Page 63 of Montana Memory

Beckett stiffened at the contact, his breathing still ragged, but he wasn’t shaking as much now. His wide, bloodshot eyes flicked to her face.

“I was given the memory-loss drug,” she said simply. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t remember my family, my life. I don’t even know what my own name means to me.” Her fingers curled slightly against his arm. “I just need to know what you know about the drug and its effects.”

Beckett went still. His gaze locked on her, the paranoia in his expression shifting into something else. Something raw. “You were given it?” His voice was a whisper now.

Jada nodded.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. Then, after a long, heavy beat, he let out a shuddering breath. “So was I.”

The air in the room changed. I exchanged a look with Jada, my mind already piecing it together. “Did the government make you create the drug?”

Beckett’s fingers twitched. His jaw tensed, then loosened. He gave a short, jerky nod.

“They didn’t force me to create it,” he said, voice hollow. “I created it myself. It was supposed to be for trauma victims. Soldiers. Kids who had been through hell. A beta-blocker that could target specific memories. That’s what it wassupposedtobe. Then the government found out about it. Realized it could be used as a weapon if tweaked.”

My stomach turned to lead. “They forced you to do it.”

Beckett gave a broken laugh. “They don’t take no for an answer.”

I didn’t press him to explain. I didn’t need to. The man standing in front of us, his body worn thin, his mind cracked, was all the proof I needed.

Jada’s hand was still on his arm, her touch grounding him. He looked at her again, something like regret flickering across his face.

“I figured out they couldn’t continue to force me to make more if I couldn’t remember how,” he said. “So, I injected myself with the drug. And here I am.”

Chapter 21

Hunter

Beckett had taken the memory-loss drug. That’s why he had gone off the grid and was barely stable now.

“Then how do you still remember anything?” Jada asked.

His gaze lifted sluggishly, unfocused for a second before he seemed to register the question. He swayed slightly where he stood, as if even staying upright was a fight. He licked his cracked lips.

“Because they tried to fix it,” he muttered.

Jada’s fingers clenched around the fabric of her sleeve. “What do you mean?”

Beckett exhaled a rough, humorless laugh, his breath rattling. “They wanted to control it. Make it selective. That was the problem, you know? The weaponized drug didn’t pick and choose. It just wiped everything. No exceptions.” His hand trembled as he scrubbed it over his jaw. “They wanted me to fix it, but I couldn’t after I injected myself. So they had some other lab rats cook up an antidote.”

I frowned. “And it worked? On you?”

“If you call this working.” Beckett’s laugh this time was pure bitterness. “The antidote wasn’t right because it wasn’t mine. The compound structure was wrong. It didn’t fully reverse the effects. Just…cracked open pieces. Gave me back some things.” His eyelids fluttered like he was seeing something we weren’t, his pupils darting erratically. “But the rest? It’s all broken. My brain doesn’t work the way it should. The way it used to.”

Jada’s voice was barely above a whisper. “What do you mean?”

Beckett let out a long, shuddering exhale. “Some days, I wake up and I can’t move. Not my arms, not my legs. I just lie there. Staring at the ceiling, drooling, wetting myself. Trapped in my own body, waiting for it to pass.”

Jada flinched. I clenched my fists.

Beckett swallowed hard, his throat working. “Some days, I remember things I wish I could forget. Other days, I forget how to feed myself.” He tilted his head slightly, his eyes going distant. “It’s like my brain is glitching. Like someone rewired it wrong, and now I’m stuck in an endless loop.”

Jada’s breathing had gone shallow. I stepped closer to her, a silent anchor.

Beckett’s gaze drifted back to us, his expression bleak. “That’s your antidote,” he whispered. “That’s the best they could do. They tried it on other people too. A few it worked completely on. Others…died. More than a few.”

Jada’s voice came quietly. Carefully. “But it worked for some?”

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