receiving end changes your perspective,” Merri said.
“Don’t it just?”
“And Purcell . . . No wonder that asshole claimed to know so much about Baptiste. The motherfucker helped torture him.”
Seeing the perplexed frown on Emmett’s face, Merri felt twin stabs of guilt and sympathy.
Another wiped memory.
Emmett’s reddish brows knitted together. “Don’t remember that particular conversation,” he muttered. “Not even a goddamned tickle. Am I missing anything important—aside from the fact that Purcell is a sadistic sonuvabitch?”
“Nope. Sounds like you’ve got the key point.”
With a low sigh of frustration, Emmett nodded. “Okay then.” He relaxed against the back of his rust-pocked chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles, one square-toed Dingo boot sliding over the other. Like a man checking for his wallet, he absently patted the Colt parked in the leather shoulder holster strapped over his white button-down shirt with its currently rolled-up sleeves.
Merri had always thought he looked like a pre-squint, pre-scowl Clint Eastwood in his rugged and handsome prime—all hard angles, cabled muscle, and lethal calm—with eyes the deep blue of a sunlit summer iris.
But right now Emmett looked exhausted. Neither of them had slept in the thirty-one hours since they’d fled HQ. Of course, given that Merri had stay-awake pills thrumming through her bloodstream, disrupting her natural rhythms but keeping Sleep at bay, she was in better shape than Emmett.
For now. She’d eventually pay a price for the motherfucking pills and the lost Sleep. But she was in better shape than Emmett in another way— her memory was intact.
Merri’s throat tightened. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to learn that some of your memories had been stripped from your mind. That they’d been replaced with lies. And you couldn’t tell the difference.
Even now.
She remembered reading the note Emmett had slid under the door of her room in the SB’s visiting agents quarters—a tradition between them whenever they were on the road.
HAHAHA! By the time you wake up, I’ll already be debriefed and lounging in my spacious luxury room! You snooze, you lose!!
Expecting only a routine debriefing, Merri hadn’t given much thought to the fact that Emmett had been called in early, ahead of his Sleeping partner. She’d had other things on her mind—dark, disturbing, unholy things.
Before heading off for her own debriefing, Merri had gone to her partner’s room for an unauthorized chat about her theft of the files she’d downloaded from Prissy-Ass Purcell’s computer, files that revealed Dante Prejean/Baptiste’s true nature and his forced participation in the nightmare known as Project Bad Seed.
But Emmett no longer had any knowledge of Dante Prejean/Baptiste.
The motherfuckers had plucked the knowledge from his mind.
They’ve wiped your memory, Em. They’ve fucking wiped your memory.
No, that can’t be. Why would they? No, no.
I’m next. Part of the reason why is on that flash drive. Maybe what we discovered at the compound is another part of why.
The compound? Shit! What compound? What did we discover?
If that’s gone too, then I’m fucking right.
Merri had realized that not only had Emmett’s memories of Damascus and Baptiste been stolen, they’d been replaced with artificial memories like fairy changelings tucked into the cradle of his recall. Merri had also learned that the details of their original assignment, the one that had placed them on the road to Damascus—the brutal murder of FBI SAC Alberto Rodriguez by Dante Baptiste—had been altered in Emmett’s mind as well.
Deciding to bail on her own debriefing/mind-wiping session, she and Emmett had slipped unnoticed from HQ and escaped from Alexandria.
They’d blasted bat-outta-hell -style down I-81 South, looking for a cheap, skanky-ass motel that accepted cash and didn’t require ID, scrambling to
“Don’t it just?”
“And Purcell . . . No wonder that asshole claimed to know so much about Baptiste. The motherfucker helped torture him.”
Seeing the perplexed frown on Emmett’s face, Merri felt twin stabs of guilt and sympathy.
Another wiped memory.
Emmett’s reddish brows knitted together. “Don’t remember that particular conversation,” he muttered. “Not even a goddamned tickle. Am I missing anything important—aside from the fact that Purcell is a sadistic sonuvabitch?”
“Nope. Sounds like you’ve got the key point.”
With a low sigh of frustration, Emmett nodded. “Okay then.” He relaxed against the back of his rust-pocked chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles, one square-toed Dingo boot sliding over the other. Like a man checking for his wallet, he absently patted the Colt parked in the leather shoulder holster strapped over his white button-down shirt with its currently rolled-up sleeves.
Merri had always thought he looked like a pre-squint, pre-scowl Clint Eastwood in his rugged and handsome prime—all hard angles, cabled muscle, and lethal calm—with eyes the deep blue of a sunlit summer iris.
But right now Emmett looked exhausted. Neither of them had slept in the thirty-one hours since they’d fled HQ. Of course, given that Merri had stay-awake pills thrumming through her bloodstream, disrupting her natural rhythms but keeping Sleep at bay, she was in better shape than Emmett.
For now. She’d eventually pay a price for the motherfucking pills and the lost Sleep. But she was in better shape than Emmett in another way— her memory was intact.
Merri’s throat tightened. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to learn that some of your memories had been stripped from your mind. That they’d been replaced with lies. And you couldn’t tell the difference.
Even now.
She remembered reading the note Emmett had slid under the door of her room in the SB’s visiting agents quarters—a tradition between them whenever they were on the road.
HAHAHA! By the time you wake up, I’ll already be debriefed and lounging in my spacious luxury room! You snooze, you lose!!
Expecting only a routine debriefing, Merri hadn’t given much thought to the fact that Emmett had been called in early, ahead of his Sleeping partner. She’d had other things on her mind—dark, disturbing, unholy things.
Before heading off for her own debriefing, Merri had gone to her partner’s room for an unauthorized chat about her theft of the files she’d downloaded from Prissy-Ass Purcell’s computer, files that revealed Dante Prejean/Baptiste’s true nature and his forced participation in the nightmare known as Project Bad Seed.
But Emmett no longer had any knowledge of Dante Prejean/Baptiste.
The motherfuckers had plucked the knowledge from his mind.
They’ve wiped your memory, Em. They’ve fucking wiped your memory.
No, that can’t be. Why would they? No, no.
I’m next. Part of the reason why is on that flash drive. Maybe what we discovered at the compound is another part of why.
The compound? Shit! What compound? What did we discover?
If that’s gone too, then I’m fucking right.
Merri had realized that not only had Emmett’s memories of Damascus and Baptiste been stolen, they’d been replaced with artificial memories like fairy changelings tucked into the cradle of his recall. Merri had also learned that the details of their original assignment, the one that had placed them on the road to Damascus—the brutal murder of FBI SAC Alberto Rodriguez by Dante Baptiste—had been altered in Emmett’s mind as well.
Deciding to bail on her own debriefing/mind-wiping session, she and Emmett had slipped unnoticed from HQ and escaped from Alexandria.
They’d blasted bat-outta-hell -style down I-81 South, looking for a cheap, skanky-ass motel that accepted cash and didn’t require ID, scrambling to
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