That's all about to change, though.
I pick up the clippers and buzzing fills the bathroom.
For a moment I just stare at the mirror, watching the distance between who I was and who I'm about to become close into nothing.
The clippers touch my scalp and copper-brown strands slide down in dull, heavy clumps, piling in the sink like shed skin.
My hand tightens on the second pass. I erase the version of myself I've lived inside for years. The man I built after her. The one who spent most nights pretending to sleep, most mornings wondering if she's still breathing. Moving through time trying to forget the way her hands once felt on my skin.
I wasn't always this fucked up. For a while there I had moved on.
But everything changed the moment I opened that lockbox. The moment I knew finding them wasn't optional but inevitable.
Revenge took hold of me then and hasn't let go since.
Hair keeps falling until there's nothing left but a rough, close buzz.
It makes such a difference. I already look unrecognizable.
The box of black dye waits on the counter. I tear it open without a second thought, the smell of chemicals burning as I work it through what's left of my hair, massaging it into my scalp until every strand of brown is covered.
I set the timer on my phone and brace both palms against the counter.
The dreams have been getting worse.
They used to be just memories replaying in my head. The hunting lodge. Whiskey warming her mouth. The twinkle in her eyes. The way she'd sayHalelike she was tucking it into her chest for safekeeping.
Now they've mutated into something vicious. They start as memory and end as torture my mind conjures in the dark just to fuck with me. Making me mad with need one night, then reminding me how easily she stabbed me in the back the next.
Sometimes I wake up hard, gasping for air, her name stuck in my throat like a curse I can't spit out.
Night after night she lives there, burrowing deeper into my head.
It's driving me insane.
I wash my hands because I need something to do besides put my fist through the mirror. Black dye runs down my arms in dark ribbons, and when the water finally clears, someone else looks back at me.
Someone built for the things I'm about to do.
Short black hair. Harsher, more hollowed angles. The same light eyes, though—but not for much longer.
Keira would notice my eyes in a heartbeat. Good thing Henri has brown ones, and they make contacts so accessible these days.
I clean the edges of my beard next, trimming it close. Henriwears a pretty thick scruff and mine will match in a few days. It'll be enough time for Keira's memory to blur and for Calder's men to see only what I want them to see.
She may not remember you the same way you remember her.
Some wounded part of me hates the idea of her looking through me like I'm no one. But the colder part realizes how useful that will be.
If she doesn't recognize me, she'll behave like herself. And that way I'll get to stand closer, learning every detail about her and where she's living.
Stepping out of the bathroom, the laptop glows on the desk. The red notebook lies open on the bed where I left it, that half-filled page reminding me of the dream from this morning.
A soft vibration buzzes against my thigh. Half a second later, the laptop emits a matching chime.
Paired signals means a secure chain, and that could only be a new message from Cat or Aaron.
I cross the room, watching the encrypted window spit out all the information I'll need.
