“I don’t know. His brain went through hell. But he’s alive. He’s stable. That’s enough. For now.”
Hellhound was quiet for a long moment. Then: “You did good, Clare. Better than good. You saved him when the rest of us couldn’t.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Coming from him, someone who’d probably saved dozens of lives in ways I couldn’t imagine, it meant something.
I’d saved him. I’d trusted myself. I’d made the right choice.
I was enough.
Havoc and Hellhound exchanged a look, then quietly left the room. Giving us space. Securing the perimeter. Whatever they told themselves to justify leaving me alone with Xavier.
I didn’t care.
I pulled a chair close to the surface, sat down, and took Xavier’s palm. No tremor shook his fingers. They were warm.
“Come back to me. Please. I need you to come back.”
I don’t know how long I sat there. Minutes. Hours. Time lost meaning in the quiet aftermath of crisis, measured only by the steady beep of the cardiac monitor and the rise and fall of his chest.
Then Xavier’s fingers twitched in mine.
I leaned closer, watching his face.
His eyelids fluttered. Once. Twice.
Then they opened.
Those wonderful emerald irises, unfocused at first, stared at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. I held my breath, waiting, searching his expression for any sign of recognition.
Xavier’s focus shifted. Found me.
I searched his face desperately for Xavier, for the man who’d held me last night, for anything that told me he was still in there beneath the memories that had crashed back in.
His lips parted. When it came, the sound was rough. Broken. But clear.
“Clare.”
My name. He knew my name.
Relief crashed over me so hard I nearly sobbed.
But then Xavier’s gaze filled, not with confusion. With horror. With a clarity that made my blood run cold.
“I remember. I remember everything.”
Chapter 23
Xavier
I woke slowly.
Disoriented. Heavy. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, all the pieces connected but operating on a slight delay.
Where was I?
The ceiling above me was unfamiliar. White plaster, cracked in places. A water stain in one corner shaped vaguely like a face. Not the car. Not Geneva. Definitely not the hell of CuraNova’s sterile corridors.
Turned my head. The guest room. The boarding school.
