Ellie
I dream about water now.
Not the ocean. Not rain. The kind that fills your lungs before you can scream.
The water hits my face like a slap, icy-cold, filling my nose, my mouth, my lungs. I gasp, choking, but there's no air, only the suffocating rush of liquid pouring over me, relentless, drowning me in slow waves.
I thrash against the restraints, the leather straps biting into my wrists, my ankles, holding me flat against the metal table. My back arches, muscles burning, but Reed's hands are on my shoulders, holding me down. I can't move, can't turn my head, can't escape.
"She's fighting too much," he grunts.
Grace sighs like I've failed a test. "Then make her stop."
Reed's hands press down on my chest, and my ribs compress, pinning me flat. His full weight bears down, crushing the air from my lungs even before the water comes. I try to scream, but the sound is swallowed by another torrent flooding my mouth.
I can't breathe.
I can't think.
I can only feel. The weight crushing my chest, the burn of my lungs. I can't see through the cloth and the rush of the water, but I can hear her.
"You're doing so well," she coos, stroking my cheek. "Just a little longer."
His fist drives into my stomach, forcing what little air I have left from my lungs, and the pain blurs with the drowning, the terror. My vision flickers, black at the edges.
I don't know if I'm going to pass out or die.
Then — air.
I gasp, coughing up water, my body convulsing. Reed steps back, and I hear him breathing hard. Exertion or enjoyment, I can't tell. Grace leans over me, her lips brushing my ear.
"Now," she whispers, "let's try again."
And the water comes again. And again. And again.
Until I forget my own name.
Until I forget I was ever anything but theirs.
Today, there’s no water. No drowning. Just Reed leading me, another hallway, another room, another lesson Grace wants to teach me.
I almost miss the water. At least drowning has an end point.
Reed’s massive hands ensure I can't resist the restraints he's secured around my wrists. The corridor seems longer today. Or maybe I’m weaker?
Seventeen days. I heard a new guard say it this morning outside my door, like it was nothing. Just a number. But seventeen days since I’ve seen sunlight. Since I’ve eaten without permission. Since I felt human.
I can feel my hipbones rubbing against the fabric when I walk.
Seventeen days of Grace’s mercy.
The woman who arrived at this facility weeks ago feels like a stranger now. She had fight. Morals. Some unshakeable sense of right and wrong. This version of me is hollow-eyed, compliant, and breaking down under Grace's relentless manipulation.
I barely recognize her.
My legs shake. Whatever Grace puts in my water, the sleep deprivation, the meals she controls? It’s all catching up.
I catch Reed’s eyes lingering on my body. On the bruises on my wrists from yesterday’s restraints. His hungry gaze makes my skin crawl.
But worse than his desire is the creeping realization that part of me has begun to anticipate his attention.
I hate that it’s working. I hate that I’ve begun to look forward to Grace’s sessions because they mean human interaction. I hate that Reed’s presence has become familiar rather than purely terrifying.
Most of all, I hate that my psychologist training—the one thing that should protect me from myself—has become the weapon Grace uses most effectively.
"Where today?" I ask, though I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
“Library, pretty girl.” God, I hate it when he calls me that.
Of course Grace would choose a fucking library.
She knows I love books. Knowledge. Research.
Now she’s using that against me too.
Reed opens the heavy oak doors, and I understand why.
The library is magnificent. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves, burgundy leather furniture, Persian rugs over hardwood floors. It could be my office, if my office had locked doors and a guard who wants to hurt me.
Warm lamplight dances through the stacks. The scent of old paper and leather mingles with something sharper. Antiseptic. The smell that follows Grace everywhere.
It ruins everything.
Grace sits in a wingback chair near the fireplace. No fire today. Just cardboard boxes stacked in the hearth where flames should be. She's in a cream cashmere sweater. Tailored trousers. She looks like she’s about to lecture at Harvard, not destroy someone’s life.
“Dr. Hart.” She rises to greet me like I’m a colleague. A peer. Not someone whose guard just dragged down a hallway in cuffs.
Reed guides me to a leather chair across from Grace. I feel the click of metal on metal around the chair legs as he restrains my ankles to hidden anchor points.
Reed steps back, blocking the door. But surrounded by books, leather-bound spines and academic journals, his presence feels almost normal. Like he’s another part of the furniture.
I hate that I’m getting used to him.
"Much better," Grace says, settling back into her chair. "Today we begin your real research, Ellie. You need to understand that loving Killian means loving what your father created. Not the man. The weapon.”
She says it like she’s giving me a gift.
"Reed, would you bring me the first box, please?"
Reed's heavy footsteps echo against the hardwood as he retrieves one of the containers from the hearth. When he sets it on the coffee table between Grace and me, I can see the label clearly:
PROJECT GHOST - PHASE I DOCUMENTATION.
My blood turns cold.
“Your father’s research.” Grace lifts the box lid. “And how it enabled Project Ghost.”
She pauses, lets that land.
“Fascinating reading.”
She withdraws a thick manila folder, its edges worn from handling.
Someone’s read these documents often. When she opens it, I can see my father's original papers on trauma rehabilitation, but they're paired with other documents bearing different signatures: Dr. Michael Peters, Dr. Sarah Virgo, and Dr. James Whitmore.
“I thought we might read together. Like a book club. But rather more educational.” She smiles. “About how good intentions can be repurposed.”
Reed settles into a chair positioned where he can watch both Grace and me, his dark eyes showing unusual interest in the proceedings.
Grace selects a document. Her finger traces the first line.
Then she reads.
"Building upon Dr. Gregory Hart’s foundational work, we have successfully inverted his rehabilitation theories.”
Inverted. Like my father’s compassion could be flipped inside out, turned into something dark.
“Subject displays exceptional resilience to standard conditioning.” Grace continues. “Recommend enhanced psychological pressure techniques adapted from Hart’s Phase II therapeutic trials.”
She looks up at me and slides a document across the table.
“This particular subject proved quite remarkable.”
Dr. Michael Peters’ signature is scrawled across the bottom. I recognize the name from academic conferences. We probably shook hands once.
“Your father’s research on emotional dependency provided the perfect blueprint. When reversed.”
A photograph slips from Grace’s folder, landing face-up on the Persian rug between us. Thundery-gray eyes stare up at me from between her expensive shoes. He can’t be more than sixteen in the photo. Emaciated. Bruised. But I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.
I reach for it before I can stop myself.
Grace’s smile widens.
“Subject K-7.”
My fingers shake as I pick it up.
She reads from Dr. Peter’s notes. "Hart’s attachment theory successfully weaponized. Natural tactical instincts, high pain tolerance..." She pauses, looks at me. “Abandonment issues are ideal for dependency conditioning.”
My father’s research. On Killian’s abandonment. Used to make it worse.
"Stop." The word comes out broken.
“But this is your father’s legacy, Ellie.” Grace’s voice is gentle. Kind, even.
She says it like it’s beautiful.
Grace turns the page.
“Healing requires the gradual restoration of the subject’s sense of self-worth. Your father wrote that.” She traces the next line. “Control requires the systematic destruction of the subject’s sense of identity. We wrote that.”
Perfect mirror images. Light and dark.
Grace withdraws another document, this one with my father’s actual signature. I recognize his handwriting.
The leather chair creaks every time I shift. Small sound. But in this quiet library, it feels like a scream. Grace’s eyes flick to me every time. Watching how I react.
My father’s papers are covered in annotations. Red ink showing how to invert compassion.
“The Ghost Project took every technique your father developed for healing.” Grace’s finger traces the words. ‘We perfected it.’
I close my eyes, but that doesn’t help. I can still hear her voice.
“Initial psychological profile indicates severe trust issues stemming from maternal abandonment and paternal abuse.”
Killian’s entire childhood reduced to a sentence.
“Recommendations: exploiting attachment vulnerabilities through the controlled provision of approval and belonging.”
They saw a traumatized kid and decided to make it worse.
"Dr Peters was quite proud of this particular case," Grace says, withdrawing another document. “Killian’s transformation was remarkable. Eighteen months from homeless to elite operative.”
Grace looks at the photo of young Killian, then at me.
“Your father made that possible.”
“When’d he break?” Reed asks, my head snaps to him. I glare at the side of his face, my jaw clamped so tight it aches.
"Ah yes," Grace replies, flipping through several pages.
"Dr. Peters pushed Hart's work to the extreme. Total sensory deprivation, silence so absolute he could hear his own blood moving through his veins. Seventy-two hours intervals. Even a five-minute session becomes more valuable than food. It makes them addicted to the person who’s hurting them.”
Reed shifts when Grace mentions isolation. For a second, something crosses his face. Not quite recognition. Not quite a memory.
“Make them hungry,” Reed mutters. “Then feed them just enough to keep them loyal.”
Then it’s gone, and he’s back to glaring at me.