Adrian's pov:
I was never meant to get this far.
That much was obvious.
But I wasn't going back.
I gripped the keycard like it was a weapon, because maybe it was. Maybe it always had been.
And as I stepped into the tunnel under the library, with Rhea just behind me, I realized something terrifying.
This wasn't about uncovering what was hidden.
This was about choosing which lie to die for.
And I wasn't done choosing.
Not yet.
Here is Chapter Sixty-One of She Was Never Yours, where the descent beneath St. Augustine's becomes a journey through manufactured identity, and the truth begins to kill what remains of who Adrian thought he was.
Adrian's pov:
The tunnel stank of old electricity and salt.
I didn't ask why. I didn't ask where the salt came from, or why the walls were lined with soft, humming metal.
I didn't want to know the answer.
Rhea walked ahead of me now. No hesitation. No apology.
Every time her boot hit the floor, the lights flickered above us, like they recognized her.
We passed doors. Dozens. All unmarked, except for long numerical codes etched in faint white:
> 012-001: Retired Subject.
016-003: Subsumed.
019-000: Active Memory Host.
"That's you," I said, pointing at the last one.
She didn't answer.
I stopped walking.
"That's you, isn't it?"
Rhea finally turned around. Her voice was calm.
"It was."
---
Rhea's pov:
There is a line you cross when you stop being someone, and start being something.
That line was deep underground.
Beneath the school. Beneath the truth. Beneath the person Adrian used to be.
We entered the chamber.
It was colder than any place I'd ever been. Not from air conditioning—but from the way it rejected life.
The walls were mirrors. But not ours. The reflections stared back at us with different expressions.
Different versions.
On one side of the room, I saw Adrian.
Not him—but the first iteration. Subject 001. Blond instead of dark-haired. Blue eyes. The perfect son.
On another side—I saw me.
Not in gloves.
Not silent.
She was smiling.
> "Hello again," the voice said. It wasn't human.
"Welcome back to the Mother Root."
Adrian's pov
The voice crawled over my skin.
Not like sound.
Like memory.
Something inside my skull throbbed. Something reacted.
Rhea stood still.
The air vibrated.
> "Host 001. You have breached null clearance thresholds.
Do you wish to proceed with deconstruction?"
Deconstruction.
Of what?
"Talk to me," I snapped at Rhea.
She was crying. Silent. Hands trembling at her sides.
"They'll erase you if you don't walk away now," she whispered.
"But you knew that."
I did.
And I didn't care.
---
System Transcript: MOTHER – Internal Log
> Subnet 'St. Augustine's Academy' breached by non-compliant host.
Redundant memory implants failing.
Organic resistance to erasure increasing.
Host 001 remains unstable.
> Initiate Merge Protocol.
> Reveal containment files:
RHEA-VX.0: Origin Host.
VALE-01: Memory Receptacle.
PROJECT: SHE-WAS-NEVER-YOURS: Status: Breached.
---
Rhea's pov:
He turned to me.
"I want the truth," he said.
And I knew what I had to do.
I stepped forward, placed my palm against the cold mirrored panel labeled with my name—and let the system open me.
The glass slid away.
Behind it—
Another me.
Asleep.
Plugged into wires.
Perfect.
Unmarked.
Not me at all.
Adrian backed away like he'd been burned.
"That's you?"
I nodded.
"That's who they want me to be."
And then I looked at him.
"And you, Adrian... you're not the first. But you're the last one I'll ever let them take."
Adrian's pov:
She watched me like I was the dangerous one.
Not the lab. Not the wires. Not the girl in the glass tank that looked like her.
Me.
Maybe she was right.
Because every part of me wanted to touch that glass.
To break it open.
To see if that version would love me without secrets. Without silence. Without scars.
And that thought made me sick.
"What the hell is going on," I whispered.
Rhea's voice cracked.
> "They gave you pieces of her.
Memory fragments. Chemical bias.
All designed so you'd love her without knowing why."
I backed up.
"No."
"You were built to belong to me."
---
Rhea's pov:
I didn't want to show him this.
But the moment I saw the way he looked at her—at the girl in the tank—I knew I had to.
I walked to the second chamber.
It was smaller.
Darker.
No mirrors.
Just a chair. Metal restraints. Needles still stained with dried blood.
The plaque read:
> ORIGIN: ECHO-000. NAME REASSIGNED: RHEA VIRELLE.
I waited for him to understand.
He didn't.
So I said it for him.
> "That's not me, Adrian.
I was the first. The control subject.
She was created later… to replace me when I stopped cooperating."
---
Adrian
I wanted to scream.
I didn't.
I walked up to the glass and stared at her. Not Rhea.
The girl who had her face.
She was beautiful. More than that—she was clean.
No bruises. No burns. No traces of what we'd suffered together.
"Why did they make her?"
Rhea didn't hesitate.
"Because I remembered too much."
> "You weren't supposed to love me, Adrian.
You were supposed to love her."
I turned back to the real Rhea.
The girl whose voice never rose. Who always wore gloves. Who cried without sound.
And I felt something I hadn't expected:
Rage.
---
System Log: Active Host Deviation Detected
> Host 001 is engaging in non-scripted emotional reaction.
Merge Instability: 87%
Final Override Imminent.
> SUBJECT: RHEA
Status: Unstable
Emotional resistance detected.
Recommendation: Neutralize emotional host.
---
Rhea
He reached for my hand.
Not hers.
Mine.
And something in me cracked.
Because for the first time in years, I felt seen.
Not as a file. Not as a subject. Not as the echo of someone cleaner, easier to love.
But me.
Adrian squeezed my hand like a promise.
> "I don't want the version they gave me."
And when the alarms began to scream—
When the lights turned red and the floor beneath us shuddered like something monstrous had been woken—
He didn't let go.
---
Adrian's pov:
"I'm going to burn it down," I said.
Rhea looked at me like I was insane.
I probably was.
But I meant it.
> "The tank. The mirrors. The files.
I want it gone.
I don't want a version. I want you."
Even if she was broken.
Even if she'd lied.
Even if the system wanted her dead.
She smiled.
And for the first time—
It wasn't empty.
Adrian's pov:
The sirens were so loud it felt like they were inside my skull.
Red light pulsed like a heartbeat, drenching the lab in a fevered glow. Somewhere above us, something groaned—metal on metal, as if the ceiling itself was deciding whether to collapse.
But I didn't let go of her hand.
Not once.
> "Run," I said.
We didn't ask where.
Didn't plan. Didn't think.
Rhea kicked open the emergency door. Her gloves were already off, and I could see the raw lines on her palms—scars like fault lines, like the kind of damage that never fully healed.
The corridor was narrow and smelled like antiseptic and secrets. Wires snaked across the walls, blinking with coded lights.
Behind us, the tank room went dark.
One version of her died in silence.
I didn't look back.
---
Rhea's pov:
The lab wasn't just a lab.
It was a system. A prison. A blueprint.
And I knew every corner of it.
I pulled Adrian behind me, turning left when the hall split, ducking beneath a half-shattered door when the motion sensors failed to recognize me.
> "They'll try to cut off power," I said breathlessly. "Trap us between the floors. We have six minutes, maybe less."
He didn't ask how I knew.
He just ran faster.
The worst part wasn't the alarms.
It was the silence between them—like the system was watching, recalibrating.
And when the voice finally returned over the speakers, it wasn't mechanical.
It was hers.
> "Adrian Vale. You've been compromised."
She sounded like me.
Not exactly.
Too smooth. Too practiced.
But close enough to break something in me all over again.
> "Please return to your assigned memory corridor. This emotional deviation will be corrected."
Adrian stopped.
Just for a second.
Then he looked at me like I was the only thing tethering him to reality.
"I choose her," he said out loud. "Not the corridor."
---
Adrian's pov:
I didn't even know how deep we were underground.
But it felt endless.
Steel stairs. Dead-end vaults. Rooms lined with cryo-chambers that hummed like they were breathing.
> "What is this place?" I demanded.
Rhea didn't answer.
She just walked to one of the sealed doors, placed her hand against the sensor, and whispered:
> "Not everything they erased stayed gone."
The door opened.
Inside wasn't another lab.
It was a gallery.
Hundreds of screens. Each playing memories. Mine. Hers. Ours.
> The first time I saw her in the hallway. The way I felt when she ignored me. The moment I realized I wanted to destroy anything that kept her from looking at me again.
They had filmed it all.
Every feeling. Every flicker of obsession.
Rhea turned to me, shaking.
> "They wrote your love like a formula."
> "But they didn't expect you to deviate."
---
System Log: Fatal Divergence Detected
> Emotional host has reached threshold. Override impossible. Subject: Adrian Vale no longer compatible with scripted timeline.
Purge Protocol Initiated.
---
Rhea
I saw it before he did.
The purge drones. Silver, crawling things with red eyes like cracked glass.
I grabbed a pipe off the wall and swung it at the nearest one.