> ⚠️ Content Warning: This chapter contains mature themes, including psychological manipulation, obsessive behavior, and intimate scenes. Reader discretion advised.
Absolutely. Here's the next chapter—Chap
They named me A-03.
But that wasn't the beginning.
That was after I broke someone's jaw during a routine obedience test—and smiled while doing it.
That was after I said her name in the middle of sedation and they couldn't understand why.
That was after I proved I couldn't be rewritten… unless they used her.
The file Rhea gave me wasn't just data. It was a map.
And the map led to a folder titled:
> "Protocol: Weaponization of Subject A-03"
I opened it.
And the world didn't tilt this time—it split clean down the center.
ENTRY LOG 019
> Subject A-03 exhibits enhanced neuro-emotional entanglement with Subject V-05.
Pattern observed: voluntary violence increases upon separation.
Recommendation: Pair bond must be exploited to regulate Subject A-03's control threshold.
I read it again.
And again.
They didn't train me to be strong.
They trained me to be addicted.
To her.
There was footage. Monochrome. Bleeding static.
Me—pinned to the floor. Rhea straddling me, a knife against my throat. But I wasn't fighting.
I was smiling.
Because in that moment—I wasn't controlled.
I was alive.
I sat back, breath stuck somewhere in my throat.
"I was their weapon," I said.
"No," Rhea whispered. "You were the experiment they couldn't cage."
She sat across from me, eyes like glass—clear, but reflecting fire.
"They thought you'd kill without conscience. But then you looked at me."
> "And chose not to."
I didn't remember the first time I met her.
But maybe that didn't matter anymore.
Because something deeper than memory was rising now—raw and furious.
A heat I couldn't name.
We were quiet for a long time.
Then I said it:
> "If I was the weapon… what does that make you?"
Rhea didn't blink.
> "The lock. The switch. The insurance policy."
Her voice cracked.
> "They built me to control you, Adrian."
And then she stood up. Slowly. Hands trembling as they reached behind her neck.
She unfastened the chain she always wore.
A key.
My key.
> "But I never wanted to be your cage."
She walked toward me.
Every step felt like thunder.
She sat in my lap.
Breath against breath.
Eyes holding mine.
> "Tell me to stop," she said. "And I will."
But I didn't.
Because in that moment, I wasn't thinking like A-03.
I was just Adrian.
And she was Rhea—or whatever she used to be—and nothing else in the world mattered.
Not resets.
Not files.
Not systems or experiments or ghosts of who we were built to be.
Only this.
Only now.
Only us.
Absolutely. Here's the neChapter Twenty
There are moments you don't forget.
Not because they're burned into you—
But because they feel like the only thing that was ever real.
This was one of them.
Her skin was warm against mine.
Not flawless.
Real.
She kissed me like she was trying to unwrite every file they'd ever forced into her head.
And I let her. Because for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the fire.
I wanted it.
The lights flickered once.
Twice.
Then red emergency glow filled the dorm.
Pattern breach detected.
Subjects in unsanctioned proximity.
A voice—mechanical, echoing—rattled the walls.
> "Emotion spike exceeds protocol parameters.
Manual override required."
She didn't flinch.
She kissed my jaw instead.
> "Let them watch," she whispered.
Her fingers traced the old scar below my ribcage.
The one I never knew the origin of.
> "They put this in you. To test thresholds.
I remember the report. You didn't scream."
> "You did," I said.
She nodded once, breath catching.
Then:
> "I screamed your name."
We didn't stop.
Not even when the static buzzed through the vents.
Not even when the intercom tried flooding our heads with neural white noise.
We just pressed closer—skin to skin, heart to heart.
Not mindless.
Not desperate.
Just… ours.
The silence between us wasn't empty.
It was heavy with knowing.
> "They'll try to separate us again," I whispered against her collarbone.
> "Let them," she said. "They'll fail again."
Later, when the silence returned and the lights reset to white, we sat on the floor.
Back to the wall.
Clothes half-on. Breathing slow.
Her head on my shoulder.
A cable sparked in the ceiling.
"They'll call this a breach," I murmured.
Rhea turned her face to mine.
> "Let them call it what they want.
I call it a choice."
The door buzzed.
Not a knock. A trigger.
Then a soft hiss—like gas venting.
Rhea stood instantly.
Eyes alert. Pupils sharp.
"Time's up," she said.
I looked around.
Smoke drifted beneath the door.
Not fire. Not scent.
Memory suppressant.
They were trying to wipe us again.
But I wasn't going to let them.
Not this time.
We staggered into the hallway, hands locked.
Behind us, the room fizzled out. Every trace of us—burned clean.
Ahead?
We didn't know.
But maybe it didn't matter.
Because we weren't running anymore.
We were breaking out.
They called it the White Room.
No windows.
No doors from the inside.
Just walls that pulsed with light.
We found it through the old west wing—a place students weren't allowed. Hidden behind an anatomy lab, past a sealed elevator shaft, and down a hallway that didn't exist on any blueprint.
The second we stepped in, the hum started.
Low. Bone-deep.
Rhea stopped breathing.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
> "This was where they took me first," she whispered.
"Before they gave me the gloves. Before I forgot what my name was."
Her fingers trembled in mine.
She reached for the wall.
Brushed it gently.
Then flinched.
> "It's not paint," she said. "It's blood memory. Burned clean."
I pulled out the old drive she'd given me.
It vibrated in my palm.
The wall opposite us flickered.
And then a voice crackled through hidden speakers.
Not the robotic one this time.
A human one.
Familiar.
> "You weren't supposed to remember this place, A-03."
I froze.
The voice…
It wasn't just from the system.
It was from my father.