9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Xavier

I was fuming. A small part of me understood—of course I understood—that Axel was more protective of me than a normal person would be. And maybe it made sense. Maybe I would have felt the same way about him if he'd been dead for twenty years and suddenly came back.

But that didn't mean I had to be happy about it. That didn't mean that I had to put up with his bullshit. I wasn't going to act like I was spun sugar just because I'd had the unfortunate luck to die before.

I was going to make sure I didn't do it again.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and threw a glance over my shoulder. I was surprised he wasn't running after me like a madman again, half naked and desperate…

But he'd looked so good while he was doing that. He'd looked so…

Needy.

In love.

Even though he hadn't been willing to admit that I was telling the truth, he'd still come after me. Even though he hadn't wanted to admit that I was here…

He still knew it was me.

It shouldn't have made my heart sing quite as much as it did, but I would have been the one trying to fool myself if I didn't admit that I craved that devotion, that attention.

It was what had brought me here to begin with.

And it was what was going to drive me to my breaking point if I let him completely control me with it.

That…

Wasn't how we'd functioned before. That wasn't how we fit, was it?

I paused, my eyes drifting shut. No… I didn't think that was how it had worked at all. Axel didn't control me.

Axel was…

He was…

"Marshall Lister?"

My gaze snapped open and focused on the man standing in front of me. Well, fuck. I'd been so wrapped up in trying to remember my past that I hadn't been paying attention to my surroundings.

Wouldn't that just make Axel smug if he realized he was right. It wasn't just my physicality that put me in danger. It was the fact that there were moments like this, when I let my guard down because it was wrapped up in something that happened twenty years ago.

"Who's asking?" I shifted my voice to something friendly, tried to force a smile across my face. It felt slightly familiar, and it took me a second to realize it wasn't the friendly sensation that was natural.

It was faking it.

Had Marshall realized exactly how dangerous the men he worked with were? Was that why he'd taken the flash drive?

The man in front of me pulled out his phone and glanced down at the screen before looking back up at my face.

Confirmation.

Fuck.

I had a split second to decide what I wanted to do. Instincts demanded I pull out the knife I had hidden in my pocket and fight him. But logic—maybe Marshall's lingering logic—told me that the asshole in front of me had nearly six inches of height on me, and the bulge on his left side was probably a gun holster.

I warred with my desire to prove that I was still a killer and the ghost of a man who no longer existed, and the low curse that tore from my chest when I realized who was going to win was only half annoyed.

Fuck… fuck… fuck .

If I didn't die here, Axel was probably going to kill me. Or tie me up until I admitted that he was right, that it wasn't safe.

Ugh. I'd take death first.

Anything was better than admitting I'd been wrong.

I took off at a run, and had to say a silent prayer that I'd be able to navigate the street enough to get myself out of the situation and back to the house. Or better yet, in a position to put a knife in the man's throat. As much as a small part of me wanted to hope I was overreacting, and maybe the asshole was just a very eager ex-boyfriend, the sound of a gun clearing a holster told me my initial instinct was right.

He was after Marshall.

Which meant he was probably after him because of that flash drive he'd taken.

I wasn't going to pay the price because some lab nerd decided he needed to do the right thing and get insurance for what the corrupt company he worked for was trying to do.

If I'd thought giving the drive back to him would get him off my ass, I might have done it. But I knew he was probably ordered to clean up all the loose ends, because I'd been hired more than once to do just that.

And… well… Some small part of me knew that the information was too valuable to simply hand over. It was too important.

It meant something . Maybe my need to do something about it was the dying wish of the body I was in—maybe it was just my own curious mind.

Whatever it was, I wasn't going to just give the information up.

Which meant I needed to run faster.

And fuck me if I wasn't saying a silent thank-you to those extra miles Axel had forced me to do on the treadmill, even though I'd been ready to kill him for it at the time.

I wanted to think that the training we'd done would give me the ability to turn around and take my pursuer out, but at least a small part of me wasn't completely thriving on pride.

He was a lot bigger.

And he had a fucking gun.

It was mostly the whole gun thing that sealed the deal.

Which was why it was a damn fucking shame when I rounded a building that had led out into open space before, trees that I could get lost in… and found myself facing an iron gate.

There were no trees. There was just an empty storefront.

Well, shit.

I whirled around and tried to make sure my feet were planted far enough apart that I'd be able to move if he stepped forward, that I could dive away if I had to.

It wasn't like I could surprise him. As soon as he rounded the corner, his gun was pointed at my chest with careful precision that told me all the wishing in the world wouldn't make this a situation I could get out of. He held the weapon with steady hands and a cold look in his eyes.

"Now, Mr. Lister… I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish by taking the drive, but we need to know exactly who you've shared the information with."

The question instantly made me go on guard. I would have happily told him to go fuck himself with the goddamn flash drive and all of the corrupt information on it, but he wasn't just asking for that now.

He was asking me who I'd shared the information with… and if he found me, there was no way to know how long he'd been watching me.

There was nothing to say that he hadn't seen me come out of Axel's house.

That he wouldn't know who else I could have possibly told about their fucked up little experiments.

The thought of some asshole showing up with a gun and blowing a hole through Axel's head because I'd brought him back into my bullshit…

It made me see red.

"I didn't share it with anyone." I said the words carefully, wondering if my muscle memory included sounding like Marshall. Did the man in front of me know him? Did he have any idea about what had actually happened?

I still had no idea what happened to Marshall Lister. His knowledge didn't extend as far as hacking security cameras to try to get an answer. Apart from that, the entire building was burned to the ground. I wasn't sure there was anything left to hack. I didn't know how technology worked, and Axel had muttered something about never being skilled with a computer, but that he'd ask around.

I wondered if he didn't want me to see what had happened because he didn't want it to traumatize me.

"As much as I'd like to believe that, I'm afraid I can't. I know you've been staying with someone. Now, the question is, do you want to give us their name now, and I'll make this easier on you, or do you want to hold out and I can make it slow for both of you?"

Fuck . He knew about Axel.

He knew about him, and he'd all but told me we were both going to die because of something that I hadn't even done. Something that I would have been so much smarter about if I had bothered to do it. I'd smuggled information out of locations before when clients paid me a little extra, and I'd never had the audacity to get caught.

Unless I had, and that was what had gotten me killed… but the thought didn't feel right in my head.

I shook myself—it wasn't the time to wonder how I'd died. It was time to figure out how to get myself out of this situation, to figure out who in the fuck the man in front of me worked for. I couldn't just kill him. I had to know who'd sent him, because he had the word lackey written all across his forehead. He wasn't the one who wanted the information.

I could only imagine it was either the company that Marshall worked for or a competitor. The flash drive said Dr. Northman hadn't been the man to head up the project. It was someone named Nathaniel West.

Northman died in the fire, but Nathaniel was still alive and breathing… and potentially sending men to clean up whatever had been left behind in the wake of the flames.

I frowned and shifted back and forth. He had a gun pointed at my chest, and I still wasn't at my best.

I wasn't sure how I would have handled it before, but it felt…. wrong to rush him. Which meant maybe I could smooth-talk him until I figured something out.

"Listen." I tried to shrink in on myself, to look like the small scientist that I knew Marshall Lister had been when he was alive. "I don't know exactly what you're looking for. I… I can't really remember much. I was in a fire, and I had a head injury." I brought one hand up and touched my temple, but I was mostly watching for how quick he was with his gun if I started to move. I didn't know if it was my wide eyes or the way Marshall's small frame was far less imposing than I would have been in a past life, but he didn't shift.

It was good, but not moving meant that the gun was still trained at the center of my chest.

Pros and cons, I guess.

"If that's the case, you won't have any trouble leading me back to the house that you're staying at so you can hand over the drive and any electronics you have, right?" The man's smile wasn't convincing. It was practically spelling out the fact that he didn't care if I was helpless, if I had no memory.

He'd been sent to do a job, and he was going to do it.

I fucking hated people who were so efficient they were boring. Where was the fun in any of it?

"I can't do that." I tried to smile sweetly and dropped my hand back to my side. He did jerk the gun this time, shifting it from pointing center mass to my head.

Worse, he took a few quick steps forward. He put himself just outside of touching distance, but there was no way I'd be able to close the space between us without him pulling the trigger before I made any headway.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"If you don't want to do this the easy way—" He was too fast. He didn't shoot me, but that didn't stop his free hand from darting forward and connecting with my jawline.

Either I was in a world of hurt if he dropped his gun, or the asshole was ambidextrous, and it didn't matter which hand he punched me with. Stars danced across my vision and reminded me of the pain I'd woken with when I'd first come to myself in the hospital.

"Well, shit. You punch like a bitch, you know that?" It wasn't a good idea to antagonize him, and I was at least a little aware of that. It didn't mean that I could control myself.

And it probably didn't help when he took another swing and his hand connected with my forearm.

Fuck, that hurt. I'd stopped him from hitting me in the face, but that didn't mean a damn thing when the meat of his fist still made my fingers nearly go numb.

I wanted to say it was just the smaller body I was in.

I wanted to blame it on Marshall fucking Lister and a lifetime of not working out, of not taking care of himself.

But I knew it was more than that.

I was still weak from the injuries I'd had. Maybe I wasn't pushing myself hard enough.

Maybe I'd made getting Axel's attention more of a priority than my own physical fitness?

No, if I was going to regret anything, it wouldn't be the way he'd finally let me touch him earlier. Even if being angry with him was the entire reason I was here.

I—

I had to get out of this so I could get back to Axel. What the fuck would he do if I died on him twice ? I hadn't imagined the haunted look in his eyes, or the way his breathing sometimes came rapidfire, like the world around him was closing in. Like he was seeing things I couldn't remember.

So I couldn't die.

Not today.

"Could you maybe fuck off instead of trying to kill me?" I asked in the sweetest tone I could muster, even as I darted around him and threw a punch at his side. The pained groan that tore from his throat told me I'd hit over something important, something that at least hurt him enough to make him whine.

That was good.

It would have been better if he didn't immediately whirl and hit me with the butt of his gun. The metal was worse than his fist, and a sharp burst of pain danced along my cheekbone a moment before I felt a warm streak of liquid slowly trickle down my face.

Blood.

Fuck.

"If you start talking now, I'll kill your friend quickly."

The asshole in front of me said it like there was any chance I'd believe him. I knew better.

I'd been on his end of the fight before—you promised whatever you could, but you never trusted a person to tell you the complete truth. If I were in his shoes, I'd have to make sure that the lover didn't know anything, whether my target said they were innocent or not.

Lover.

Fuck… my lover.

"He doesn't know shit. Leave him the fuck out of this." I took a few steps back. Maybe I could get around him? Maybe I could make a run for it.

Maybe…

He raised his gun and leveled it at my face again. Too close for me to get away, not close enough for me to take it.

I fucking hated dealing with professionals.

"I don't have the drive on me." That was the truth, at least. But what was I supposed to do? Lead him straight back to Axel's house? No. "I don't even have it at the place where I'm staying." At least I still had the ability to sound honest while lying. "It's back at my condo."

There. Hopefully that would buy me some time until I could figure out how to get the upper hand.

Hopefully—

He swung out again, and this time the hit took me along my other jaw. My vision blurred, and by the time it cleared, his hand was around my throat and the other had his gun pressed to my temple.

"Good. My bosses still want to have a word with you, but they didn't say you had to be in one piece." His meaty fingers started to squeeze, and I felt something in my chest tighten.

I couldn't die like this.

I couldn't leave Axel again.

"Ax…"

"What was that?" The man's hand clenched tighter. "Couldn't hear you."

I needed…

I needed to tell him…

The hard metal of the gun hit my temple and my world went black.