, though.

Axel could tell me.

But it was apparently information I was going to have to coax out of him if I wanted it, because he started to completely pull away from me. My hands flew out without warning, wrapping around his wrist… and I was faced again with how things were different.

If he wanted to, he could break my grip.

If he wanted to, he could have circled my wrists with his hands and stopped me from touching him at all.

So I did the only thing I could do. I turned my eyes back to him and let him see all the strange, new vulnerability that was tearing around in my chest. I wasn't sure if it was mine because of the situation, or some lingering emotion that Marshall had held before, but it was here now… and if I had to experience it, I was going to use it.

"Please… don't leave." When he stayed frozen, I went on. "It was…"

How vulnerable did I actually want to be?

How much did I want him to stay on this couch with me?

When the words kept spilling almost unbidden from my lips, I realized it was a lot more than I wanted to admit.

"Waking up in that hospital with no idea what was going on, with no idea what was wrong with me? It was… hard." I forced myself to keep looking at him, to watch dawning realization slowly spread across his features. He'd always been so expressive. He'd always felt so much . He was nothing like me, nothing like the world he lived in. Even the lines on his face and the gray in his beard hadn't stolen away that softness… or maybe it was just for me? "I still feel it when I wake up—this body that isn't mine, this world that isn't mine. I…" I squeezed his wrist once. Gently. "I need an anchor."

If there was a physical moment where a man could melt, where I could see ice turn to water and flow away through desperately grasping fingers, it was this. His eyes softened and his rigid muscles relaxed—unwillingly, painfully, one little moment at a time… but he seemed incapable of resisting.

Had it always been that way?

I think it had. I think this was us. It made my lungs seize up, my heartbeat race.

"Okay," he said. Soft, unsure, almost reluctantly. "Okay, I'll stay."

"Yeah?"

He didn't pause this time as he nodded. "Yeah."

Where else would I go? The words echoed in my mind like a distant memory that didn't hurt, that didn't send sparks of pain shooting through my head. It was just there, falling into place and gently putting another piece of me back to rights.

And if something in my chest unfurled and settled? If, for the first time since I'd woken up, I felt a sense of peace spill through me as I melted back onto the cushions, and he brought his hand back to gently rest against my neck… I didn't say it aloud.