Page 57 of Hunted to Be Mine
I leaned in. “When did Specter begin to crack? A specific moment?”
“The turning point was the orphanage. St. Elisabeth’s.” He watched Specter. “After that mission, you started changing. Small things at first. Hesitations at briefings. Questions assets weren’t supposed to ask.”
“And afterward?”
“He remained with Oblivion, but something had shifted. Not in an obvious way, but more subtle as if keeping under Oblivion’s radar I think.” Kruger rubbed his jaw where a bruisepurpled. “Vanished after that. I heard he was in South America somewhere. Then, no news until now.”
I stitched the threads. “Neurologically, it tracks. Strong emotion or trauma can break conditioned responses. The brain reroutes around blocked pathways.”
“Like water finding cracks in a dam. I think that’s when I decided it had to stop,” Specter said.
“Exactly.” I nodded. “Whatever happened at St. Elisabeth’s started destabilizing you.”
His gaze never left Kruger. “What did they make me do there?”
“They didn’t make you do anything,” Kruger said. “That was the problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that for the first time, he chose,” Kruger answered, suddenly careful. “Against protocol. Against programming.”
Specter pushed away from the table and paced again. “Those months after Prague… not clear. Fragments. Assignments. Cities. Targets.” He stopped, staring through a slit in the curtains. “Then it was like fog thinning. Bits of awareness bleeding through. I became more decisive.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Weeks.” The word was flat, but something unsettled shifted beneath it. “I started questioning orders. Quietly. Questioning myself. I wanted to know what they’d done to me. The only way to get answers was to run.”
I watched him, a man caught between versions of himself, rebuilding from scraps.
“That’s when I started digging,” he said. “Found partial answers. Rumors of others who had cracked.”
“The Prima you mentioned,” Kruger said.
Specter nodded. “I found him through a journalist chasing him. She’s the one who somehow triggered his break.”
“If you saw him fighting the programming,” I asked Kruger, “why didn’t you tell Dresner?”
A breath left him that sounded old. He looked toward the curtains like he expected something to tear through them.
“I couldn’t.” Fingers dragged over thinning hair. “I’d been his handler since he left the Farm. I watched him go from half-dead to the most effective operative and hunter Oblivion had.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He met my eyes, then Specter’s. “I became a handler because there were few places for someone like me after the military. Oblivion offered money, protection, purpose.” His mouth twisted. “And I thought I had no conscience.”
Specter held position, silent.
“Most handlers treated assets like equipment. Expensive, sophisticated equipment. We were trained for that.” Kruger’s fingers tapped once and stilled. “Problem was, I couldn’t quite get there. I couldn’t not see the human.”
“Even after what you did to them?” Specter’s voice cut clean.
“Especially after.”
I leaned forward. “So at the orphanage…”
“I hit my line.” Kruger’s face hardened. “Years with Oblivion, and suddenly I couldn’t step over it.”
“What happened there?” Specter asked again.
