The memories slammed into me like a freight train.
I saw myself through the agent's eyes, but not as Dr. Evira Grey. I was someone else completely. Someone wearing expensive clothes and confidence like it was armor. Someone who moved through shadows and talked in codes. Someone scary as hell.
Someone they called "The Memory Walker."
I watched myself break into some high-security place, my hands flying over computer screens like I'd done it a million times. I saw myself standing over guys in lab coats, my palm pressed to their heads as I sucked out their secrets. I saw myself delete entire identities from government databases with nothing but my brain.
I saw myself kill people.
Not with guns or knives. With memories. I'd touch them and take everything - their skills, their knowledge, their whole sense of who they were - until there was nothing left but empty shells walking around not knowing their own names.
"Evira!" Sebastian's voice cut through the crazy visions. "Let go of him!"
I couldn't. The memories kept coming, faster now, like a dam exploded in my head.
I saw Sebastian beaten to hell in some alley, his face covered in blood while suit guys asked him over and over: "Where is she? Where's the Memory Walker?"
I saw a car blow up with Sebastian inside, flames shooting up while I screamed from a rooftop miles away.
I saw a woman who looked exactly like me drowning in a bathtub, eyes wide with terror as someone held her head underwater.
I saw her die.
I saw me die.
Over and over and over.
"Evira!" Sebastian grabbed my shoulders and yanked me away from the agent, who collapsed like a broken toy.
I stumbled back, head spinning with memories that weren't mine. Or were they? I couldn't tell what was real anymore.
"What did you see?" Sebastian asked, face white as paper.
"I saw..." I couldn't get words out. "I saw myself. But not me. Someone else. Someone called the Memory Walker."
The agent on the floor was breathing but his eyes were blank. Empty. Like I'd taken something from him he'd never get back.
"Christ," Sebastian whispered. "You've never been able to do that to living people before."
"Before?" I stared at him. "What do you mean, before?"
"The Memory Walker," Sebastian said, face grim. "That was you. The original you. Before you died the first time."
The room started spinning. I grabbed Sebastian's arm to keep from falling. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We need to get out of here," Sebastian said, looking at the other two agents backing toward the door. "More will come. They always do."
"I'm not going anywhere till you tell me what's happening to me!"
Sebastian looked at me like I was a bomb about to explode. Maybe I was.
"You want the truth?" he said. "The real truth? Fine. But not here."
He led me through the house to a room I hadn't seen before. His study. Dark wood and leather books, with a huge desk that looked carved from one giant tree. He pressed something on the wall and a hidden panel opened up, showing stairs going down.
"Safe room," Sebastian said. "Lead lined. No signals in or out. They can't track us here."
We went down into a room that looked like spy movie stuff. Monitors covered every wall, showing feeds from security cameras around the property. Banks of servers hummed in the corners. And right in the center was a chair that looked way too much like the one I used for memory surgery.
"You built this?" I asked.
"We built it," Sebastian said. "Together. Back when you were... different."
"Different how?"
Sebastian ran his hands through his hair, and I could see how much this was killing him. "Sit down, Evira. This is gonna take a while."
I sat on the edge of the chair, and something about it felt familiar. Like my body remembered even if my brain didn't.
"Eight years ago," Sebastian started, "you weren't Dr. Evira Grey. You were Dr. Evira Morgan, and you were the most brilliant brain scientist in the world. You invented memory extraction technology. You could literally pull thoughts out of people's heads and stick them somewhere else."
"That's impossible."
"Is it? You just did it upstairs."
I touched my forehead, still pounding from absorbing the agent's memories. "Keep talking."
"You started trying to help people. Soldiers with PTSD. Trauma victims. People who wanted to forget the worst stuff in their lives. But the technology... it changed you."
"How?"
"Every memory you pulled out, you absorbed. At first just little pieces. Bits of other people's experiences floating around in your head. But as you got more powerful, you started taking whole personalities. Whole lives."
I thought about the agent upstairs, lying on the floor with those empty eyes. "What happened to him?"
"You took everything," Sebastian said quietly. "His training, his memories, his sense of who he was. He's alive, but he's not really him anymore."
"Oh God." I put my head in my hands. "I'm a monster."
"No," Sebastian said, kneeling in front of me. "You were sick. The memories you absorbed were driving you crazy. You started seeing enemies everywhere. Started thinking everyone was trying to steal your technology, use it against you."
"Were they?"
"Some were," Sebastian admitted. "But not all of them. Not me."
"What were you to me then?"
Sebastian's smile was sad and tired. "I was your research partner. Your best friend. And eventually, the guy who fell in love with a woman who was disappearing a little more every day."
I looked around the room, at all the high-tech stuff. "This was our lab?"
"Part of it. We had places all over the world. But this was home base. Where we worked on the really dangerous stuff."
"Like what?"
"Like finding a way to reverse what was happening to you," Sebastian said. "A way to pull out all the stolen memories and give you back your original personality."
"Did it work?"
Sebastian's face went dark. "No. It killed you instead."
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. "What?"
"The procedure was too much for your brain. You went into cardiac arrest and died on this table." Sebastian touched the chair I was sitting in. "I did CPR for twenty minutes before the paramedics got there. They declared you dead."
I stared at the chair, imagining myself dying in it. "But I didn't stay dead."
"No. Three days later, you woke up in the morgue. No memory of who you were or what you could do. The coroner found you wandering around confused and called the cops."
"How's that possible?"
"We never figured that out," Sebastian said. "But you were different. Gentler. Kinder. Like all the stolen memories got burned out of you and only the original Evira was left."
"The original me."
"Yeah. The woman I'd fallen in love with before everything went to hell. So I brought you home, told you we were married, and we had six months of perfect happiness."
"What happened after six months?"
Sebastian's jaw got tight. "You started remembering. Little things at first. How to use the memory equipment. How to defend yourself. How to kill people with your bare hands."
"I remembered being the Memory Walker."
"Not all of it. But enough. Enough that you got paranoid again. Started thinking I was trying to control you, use you for your abilities. One night you tried to delete my memories while I was sleeping."
I felt sick. "Did I?"
"Almost. I woke up just in time. We fought, and you fell and hit your head on the nightstand. Started bleeding and wouldn't stop."
"I died again."
"In the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Heart stopped for four minutes this time."
I was starting to get the pattern. "But I came back."
"Two days later. Same as before. No memories, sweet as an angel, looking at me like I was her whole world."
"How many times?" I asked, though I already knew.
"Four," Sebastian said. "You've died four times. Each death wipes you clean, gives you a fresh start. But each time, you start remembering faster. The memories of who you used to be get stronger."
"And each time I remember, I become dangerous again."
"Yes."
"So you decided to have my brain wiped instead."
Sebastian flinched. "That wasn't my idea. After the fourth death, when you came back and started showing signs of remembering after just three months instead of six, I knew I was running out of time. I couldn't keep losing you over and over. Couldn't keep watching you die."
"So you called those guys. The agents."
"No," Sebastian said hard. "They found us. They've been tracking you since the beginning. They want your technology, your abilities. They think if they can control you, they can control the whole world's memories."
"But you made a deal with them."
"I made a deal with the devil," Sebastian said, voice breaking. "They said they could help. Give you a normal life where you'd never hurt anyone or get hurt. All they wanted was for you to work as Dr. Evira Grey, using a watered-down version of your abilities to help their rich clients."
"In exchange for what?"
"For not turning you into a weapon."
I stared at him, trying to process everything. "So the apartment, the job, the fake identity - all to keep me sedated. Keep me from becoming the Memory Walker again."
"Yes."
"And you went along with it because you love me."
"Because I couldn't stand to watch you die again," Sebastian said. "Even if it meant you'd never really be mine."
I stood up and walked over to one of the monitors. It showed our bedroom upstairs, empty now except for scattered wedding photos. "Those photos we planted. To make me believe we were happy."
"We were happy," Sebastian said. "Every time between deaths. Those photos are real, Evira. Every single one."
"But the happiness wasn't real. It was built on lies."
"The love was real," Sebastian said, voice so raw it made my chest hurt. "Every time you died, every time you came back, I fell in love with you all over again. Even knowing it wouldn't last."
I turned to face him. "And now?"
"Now you're remembering faster than ever. The agent upstairs - you absorbed his memories without even trying. That's something only the original Memory Walker could do."
"So I'm turning back into a monster."
"I don't know," Sebastian said. "Maybe. Or maybe this time will be different."
"How could it be different?"
"Because this time, you know the truth from the start. This time, you can choose who you want to be."
I walked back over to him. He looked beat, like he'd aged ten years in the past hour. "What if I choose to be the Memory Walker?"
"Then I'll try to stop you."
"Even if it means killing me?"
Sebastian's eyes filled with tears. "Even then."
I reached out and touched his face, and he leaned into my palm like a man dying of thirst. "You really love me, don't you?"
"More than my own life."
"All versions of me? Even the monster?"
"I loved her too," Sebastian whispered. "Even when she was trying to kill me, I loved her. Because underneath all that stolen darkness, she was still you."
I kissed him then. Couldn't help it. The pull between us was too strong, too real to ignore. And when our lips touched, something inside me exploded.
Memories. Not stolen ones from other people, but my own memories. Real ones.
I remembered our first kiss in his lab after working sixteen hours straight on some breakthrough. I remembered how he looked at me during our first wedding, like I was a miracle he couldn't believe was real. I remembered how he held me while I cried after the first time I accidentally absorbed someone's whole personality.
I remembered loving him with every piece of my soul.
But I also remembered the darkness. The paranoia. The growing certainty that everyone, including Sebastian, was trying to use me. The night I tried to delete his memories because I was convinced he was gonna betray me.
I remembered dying. All four times. The fear, the pain, the feeling of everything slipping away. And I remembered coming back each time to find Sebastian waiting, hoping like hell that this time would be different.
I pulled away from the kiss, gasping.
"What did you see?" Sebastian asked.
"Everything," I whispered. "I remember everything."
Sebastian went very still. "The Memory Walker memories?"
"All of them." I could feel the darkness creeping in around the edges of my mind. The suspicion. The certainty that everyone was my enemy. "Sebastian, I can feel her. The old me. She's still in here, and she's pissed."
"Angry about what?"
"About being controlled. About being turned into a tame pet. About you making deals with people who want to use her."
"Evira, you have to fight it. You have to stay yourself."
But it was getting harder. The Memory Walker's personality was stronger than ever, fed by all the deaths and resurrections. She whispered in my ear about how Sebastian had betrayed me, how he'd sold me to the highest bidder, how he'd chosen to have my mind wiped rather than find a real solution.
She whispered about revenge.
"I can't," I said, backing away from Sebastian. "I can feel myself changing. Becoming her."
"Then we'll find another way," Sebastian said desperately. "We'll run away together. Leave the country, change our names, start over where they can't find us."
"You don't get it," I said. The monitors around us started flickering as my abilities got stronger. "She doesn't want to run. She wants to make them pay for what they did to us."
"Evira, please—"
"My name isn't Evira," I said, and my voice sounded different. Colder. "My name is Dr. Evira Morgan, and I am the Memory Walker."
Sebastian's face went white. "No."
"Oh, yes," I said, and smiled. It felt good to smile like that again. Like a predator showing its teeth. "Did you miss me, baby?"
"Fight this," Sebastian begged. "The real you is still in there. I know she is."
"The real me?" I laughed, and it echoed off the concrete walls. "The real me is standing right in front of you. That sweet little doctor they created? She was the fake."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" I walked toward him, and he backed away. Smart guy. "Let me show you something interesting I learned from our friend upstairs."
I held up my hand, and Sebastian could see the knowledge flowing behind my eyes. "They never planned to let me stay as Dr. Evira Grey. This was just phase one. Phase two was to slowly boost my abilities, make me more powerful, till I became the perfect weapon for them to control."
Sebastian's face went gray. "What?"
"That's right, beloved. You didn't save me from becoming a weapon. You just helped them make me into a better one."
"I didn't know," Sebastian whispered. "I swear I didn't know."
"Oh, I believe you," I said. "You were just as much their puppet as I was. The loving husband, willing to do anything to save his wife. Even if it meant handing her straight to them."
I reached out toward him, and Sebastian pressed back against the wall.
"What are you gonna do?" he asked.
"What I should've done a long time ago," I said. "I'm gonna take back everything they stole from me. Starting with the memories of every agent they've ever sent after us."
"And then?"
I smiled again, and this time it was actually warm. Because underneath all the anger and darkness, there was still love. Still the part of me that would die for this man.
"Then I'm gonna show them why they should've left us alone."
The lights in the safe room flickered and died, leaving us in darkness. But I could see just fine. The Memory Walker had always been able to see in the dark.
"Sebastian," I said softly.
"Yeah?"
"When I go upstairs to deal with those agents, I need you to do something for me."
"What?"
"I need you to run. As far and as fast as you can. Because once I start down this path, I won't be able to stop. And I don't want you to see what I become."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Yes, you are," I said. "Because this time, I'm not gonna die. This time, I'm gonna make sure everyone who hurt us pays up. And that's not something the woman you love should have to carry."
I heard him move in the darkness, probably trying to reach for me. But I was already gone, moving through the shadows toward the stairs.
"Evira!" he called after me.
I paused at the bottom of the steps. "For what it's worth, Sebastian, every version of me has loved you. Even this one."
"Then don't do this."
"I have to," I said. "Because this time, I won't let them kill me and bring me back as someone else. This time, I'm staying dead or staying myself. No more resurrections. No more fake lives."
"What if you're wrong? What if the real you is the doctor, and this is just the sickness talking?"
I thought about that for a second. It was possible. I'd been wrong before.
"Then you'll know soon enough," I said. "Because if I'm wrong, if I really am just a monster wearing her face, then you'll have to stop me."
"I can't kill you again."
"You won't have to," I said. "I'll do it myself before I become something that would break her heart."
I heard him start up the stairs after me, but I was faster. Always had been. By the time he reached the study, I was already in the living room, looking down at the three agents. Two were still conscious, backing toward the door. The third was still on the floor where I'd left him.
"Gentlemen," I said pleasantly. "I think we need to have a chat."
The conscious agents pulled their guns, but they were thinking like normal people. They weren't thinking like someone who could reach into their minds and turn off their ability to pull a trigger.
Both guns clattered to the floor as I smiled at them.
"Now," I said, walking closer. "Let's talk about your employer's retirement plan."
Behind me, I heard Sebastian reach the top of the stairs.
"Evira," he said. "Don't do this. This isn't who you are."
I turned to look at him, and for a second, I wasn't sure which one of us was right. Was I Dr. Evira Grey, the gentle healer who helped people forget their pain? Was I Evira Black, the loving wife who just wanted to live in peace with her husband? Or was I the Memory Walker, the monster who could reach into someone's mind and rip out their soul?
Maybe I was all three.
Maybe that was the point.
"You're right," I said to Sebastian. "This isn't who I am. But it's who I need to be right now."
I turned back to the agents and pressed my palms to their heads.
"Let's see what else your bosses have been hiding from us, okay?"
The last thing I heard before the memories crashed over me was Sebastian whispering my name like a prayer.
Or maybe like a goodbye.