Neutralization.
I swallowed. "What does that mean?"
She looked up at me.
"It means if she gets too close to the real you, we destroy her."
The next morning, I got a letter.
Slipped under my door. No return name. No handwriting.
Just one line typed on a clean, white strip of paper:
> You're being watched. Again.
> "What if you're not just remembering, Adrian?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if the real you never came back?"
---
The letter burned in my hand.
You're being watched. Again.
I stared at it long enough for the words to imprint themselves behind my eyelids. When I blinked, they stayed.
Rhea was still asleep—if you could call it that. She'd curled up in the art room under a frayed old tarp, one hand still wrapped around the scalpel tucked under her sleeve.
I didn't wake her.
Instead, I walked. Quiet. Slow. Every creak of the wood beneath my shoes felt like a siren.
I needed answers.
And there was only one person left alive I could get them from.
Dr. Harrow.
---
The infirmary was colder than it should've been.
Too clean. Too silent. The scent of antiseptic bit at my tongue.
I didn't knock. I opened the door, stepped in, and shut it behind me. Locked it.
Dr. Harrow didn't look surprised to see me.
She sat behind her desk like a statue carved out of frost, her silver-rimmed glasses catching the overhead light. Her hands folded neatly over a pale folder labeled:
> VALE, ADRIAN. — Clearance Level: 6
"Should've known you'd come eventually," she said softly.
I walked forward, slow and deliberate, until the edge of her desk kissed my waist.
"What did you do to me?"
Her smile was brittle. "Nothing you didn't sign off on."
> "I was twelve."
"Even children can consent—if the contract is rewritten enough times."
I slammed my fist on the desk. Hard. The folder didn't move.
"What was Project Fenrir?"
She tilted her head. "A solution. You were unstable. So was she."
Rhea.
My pulse spiked. "What did you do to her?"
She didn't blink. "Rhea wasn't supposed to come back. She's... incomplete. You were our perfect result. She was a failed prototype."
I took a step back like she'd hit me.
A failed prototype.
But Rhea had survived. Fought. Remembered.
And me?
I hadn't even known I was a lie.
---
She slid the folder toward me. "Go on. Take it."
I hesitated.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it? The truth?"
My fingers curled around the edge of the file.
It was thick. Dozens of pages. Photographs. Brain scans. Observation notes. A signature that was mine but younger, shakier.
I flipped through the first page.
Subject Name: Adrian Vale
Conditioning Start Date: March 12
Memory Alteration Trials: 19
Success Rate: 97%
Current Identity Stability: Pending
Emotional Attachments: Unstable. Requires neutralization.
Neutralization.
I swallowed. "What does that mean?"
She looked up at me.
"It means if she gets too close to the real you, we destroy her."
---
I left before I did something I couldn't take back.
The file weighed like a bomb in my hands.
But outside the infirmary, something changed.
The halls weren't empty anymore.
The students were out—but something was wrong.
They walked in sync. Expressions blank. Their footsteps timed like metronomes. Prefects stood at every hallway turn, eyes alert, pupils pinpricked.
They weren't just activated.
They were reset.
Like a system purge had wiped everything human out of them overnight.
And I realized something then—
The letter wasn't a warning.
It was a test.
Someone knew I remembered.
And they were watching to see what I'd do with it.
---
I didn't go back to Rhea immediately.
Instead, I walked into my own dorm room—stared at the floorboards beneath my desk.
The loose panel.
The one I always told myself was just warped wood.
I pulled it up.
And there, wrapped in worn cloth, was a photograph.
Old. Folded. Torn at the edges.
Me. Her. Rhea, before the gloves. Me, before the eyes went dark.
We were smiling.
> We'd been happy.
Once.
Before they rewrote us.
---
When I finally returned to the art wing, Rhea was gone.
Only a single glove lay folded on the floor.
And scratched into the wall with something sharp were three words:
> "Don't trust them."
Absolutely. Here's Chapter Fifty-One of She Was Never Yours — where the academy turns on itself, and the hunt for Rhea begins.
> "Where is she?"
"Someplace they can't predict."
"That doesn't exist, not here."
"Exactly."
---
The alarm wasn't loud.
It was low. A constant hum vibrating through the walls, the floor, the blood in my teeth.
The academy was locking down.
Sector gates slammed shut with the sound of metal teeth. The air vents hissed like snakes. One by one, the exits blinked red.
I stood in the hallway outside the art room, still clutching the glove she left behind. The fabric smelled like turpentine and chalk and something I couldn't name but wanted to bottle and keep under my skin.
> She was gone.
Not taken.
Not caught.
But gone—like she planned it.
And the writing on the wall?
That wasn't for anyone else.
It was for me.
---
"Don't trust them."
I didn't.
Not anymore.
But the problem wasn't trust. It was control.
I turned on my heel and walked fast. Not to my dorm. Not to the library. Not to any of the places they'd expect.
I went underground.
To the tunnels.
To the chamber where it all began.
---
The stairwell was darker than usual. Moisture ran down the walls like sweat. Every third light flickered, casting broken shadows behind me.
I reached the old metal door and punched in the code I'd found in the back of the file:
> VAL-01947X
It hissed open.
Inside, it was all white tiles and bloodstains.
There were chairs with wrist straps. A wall of observation monitors. A surgical sink. And in the far corner, a broken mirror covered with black marker writing.
> "You are not him."
"He died in cycle 17."
"This version bites back."
I walked to the control panel and touched the screen.
ACCESS RESTRICTED. AUTHORITY OVERRIDE REQUIRED.
Then I saw it—a retinal scanner.
I leaned in.
Let it see what I'd become.
> ACCESS GRANTED.
Files opened. Screens lit up. Footage began to play.
And I saw her.
Rhea.
Strapped to a table, years ago.
Not screaming. Not struggling.
Just staring, eyes burning through the camera lens.
Then a voice.
Mine.
Except it wasn't.
Not exactly.
> "Subject A—response to conditioning: compliant but emotionally defiant. We suggest neural loop correction or permanent removal."
"Subject R—nonresponsive to tactile pain. High memory retention. Unpredictable. Dangerous."
I couldn't breathe.
They knew she'd never forget.
That's why they tried to erase me first.
---
Then the screen went black.
A single line appeared across the center.
> "She's gone dark."
Then another:
> "Terminate Project R."
---
I ran.
Back up the stairwell. Back through the twisting halls