33. Ellie
ELLIE
Day seven. I know because I've been counting.
Killian is in the chair again. The sun is out, hitting the floor in a way that makes my head ache.
He's been there every morning since the night I asked him to stay, watching me like a target he's not allowed to lose.
Some mornings I wake screaming. Some mornings I don't wake at all.
I just lie there counting the thuds in my chest until I remember I'm not there.
This morning, I wake quiet.
Grace's voice is still there—it's always there—but quieter. Background noise instead of screaming.
He's awake too, watching me with those smoky-gray eyes Grace spent weeks trying to poison. For the first time since the rescue, I feel a moment of clarity, of being fully present in my own mind instead of drifting between nightmare and memory.
"How long?" My voice sounds like it belongs to me again. Almost.
"Five hours," he answers. "No nightmares. At least, none that made you cry out."
That's a record.
A week ago, I couldn't go twenty minutes before the screaming started.
"Kai wants to check on you," he says.
"Okay."
He stands and stretches, his shirt pulling tight across his shoulders. "I'll get him."
"Killian."
He stops at the door.
"Thank you," I say. "For staying... again."
The tension in his shoulders drops. He turns back, and for a second, the hardness in his face disappears. He gives me a small, tired smile. "Anytime, Ellie."
Alone, I check the damage. I'm still stiff, every move a reminder of how long I spent in that basement. My bruises are yellowing now, but the wounds still sting. My head is clearer today, but Grace isn't gone. She's waiting. Watching for a crack in the silence so she can crawl back in.
Kai walks in a few minutes later.
"Look at you, up and functionin'," he says. He's grinning, but his eyes are already scanning me. "Mind if I check the vitals? I need to make sure you're not faking it."
I nod. He approaches, and I shift against the headboard. The oversized shorts bunch up around my legs. He checks my pulse and my pupils. His eyes flick to the stitches on my thighs, but he doesn't touch them.
"You're not dying," he says, stepping back. "The drugs are almost gone. Wounds look clean. You'll have some scars, but you're mending."
"And my head?" I ask.
His grin disappears. "You're broken, Ellie. PTSD, dissociation, the works. But you know where you are. You know who you are. That's more than most people would have left after what she did. You're doing amazing."
"What about the voice?"
"It'll stay. For a while. Maybe forever. You don't cure a voice like that, Ellie. You'll eventually learn to speak so loud you can't hear her anymore."
"Tell me about the rescue," I say. "I only remember bits."
As Kai talks, I try to piece the narrative together, but the details keep slipping through my fingers.
He's talking about doors being kicked in and servers being stripped, but the 'me' he's describing feels like a stranger.
I try to fit his words into the blank spaces in my memory, but nothing fits.
"What was in them?" I ask, my voice sounding distant, even to me. "The files."
Kai's face goes blank. He's a good liar, but I've spent too many years looking at people like him. "That's a talk for when you've got more than three hours of being awake under your belt," he says.
"Killian has it all locked down."
I feel the anger before I can stop it. It's better than being afraid.
"I need to know," I say. "What they did. What they were planning. Everything."
Kai watches my hands shake. He's not grinning anymore.
"I know," he says. He's looking at me like I'm a patient who's about to rip her own stitches out. "But recovery isn't a race. You push too hard, you'll break. And you're barely holding on as it is."
He's right. I can't even hold a cup steady. The liquid ripples against the ceramic, matching the thuds in my chest. I put the cup on the table. I need to know.
"She owned my head for a month. She won't own it for another second. Grace spent weeks stripping me down to nothing. I want my life back. And I want the truth."
Kai studies me for a long moment, then gives a short nod.
"I'll talk to Killian, but he's the one who gets to decide how much of that you get to see.
He knows what's in those files, Ellie, and he isn't in a hurry to let you drown in it.
" He stops at the door and looks back. "If you want them, you're going to have to be the one to ask.
The man responds better to you than the rest of us, anyway. "
It's a concession. Not enough, but it's a start. I nod.
"Try to eat something," he says. "Your stomach isn't going to like it, but you need the fuel. Don't make me tube-feed you because you're being stubborn."
The room goes quiet when he leaves. Recovery feels like a mountain I'm too tired to climb. Even through the exhaustion, the questions won't stop.
I'm not the woman I was before she got her claws into me.
I look at my hands again. They don't feel like mine.
The Japanese have a word for it: broken and made beautiful, kintsukuroi.
Filling the cracks with gold so that the broken thing becomes more beautiful than the whole one was.
I'm not putting the pieces back together the way they were.
I'm building something out of the shards, and these edges are going to be deadly.
I get out of bed. My legs are weak, and they still feel like they don't quite belong to me, but they hold. I make it to the window and lean against the frame. Outside, the mountains are a wall of white-capped stone and empty sky.
Killian is on the deck below. He's leaning hard on the railing, looking out at the stone. His back is broad, tense, and for the first time, he doesn't look lethal. He simply looks tired.
I watch him. Grace tried to make him the face of every nightmare I'll ever have, but the fear is different today. It's not a scream anymore; it's a dull ache. She tried to cut every tie I had to the world, but she missed the one tied to him.
I need to be closer to him. I don't know why. Maybe I’m just afraid that if I’m out of his sight, I'll end up back there. I leave the room, my hands brushing the walls for balance.
The hallway is wide, the floors a dark polished wood that feels cold under my bare feet.
Floor-to-ceiling windows line one side, framing the mountains and the lake below.
The ceilings are high, thirty feet at least, with exposed beams and stone.
Everything is glass and concrete and steel.
Clean. Expensive. Empty. There's no clutter, no warmth.
Just space that makes me feel small and exposed after weeks in rooms where I could touch both walls at once.
I follow the smell of coffee to the kitchen. It's vast with black granite and stainless steel, sharp edges and cold surfaces.
Killian's back is to me. He's in a t-shirt and jeans, his reflection caught in the steel of the fridge. He doesn't turn, but the way his shoulders lock tells me he knows I'm there.
"You shouldn't be up," he says, but he doesn't move to stop me.
"I've spent enough time in bed."
He watches me cross the room, his eyes tracking the way I lean on the counter, the way my legs shake. He doesn't offer help. He knows I need to do this myself.
Being in the kitchen feels weird. It's too bright. Too normal. Sunlight pours through the windows. A kettle hisses on the stove. The air smells like burnt toast. The mundane didn't stop. The world kept turning while I was in that basement.
I pull myself onto a stool at the island. The effort leaves me dizzy, but I stay upright. Killian doesn't move. He watches.
"Coffee?" he offers.
"Please."
He pours a cup and sets it in the middle of the island instead of bringing it to me. The counter is wide enough that I have to reach for it. I wrap my hands around the cup, letting the heat bite into my palms.
We don't talk for a long time. It's strange sitting here like this. No restraints, no questions, no fear that he's about to hurt me. Just coffee and silence.
"Kai says you're doing better than expected," he finally says.
"Yes, although I think up here," I tap the side of my head, "is more complicated."
He nods. "Whatever you need for recovery, you'll have it. Resources, specialists, time. Whatever helps."
"There was something I actually wanted to ask you. I want to see Grace's files. All of them. What she did to me, what she was planning, the other facilities."
"Kai thinks it's too soon." The muscle in his jaw ticks.
"Kai doesn't get to decide what I can handle. I need to understand what happened to me. Not knowing is worse than whatever's in those files."
He sets down his coffee. Looks out the window. When he finally speaks, his voice is flat. "There are seventeen other facilities. Grace was one operator in a larger network."
Seventeen.
The number lodges in my throat. I can't speak for a moment. Can't breathe. Finally: "Other victims. Like me."
"Yes."
"Then I need to see those files." My voice is steadier now. "Not just for myself. For them. I'm a psychologist, Killian. I might see something in Grace's work that you missed. A pattern. A vulnerability. Something that could help get the others out faster."
"You would, I have no doubt about that." He doesn't hesitate. "But you can't help them if you're still broken."
His words hit hard. Broken. I am. But the idea that I have to be whole before I'm useful? That cuts deeper.
"Every day we wait is another day someone else suffers what I suffered. I won't let that happen."
He watches me.
"Killian?"
"Slow," he says. "We go slow."
"Yes."
"With supervision."
"I know."
He nods once. "I'll call Jackson."
"Okay."
We don't talk for a while. I sip my coffee, taking in the mountains.
"Dr. Hart's psychological resilience is impressive," Grace cuts through. "Most subjects would have broken completely by now."
Reed laughed. The sound still crawls under my skin.
"Maybe we should try a different approach."
"Patience, Reed. The conditioning is working. It just requires precision with this one."
My vision tunnels. The kitchen spins. I'm back in the basement, strapped to that table, listening to them discuss me like I'm a lab rat.
My hands shake. The cup rattles against the counter. Coffee sloshes over the rim, burning my knuckles. I hiss and set it down. My breath won't slow.
Killian doesn't move, but his voice cuts through.
"Ellie... you're here. You're safe."
I latch onto his voice. Grace is screaming in my head, but I focus on him. The shaking doesn't stop, but I'm still in the kitchen. He's still here.
"I hate this," I whisper. "Being so fragile. So easily triggered."
"You survived a month of torture designed to break you in every way that matters," he says.
"The fact that you're sitting here, awake and fighting, isn't fragile, Ellie. It's the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a kind of strength I’ve spent my whole life trying to find. Compared to you, I’m just a man who knows how to hide in shadows. "
I want to believe him, I really do.
I've been trying to scrub Grace out of my head like I scrubbed my skin raw in that shower. But she's not coming out. She's in there. Part of me now.
Maybe that's not failure? Recovery isn't about forgetting her. It's about learning to live with her voice in my head and still be myself, anyway. And that, that breaks something loose. Tears come. I've been too numb to cry until now. Too busy holding myself together to feel what I've lost.
I slide off the stool. My legs shake, but they hold. I take unsteady steps toward him, and he goes perfectly still.
"I need…" I start, but the words won't come.
I step closer. Close enough to feel the heat from his body. I wrap my arms around his waist slowly, testing the waters. The contact makes my heart race. Fear and relief crash together. He's warm. I haven't felt warm in weeks. He doesn't move at first.
I don't pull away. His arms come around me slowly. Firm enough to feel safe. Not tight enough to trap me.
My cheek presses against his chest. His heartbeat thuds beneath my ear. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. It's real. He's real. Grace isn't here.
I soak his shirt. It's not just tears; it's everything I've been holding down. He holds me. Hard. His hand is heavy on my back, the other pressed against my head. Like he's the only thing keeping me from falling.
It's been so long since I've been touched like a human being. I didn't think I still had it in me to let someone in.
Eventually, my tears stop. I'm empty, but the weight in my chest feels different. Like maybe some of the pressure let go.
When I finally pull back, his hands slide to my shoulders. He keeps me steady when my legs buckle. His hands. Large, capable, gentle. The same hands that held me while I cried. The same hands that—
Grace's voice whispers through: Your father's killer is quite talented, Dr. Hart.
My stomach drops.
"Killian," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. "I need to ask you something."
His hands tighten on my shoulders. He knows what's coming. "What is it?"
I don't look away. "Did you kill my father?"
I see the answer in his eyes before he opens his mouth.
"Yes."
I stumble back, his hands feel like ice through my shirt. I jerk away. I can't breathe. My skin goes cold and clammy. I need air. I need to get away from him.
"Ellie—"
"No," I'm already moving. Backing out of the kitchen. Out of reach of his hands. I can't look at him. "I can't. Not now."
Then I run.
I don't stop until I'm back in my room with the door locked.
I'd hoped it wasn't true. That Grace planted it. That I would wake up, and it would have been just another nightmare that faded with the light.
But I saw his eyes. I know the truth when I see it.
Another crack.