“I can do that.”
I believed him.
The belief was not a memory.
It was better.
It was mine.
Part 2
Chapter 14
NOAH
The tide had come inside the house.
Black water covered the floorboards, though nothing floated. The chairs remained where they belonged. The green lamp burned beside the stairs. Rain moved across the windows without sound.
I stood in the hallway, uninjured and barefoot, unable to remember which door led outside.
The apartment stretched farther than it should have. Every time I crossed one room, another opened beyond it. The kitchen became the workshop. The workshop became a dock. The dock narrowed into a passage between high walls of wet cedar.
Somewhere ahead, a man whistled.
Two quick notes.
One drawn out behind them.
My body answered before my mind did.
I turned toward the sound.
The water rose to my knees.
The whistle came again.
Closer.
A hand settled at the base of my neck.
Warm.
Broad.
Familiar enough to hurt.
I covered it with mine, and a heartbeat moved beneath my palm—not in the hand touching me, but inside the wrist, the arm, the body standing behind me. I knew that pulse. I knew the roughness of the skin. I knew the quiet breath near my ear.
I tried to turn.
The hallway shifted.
Darkness folded over the green light.
I woke with Reid’s name already in my mouth.
“Reid.”
