Page 94 of Hunted to Be Mine
Selina
I woke to softness. Silk against my skin. A cashmere blanket weighed on my legs. My eyelids might as well have been bolted down. Every thought dragged.
Hospital? No… too nice for that.
The fog thinned. Panic scratched at it. Bright light seeped around gauzy curtains when I blinked. The room steadied: cream walls, antique furniture, a crystal chandelier.
Where the hell was I?
Cotton-dry mouth. Tongue slow. I pushed up and nausea rolled through me.
The last clear thing: the Zagreb hotel, going for coffee. Then… nothing.
Movement at the door.
Blackout stood there, motionless.
He was the operative I’d seen in the rubble after the explosion. Still as a cutout. The violent blur from the fight was gone. He wore a plain black tactical uniform with no markings.
I swallowed to wet my throat.
“Good morning,” I said, voice rough. “Or is it afternoon?”
Nothing. Not even a blink.
I swung my legs off the bed and steadied myself as the room lurched. “Nice place. Yours? Or are we both just visiting?”
His gaze tracked me. His face gave me nothing. Not cold, not curious. Just empty. A person-shaped device.
Specter’s words surfaced about Quinta-generation conditioning: They’ve rebuilt his neural pathways completely. There’s nothing left of whoever he was before.
That nightmare stood five feet away.
I caught the bedpost. “Not much of a talker, are you?”
Silence.
“I’m Dr. Crawford. But you probably already know that.” I kept my tone level.
Fingers locked on the bedpost, I forced my thoughts into order.
Blackout. What do I know?
I’d skimmed files at SENTINEL when I dug into Specter: names, dates, protocols. One detail stuck from the stolen documents he’d passed me.
He had a designation, and a name before they burned it out. Xavier. Xavier Hale.
He had family. A sister. Still alive. Still looking. That was it.
Maeve. Her name was Maeve.
That felt like a line I could throw. He wasn’t just an operative. He was somebody’s brother. Someone who refused to let him be erased.
I studied his face. Anything left of Xavier under the training? People don’t vanish so cleanly. Not completely. Patience. Find the seam.
“And you’re Blackout. Or were you Xavier first?”
No reaction to the name. He held position, shoulders squared, hands locked behind his back, feet set.
