“Capzasin.” She licked her dry lips slowly. “I could smell it on him, but it was wearing off even then. I recognized the underlying scent.”
She had to clench her teeth to hold back the fear that wanted to grow inside her then, the panic. Ten years of training and still, it nearly escaped.
“Who?” Seth’s single word echoed with the need for blood.
She stared up at him miserably, wishing she could hold back the words, wishing she could hide what she knew.
“Dawn?” Dash’s voice was lower, commanding. “What did you recognize?”
She turned back to him. Better to see his eyes rather than Seth’s.
“The labs,” she whispered, her gaze flicking to Callan. “The eyes, the voice, the underlying scent. It was the soldier…” She inhaled roughly and jerked her gaze from them, her jaw tightening.
“No.” Callan’s growl rumbled from his throat. “He’s dead. They’re all dead, Dawn.”
She shook her head. “He’s not dead.”
She knew he wasn’t dead. He had touched her, held her down; she had seen his eyes and his smile and she had known. And beneath the sense-numbing scent of Capzasin had been the scent of a unique rot, an evil she didn’t want to remember.
“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.”