> ⚠️ Trigger Warning: This chapter contains dark themes involving mind cvontrol, loss of agency, and intense emotional/sexual content. Proceed with caution.
I didn't sleep.
Again.
Not because of nightmares.
Because of her.
Because of the way she said, "They're watching again," and didn't even flinch.
Like she'd always known this would happen.
Like she'd been waiting for it.
The courtyard was empty by morning, but I still saw her there. That exact moment burned into my skull. The tilt of her head. The look in her eyes.
Fearless.
But not untouched.
I didn't know if I hated her for keeping so much from me, or if I hated myself more—for still wanting her despite it.
Because I did.
Every second.
I found her in the library.
Always the damn library.
Back corner. Table full of old books and one file folder I hadn't seen before.
She didn't look up when I approached.
"I heard it again," she said. "The voice. From the hallway outside my dorm. Same words."
> "Subject interaction unstable. Seduction protocol incomplete. Reinstate or isolate."
My skin went cold.
"They still think this is a test," I muttered.
She finally looked at me.
And then she said it.
Flat. Like a confession that had been rehearsed a hundred times:
> "Adrian. I was supposed to seduce you."
The silence that followed wasn't silent.
It screamed.
"You're joking," I said, but I knew she wasn't.
"I was given a file before I transferred here. Your schedule. Your triggers. Your... preferences."
I stepped back.
But she followed.
"I didn't plan on caring," she said. "I was never supposed to get close. But it didn't go how they wanted. You didn't react the way the files said you would."
I could barely breathe.
"You played me."
"No," she said, and now there was something breaking in her voice. "I was playing you. But then you looked at me like you saw something that wasn't broken. Like I could be something more than a file full of numbers and failed rewrites."
> "And I wanted that to be real."
She stepped closer.
I didn't move.
Her hand brushed mine.
"You were never the target, Adrian," she whispered. "You were the control subject."
"But you fell for me anyway?"
She nodded.
And for once, I saw the girl underneath it all.
Not the calculated one.
Not the cold one.
Just Rhea.
And God help me—I kissed her.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't sweet.
It was war.
Hands in hair. Breathless. Too fast. Too much.
Like we were trying to erase every version of ourselves that had been rewritten.
I pushed her against the stacks and she didn't stop me.
She pulled me closer like she needed to be broken open just to feel something that wasn't programmed.
And in that moment, I didn't care about the system.
I didn't care about the lies.
I didn't care if she was using me, or if I was just another part of the experiment.
> I wanted her.
And she wanted me.
And if this was a game, we were both losing.
Later, breathless and dazed, we lay tangled on the library floor.
She turned her face to mine.
"They'll try to separate us again," she whispered.
"Let them try."
"No," she said softly. "Next time… they'll go for something permanent."
The air was colder the next morning.
Not just the weather. Everything.
Rhea wasn't in class. Her seat sat empty like it had never belonged to anyone. The kind of absence that made people start whispering—but no one dared ask me.
Because no one ever did.
But I noticed. Every second.
And it was driving me insane.
When I got back to my dorm, the door was open.
Inside: silent.
My desk had been rearranged.
There was a new file waiting—no name, just a white tab marked "Memory Loop 17A – LOCKED."
I shouldn't have touched it.
But of course I did.
Inside were transcripts. Pages of them. Timestamps. Codes. Seduction logs.
The first line hit like a punch:
> SUBJECT A-03: FAILED TO RESIST.
SUBJECT V-05: PROGRESSION EXCEEDED LIMIT.
MANUAL RESET INITIATED.
And then a photo.
Not one I'd ever taken.
Not one I could remember.
Me and Rhea—again. But younger. At another facility. My hand around her throat. Her mouth near my ear.
Both of us smiling.
I dropped the file.
The floor tilted beneath me.
How many times?
How many fucking times had they done this to us?
My mind reeled, trying to find something—anything—that hadn't been rewritten. That still felt real.
> Was she even the first girl I'd fallen for?
Or was she the only one I kept choosing, no matter how many times they erased me?
There was a knock.
Soft. Hesitant.
I opened it like I was still in a dream.
Rhea stood there.
Soaked from rain. Her eyes red. Her hands shaking.
But she wasn't crying.
She held up a hard drive.
"They didn't just watch us," she said. "They kept the triggers. All of them. Every time you remembered me too fast, they'd wipe you again."
She stepped in. I didn't stop her.
"They don't want us to love each other," she whispered. "Because love makes us unpredictable. Dangerous. Human."
I stared at her like she wasn't real.
Like if I blinked, she'd vanish.
"How many times?" I asked.
She looked away.
Then held up two fingers.
Then five.
Then paused…
> "Seventeen."
I sat down.
Laughed.
But it wasn't a real laugh. It was a crack.
"They broke us seventeen times," I whispered.
She sat beside me.
"No," she said. "They tried. But if we're still here, Adrian, it means something in us refused to stay broken."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
And this time, I didn't see a girl wrapped in secrets.
I saw a girl who had bled for the right to feel something real.
And somehow… I still wanted her.
Even more than before.
She leaned her forehead against mine.
Her breath was soft.
Her fingers curled into my shirt.
> "They made me the trigger," she whispered.
"But you were the weapon."
"And I think you're starting to wake up."