Caleb raised both hands.
“I’m not saying that shouldn’t hurt.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Everything that happened is partly about you.”
“Noah is the one with the brain injury.”
“And you are the man whose partner woke up six years in the past.”
I sat.
Through the office window, Noah was laughing at something Owen had said.
He turned his head.
His gaze found me immediately.
It stayed on me for one heartbeat.
Then two.
Only then did he return to Owen.
Caleb noticed.
“He has been downstairs twenty minutes,” he said. “He has checked where you are at least fifteen times.”
“That is not memory.”
“No.”
Caleb leaned against the desk.
“It means you are the person he looks for now.”
The words found the exact place I had been trying to protect.
I looked back at the invoices.
“He dreamed about the whistle.”
“What whistle?”
“Our signal.”
Caleb’s expression changed.
“You used that with everyone.”
“No.”
“You whistled for me once. I told you I wasn’t livestock.”
“You remain difficult to distinguish from livestock.”
Caleb ignored me.
