Oliver (Project Arma Book 7)

Tori studied the Colorado River. Picturing her body floating in the water, unconscious, wound to the head, wasn’t comfortable.

She dragged her eyes away to look at Oliver. “So this is where the hikers found me?”

They were just outside of Buchanan Lake Village. There was nothing in the area but parkland. No buildings. No businesses. Nothing.

“According to the police report that Jobs pulled up.” Oliver walked beside Tori. He placed his hand on the small of her back. Warmth penetrated through the material of her clothes to her skin. “Let’s walk up the stream. See if we find anything.”

Tori nodded.

When Oliver had suggested that morning that they search the area where she was found, she was totally on board. She hated days of no progress. She wasn’t sure if this would help, but she was willing to give it a try.

Not that she was completely concentrating on her surroundings. Her mind was busy thinking about Oliver. About the questions that had been bugging her.

Tori shot a sideways glance his way. “Did you meet Adrien when you served?”

Oliver ran a hand through his hair. Was it just her, or did he appear uncomfortable? “Yeah. We were part of a government project together.”

“What was the project?”

“To work on our recovery and learn how to train more efficiently.”

She stepped over a large rock, feeling Oliver’s hand slide to her elbow. She already felt a trail of goose bumps scattering across her skin from the simple touch. “Did the project achieve its goal?”

Oliver took a few seconds to answer. “It helped improve our recovery time and training. Yes.”

Why did he sound so uncomfortable talking about it? “How did Adrien become your enemy?”

He brushed a hand over his frustrated expression. “Tori, I think we should concentrate on our surroundings. Me talking will only be a distraction.”

He didn’t need to be speaking to be a distraction. “If I was unconscious in the river, how would I remember any of this?”

“We don’t know how long you were in the water. If we find the point where you fell in, you may remember.”

“Shot in.”

Oliver frowned. “What?”

“I didn’t fall in, I was shot into the water.” No memories needed to know that. “Or pushed in after I was shot. Tossed in from the riverbank.”

His jaw tensed. “Fine.” He turned and studied her head. “How’s the wound, by the way?”

“It’s fine. Almost healed.” Luckily, it hadn’t been too severe to begin with.

“Sorry.” Oliver looked ahead again but the frown between his brows remained. “I should have asked earlier. Checked in.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not your responsibility.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but didn’t.

Tori sighed. The man wasn’t forthcoming with his emotions, that was for sure.

The next ten minutes passed in silence. Nothing around her ignited any memories. Maybe Oliver was right. Maybe she was too distracted.

“I don’t think this is going to work.” Tori negotiated her way around a bush. Oliver helped by pulling the branches aside. “The doctor said that memories are fragile. My mind will remember when it’s ready and there’s no point in trying to force anything.”

She kicked a stone and watched it ripple across the river.

“We’re not trying to force anything.” Oliver stepped in front of Tori as the bank between the trees and water grew narrow. “We’re giving your brain a little helping hand.”

Tori scoffed. Her brain felt like it needed a bit more than a helping hand. It needed a memory card inserted.

“There’s a chance it could take me years to remember who I am.” Jeez, if anything was going to depress her, it was that.

“It won’t.”

The guy was always so damn confident, wasn’t he?

Tori studied his body from behind. His tight shirt stretched over his muscled back. His shorts showed enough leg to prove there wasn’t a shred of fat there.

What had it felt like to be with him…to touch him?

“That weekend…was I different?”

She distinctly heard the sigh from Oliver, but he didn’t stop walking. “You were the same but…a bit different, yeah.”

“Different how?”

“Every so often, when you thought I wasn’t watching, a contemplative expression would cross your face. A frown here and there. At the time, I thought it might have been work stress. Or stress from other parts of your life.”

At the time. “Now you’re not so sure?”

“Now I’m not so sure.”

He didn’t even try to hide his distrust this time.

“Do you think a bad past can be forgivable?”

He held a branch up for her to duck under, then he picked up his pace. “Some.”

Some. Not all. He didn’t need to say that last part.

So, she just had to hope she hadn’t been intending to kill the guy. She didn’t feel like a killer. As in, she hadn’t had the urge to hurt anyone since waking in the hospital. That was good, right?

Oliver was now a fair few yards in front of Tori. No worries, buddy. You go ahead.

Was he trying to avoid more conversation? The idea frustrated her, and she stopped walking. He kept moving, fueling her irritation. Was it so terrible that she wanted answers about his past and whether she was forgivable?

Given the circumstances, he seemed pretty damn unreasonable. It was like he wanted to help her, but only on his terms. Well, that didn’t quite work for her.

When he was a good hundred yards away and didn’t look close to stopping, Tori huffed out an annoyed breath and finally started to move forward. Immediately, her foot slid off the edge of a large rock, her ankle rolling and pain running up her leg. Crying out, Tori tumbled sideways, right into the river. Her entire body dropped under the water, the chill sweeping through her system.

She was only under for a second before a hand latched onto her upper arm, ripping her clear out in one tug. She landed on the river embankment—staring at Oliver in shock.

Tori didn’t pay attention to her cold limbs or the throbbing pain radiating from her ankle. Oliver had just run more than a hundred yards in under a second.

That wasn’t normal. Not even close.

“Jesus, Tori, are you okay?”

Was she okay? No. She wanted to know what the hell was going on. “What are you?”

His body went unnaturally still. “What?”

“You were way ahead of me. You shouldn’t have been able to pull me out of the water so quickly. And last night, the speed you had to use to get to me…that wasn’t normal either.”

Oliver remained still. Studying her. Probably thinking of an answer that would pass for the truth.

She wasn’t in the mood for lies. She needed at least one certainty in her uncertain world right now.

At the sound of a body hitting water, Oliver whipped around to see Tori sink below the surface of the river.

He was beside her in seconds. Crouching, grabbing her arm and yanking her from the water. His jaw clenched. This was his fault. He could kick his own ass.

He inspected her body. “Jesus, Tori, are you okay?”

He shouldn’t have walked so far ahead. He’d done it because touching her, even just her back, had been wreaking havoc on his system. Hell, he’d been moments away from yanking the woman into his arms. Distance to calm himself had felt necessary.

He hadn’t counted on the possibility of her falling into the damn river.

“What are you?”

Oliver went still at the question. “What?”

Anger crossed her delicate features. “You were way ahead of me. You shouldn’t have been able to pull me out of the water so quickly. And last night, the speed you had to use to get to me…that wasn’t normal either.”

He’d given himself away. Last night, and just now, he’d been careless. So anxious to save the woman, he’d put all his energy into protecting her rather than his secret.

Not that he would ever choose differently.

He debated over what to tell her. What kind of answer she would accept. “I was a Navy SEAL, Tori. We’re trained to be fast.”

Her eyes narrowed before she started pushing to her feet. Oliver grabbed her arm to help, but Tori yanked it away, almost falling over again in the process. He could have maintained his hold, but didn’t want to bruise her.

“I really appreciate your help, Oliver, but what you don’t seem to realize is that I’m putting my entire trust in you. Making myself vulnerable.”

Oliver opened his mouth to tell her he would never hurt her, but she continued before he could.

“In my dream, Adrien told me he was more than human. Deadlier than any species on Earth. He showed me his strength. Are you like him?”

She knew? “Why did you keep that from me?”

“That’s not an answer.”

Tori turned and began to walk back the way they came. No, not walk, limp back the way they came. He studied her ankle, noticing for the first time how swollen it was. Slight bruising was already visible.

Jesus Christ.

“Tori…” He reached for her arm, but again, she pulled it back so hard that if he didn’t let go, he was certain she’d injure herself. “You can’t walk on that. I’ll carry you.”

She didn’t stop. She didn’t even turn her head. Stubborn woman.

“I don’t want anything from you but the truth. And don’t tell me what to do—I lost my memory, not my ability to think for myself.”

“Could have fooled me,” Oliver muttered loudly enough for her to hear.

Immediately, Tori spun around and limped back to him. He had to clench his fists to stop from grabbing her and lifting her off her injured foot.

She poked her finger at his chest. “Don’t. You have no idea what it’s like to lose all your memories! To lose yourself. I’m trying to piece things together, and right now, I’m asking if you’re like Adrien. I know I should have told you about him earlier. I know you don’t have to tell me—”

“I am.”

“No. You’re not. I—”

“No.” Oliver took hold of her wrist, sure that she was about to break her finger with her aggressive poking. “I am like him.”

Christ, his team was going to kill him. But the woman already knew. Confirmation or not, she knew.

“You are?”

“Yes. And so are the guys who run Marble Protection with me.”

Some of the fight left her eyes. “How is that possible?”

“That project I told you about? It was actually a cover for something else. They gave us drugs that altered our DNA and turned us into the ultimate soldiers. I’m faster and stronger than I should be. I heal faster. I see in the dark. I hear more than I should.”

With every word Oliver spoke, Tori’s eyes widened. “You don’t look any different than a normal person.”

Oliver grimaced. “It didn’t change our appearance.” What did she expect? Purple veins popping out of his arms and horns on his head? “Why didn’t you tell me about Adrien?”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “When I woke up, I was so fixated on Charlie and the fear of running away. Then…I don’t know. I guess I was scared at what you might say. Scared at what it meant. Then when I saw how fast you were last night…” She shrugged. “I just wanted you to confirm it for me.”

That’s what he’d thought. It was probably why she was taking it so well.

“Did you roll your ankle on purpose? To see what I would do?”

Tori rolled her eyes but there was a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I’m not that desperate. If it came to it though, I might have attacked you to test how fast your reflexes were.”

“Ah, yes. That might have worked. Except for the fact that even without my super-strength and speed, I’m pretty damn fast and strong.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I am too.”

She wasn’t altered. He knew that. “You took the information really well.” It wasn’t every day you found out someone had altered DNA.

The small smile slipped from her lips. “Maybe it wasn’t the first time I found out.”

There was a beat of silence. It felt heavy. He didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. She wasn’t talking about finding out when Adrien attacked. She was talking about finding out before that. Before she met Oliver.

Sighing, she glanced over Oliver’s shoulder. “Do we keep going?”

“You’re soaking wet and your ankle needs ice and elevation. I can see you’re already struggling to stand. So no.”

She looked down and studied her foot. “It’s not too bad.”

“I forgot to mention, one of my super powers is that I can spot a lie. Can I carry you back to the car?”

If she said no, he was fully prepared to throw the woman over his shoulder. She wasn’t walking on that thing. No way.

She shrugged. “Of course you can. You’re the strongest species on Earth.”

Shaking his head, Oliver lifted Tori into his arms, liking the way she snuggled into his chest way too much.

“Are you? The strongest species on Earth?”

Oliver began walking toward the car, not caring that his shirt was getting drenched. “No idea. It hasn’t been tested.” Tori leaned her head on his chest. His heart gave a strange kick.

“So, Adrien’s an enemy because he was part of the project?”

“Yes. His team is helping our former commander, Hylar, keep the project alive. Hylar is the co-creator of Project Arma.” They’d just killed the other co-creator, Sinclair. But Tori didn’t need to know every dirty detail.

She touched her hand to his chest. “I can hear the pain in your voice. I’m sorry.”

His feet slowed as he glanced down at her. Real empathy showed in her eyes. It was an empathy he was certain couldn’t be faked.

Yet again, he was hit with the thought that this woman couldn’t have been fighting for the wrong side. Not intentionally.

“Thank you.”