Electricity tore through my skull. My back arched off the table, vertebrae cracking. A scream ripped from my throat—raw, animal, unrecognizable. The scent of burning hair filled my nostrils.
“The asset will comply,” a monotone voice repeated through overhead speakers. “The asset exists to complete the mission.”
The current stopped. I collapsed against the table, gasping, the metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth where I’d bitten through my tongue.
In the brief reprieve, images flickered behind my eyes like damaged film.
Green felt on a poker table in Monaco. Chips stack before me. I was laughing with people whose faces blurred when I tried to focus. A red poker chip rolled between my fingers, a habit, a token, a reminder of...
The memory fragmented.
Another flash.
A woman with red hair stood close, raindrops catching in her eyelashes. Her lips pressed against mine, warm in the cold downpour. She whispered a name—my name—but the sound dissolved before I could grasp it.
The electrodes activated again. White-hot agony shattered the images. My jaw locked so tight I tasted blood.
A needle plunged into my neck. Fire spread through my veins, a chemical cocktail designed to break me. The ceiling tiles above multiplied, contracted, and swam in and out of focus.
“Remarkable,” someone murmured. “He’s still fighting the suppression protocols.”
“Increase the dosage.” A different voice, sharper with authority. “We need complete cognitive compliance.”
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. The pain became so absolute that I could no longer distinguish where it ended and I began. The room distorted.
Through the haze, a figure approached. Brock. My handler. He watched with cold satisfaction as my body betrayed me, convulsing against the restraints.
His lean frame moved with measured steps. Impeccably tailored suit, not a wrinkle to be found. Short gray-templed hair perfectly styled. Those pale blue eyes studied me like I was a specimen under glass. Something tugged at the edges of my consciousness. I’d seen those eyes before, somewhere beyond these walls, beyond these missions. A fragment of memory scratched at the back of my skull, desperate to break through, but the pain drove it back into darkness.
“Your name is Reaper,” he said, leaning close enough that I smelled his expensive cologne. “You exist to complete the mission. Nothing more. You are mine.”
I tried to ask who I was before. My mouth moved, but no words came.
Brock straightened, readjusting his cufflinks. “Start again,” he ordered the technicians. “Wipe everything.”
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. I felt myself being erased, piece by piece. The man I was—whoever he might have been—disappeared beneath waves of calculated agony.
The last thing I saw was Brock’s smile as he watched me disintegrate.
I gasped awake, a silent scream locked in my throat, body already in combat stance before conscious thought returned. My hand shot toward the pillow—for the blade that should be there.
Nothing.
The room spun. Target acquisition impossible. Three rapid heartbeats pounded against my ribcage while my brain scrambled to identify threats, exits, and weapons.
Not a standard operational glitch. Not a mission parameter failure.
The nightmare clung like blood under fingernails. Too vivid. Too textured. The cold metal table. The electrodes. The smell of burning. Brock watching me break apart under calculated voltage.
Memory or malfunction?
The ceiling above came into focus—water-stained concrete, not sterile white. The textile factory. My safehouse.
A red-hot poker drilled behind my eyes, worse than any operational headache I’d ever logged. Something cool and damp rested on my forehead—a cloth. I reached to remove it and froze as I registered the weight across my torso.
Maeve Durham. Target designation: Primary. Threat assessment: Undetermined.
She was sprawled partially over me, head on my chest, one arm draped across my ribs, breathing the deep rhythm of exhausted sleep. Her dark hair fanned across my shirt, her hand curled fractionally into the fabric.
