Page 94 of Montana Memory

“Please,” I whispered, my voice raw. “You don’t know what that stuff’ll do to me.”

Kelly stared at the syringe still poised in his hand like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t about to rip through whatever fragile grip I had left on myself. Johnson’s hand on my arm was unyielding. A clamp of heat and bruising pressure.

“Dr. Beckett,” I went on, more desperate now. “He warned us. He said the antidote doesn’t always work. It might bring the memories back, or it might kill me. It might make me worse. Brain damage. Coma. You could turn me into a vegetable.”

Kelly shrugged. “Not our problem.” He was close now. Too close.

I squirmed, bucked hard in the chair, but Johnson didn’t so much as flinch. His grip only tightened. His other arm snaked around my chest, pinning me in place.

“No,” I begged. “Don’t—don’t do this. Please?—”

Kelly grabbed my wrist. Strong, sure, practiced. I whimpered as the needle pierced my skin. The sharp sting made me jerk, but it was already too late. I felt the cool push of liquid flooding into my bloodstream. Cold. Unnatural. Wrong.

Terror clawed its way up my throat. I didn’t care if my old memories came back. I didn’t want them. Whatever life I had before this cabin, before Hunter, it was already gone. Dead and buried.

But my new memories?

The nights I’d spent wrapped in Hunter’s arms. His gravel-rough voice in the dark. Watching him work with the animals. His silly smirk when he said something just to make me smile.

I didn’t want to lose any of that. God, I couldn’t lose that.

I held on to his face in my mind like a lifeline, the green of his eyes burned into my skull, the memory of his hand on my jaw just before he kissed me for the first time.

I clung to it.

And then everything went black.

Chapter 30

Jada

Everything was underwater.

Sound. Movement. My thoughts. All of it muffled and far away, like I was stuck beneath the surface of a lake and the world above me had forgotten I was down here.

A voice became more intelligible. Sharp. Panicked. “You think we gave her too much?”

Another voice, lower, annoyed. “It was a full dose, not something that was measured. She was breathing before. Barely. Just—check again.”

Pressure against the side of my neck. “She’s got a pulse. It’s light, but there. God, I hope she’s not in a coma. I…”

The voices blurred back out as they talked, and I let them go. Whatever was waiting for me on the other side of this fog, I wasn’t ready to face it with my eyes open. Not yet. I just wanted to stay in this darkness. Nothing could hurt me here.

But then in my mind, I was running. Running through trees. Some sort of woods. It was nighttime, so it was hard to see. I kepttrying to whisper something, but I couldn’t get the words to the surface.

Then finally, they broke through:Jada Banks.

Jada Banks. Jada Banks. Jada Banks.

My name.

And I wasn’t having a dream. It was amemory. The night I had met Hunter. He’d told me my name, and I’d whispered it to myself over and over as we’d run through the woods.

Once that memory opened up, the rest came crashing through. A wave that didn’t ask permission.

I remembered Hunter.

His face, his voice, his touch…all flooded my system. I remembered our picnic, the kittens, Pawsitive Connections, our lovemaking.

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