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“You remember the labs?” Dash asked then.
“I remember him.” But the memories were returning and she knew it. She could feel them moving inside her, gripping her soul with sharp talons and raking across it.
The pain was almost enough to steal her breath. She refused to look at Seth, refused to let him see fear in her eyes again.
“Dawn, it’s not possible,” Callan snapped. “I made certain of it.”
She inhaled roughly and turned back to him. “I saw those tapes, over and over, for years,” she whispered. “Dayan made me watch them, Callan. For hours on end. I know his voice. I remember his eyes and I remember his scent. Like a rotting soul mixed with the scent of the man. I remember it.” Her eyes locked with his and she flinched at the pain she read there. “He managed to escape, or he wasn’t there when the labs blew. But it was him.”
Callan’s fists clenched as he glanced over at Seth. Dawn refused to follow his gaze, refused to let Seth see what she was feeling, the panic beginning to ride inside her, the fear that rolled in her stomach and had the bile gathering at the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Callan suddenly whispered, his face smoothing out, his expression becoming cold, remote. “I failed you again, didn’t I?”
Dawn sighed. “You’re not Superman, Callan. What happened then or now isn’t your fault.”
She ignored Seth’s muttered curse and Ely’s worried gaze as she pushed herself from the pillows. Her wrist was wrapped, her ankle tender, and her head throbbed as though gremlins were ripping holes in her brain.
“Ely, I have a headache.” She sighed tiredly. “Do you have afix?”
“An injection,” she answered. “You have a concussion. I still have yet to treat it.”
“Then treat it before those pickaxes burrowing in my brain do some real damage.” She lifted her hand and gingerly felt the knot at the back of her head.
“Dawn, talk to me,” Callan bit out. “You have to be wrong about this.”
Dawn closed her eyes as Ely prepared the injection. She wasn’t wrong. She wanted to be. They had no idea how much she wanted to be wrong, but every sense had been tuned into her surroundings then. The animal she had learned to control had taken in everything.
“He’s older now,” she mused. “Not as strong, but just as arrogant, and just as cocky. And perhaps more insane than ever. He was possessive. You heard that?”
“He’s playing with you,” Callan snarled. “It’s not the same man.”
“Yeah, it was.” She steeled herself as Ely placed the syringe against her arm and injected the medicine into her system.
She felt distant, separated from what she knew and what she felt.
“He wore gloves and camouflage clothing,” she told them. “A black mask. The clothes were treated to shield his scent, and the smell of Capzasin was wearing off. His voice was a little huskier, but it has a distinctive sound of lust.” She almost, just almost, flinched as the voice from the past echoed around her. “The eyes were the same, but there was more madness in them, as though he’s slipped over an edge that he was teetering on before.”
“You don’t fully remember the labs,” Seth rasped from where he stood beside her. “You said you didn’t remember.”
She swallowed tightly. She felt numb, the numb that comes before realization.
“You should have recognized the voice, Callan. You just don’t want to. I don’t blame you that he’s out there. You can’t kill them all.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter.
The pain was easing in her head, the pressure against her scalp receding as Ely’s drugs began to reduce the headache and the swelling in her brain.
Her fists clenched in the comforter beneath her as she felt those shackles against her flesh again, felt her own blood dampening her skin.
This was going to be bad, she thought. Could she control the pain and the fear that would swamp her when those memories returned?
She touched her forehead and fought them back. All it took was control. She was weak right now; she knew how weak she became when she was concussed, how hard it was to keep from drowning beneath the fogging memories that wanted to roll over her.
“He has my knife.” She could feel the weight missing against her thigh.
Callan cursed as he turned away and paced across the room. Dash watched her silently, and she could feel Seth at her side, the rage barely contained as he fought the information.
“We’ve searched every inch of this island,” Dash finally said. “We’ve found nothing. Whoever he is, he’s hiding himself well.”
“We’ll clear the island,” Seth retorted. “Get the guests out of here and see what he does.”
