25. Ellie
ELLIE
The metal table beneath me is so cold it burns, seeping through the thin fabric of my cotton t-shirt with a bite that goes deeper than skin.
I try not to think about Reed's hands. About what happened.
About the places he touched, the things he whispered, the way he laughed.
The memory fractures as I try to hold it, splintering into disconnected sensations: the smell of his cologne, the weight of his body, the sound of fabric tearing.
Textbook dissociation. I know what this is.
The mind’s way of creating distance from unbearable reality.
But knowing the clinical term doesn’t help.
Doesn’t stop my thoughts. Doesn’t stop me from feeling like I’m floating somewhere above this table, watching some other woman endure this while I observe from a safe distance that doesn’t exist.
I stare at the ceiling and count the tiles.
Seventy-four. This room is nothing like the library with its leather chairs and the smell of books.
Here, there’s just stainless steel and white walls and monitoring equipment that beeps a steady rhythm.
The antiseptic smell is trying to cover something underneath.
Old blood or decay, or the particular scent of places where bad things happen to people who can’t escape.
Seventy-four tiles. Just focus on the tiles.
I’ve lost track of how many days I’ve been here. Twenty, maybe thirty. I’ve given up trying to keep track. Time doesn’t work in a place where the lights never turn off. It’s all a meaningless blur.
My wrists and ankles are secured with padded restraints, a medical courtesy that feels more insulting than merciful.
“Good morning, Dr. Hart,” Grace’s voice reaches me before she enters. It once made my skin crawl, but now washes over me like everything else. Another sensation I should react to but can’t quite manage through the fog. "I trust you slept well."
A pointless pleasantry. We both know I haven't truly slept since I got here. The IV now in my arm delivers enough sedative to create semi-consciousness but never enough for actual rest.
Her face won’t stay in focus as she approaches.
One moment she’s Grace, a person, a threat.
Next, she’s pure data. Female, late fifties, five-foot-six, posture suggesting dance training.
This is how I survive now. Turn people into numbers I can analyse and control, when I can’t control anything else.
“You’re doing so well, Ellie.” Grace’s hand smooths my hair back. The gesture makes my stomach turn. “I was worried treatment would break too quickly, but you keep surprising me.”
My tongue feels thick and unwieldy. "Not… treatment. Torture."
"Semantics, my dear." She adjusts something on the IV drip. "What you call torture, I call necessary transformation."
Grace's slender fingers press against my wrist, checking my pulse despite the monitor doing the same work.
"Look how thin you’ve gotten.” Her fingers trace my collarbone like she’s admiring her own work.
“I worry about you. All this resistance, it’s taking such a toll on your poor body.
And these..." She traces a burn mark on my forearm, one of several 'response tests' from yesterday. Or was it the day before?
"Reed was overzealous yesterday," she continues, inspecting bruises on my wrists and neck. "I've spoken to him about damaged goods."
Goods. That’s what I am now. Not a person. Not a doctor. Just a thing they’re preparing for sale or use or whatever Grace has planned.
I try to flinch away from her touch. My body doesn’t respond. It feels distant, disconnected, like it belongs to someone else. The professional part of me notes this dissociation as a survival mechanism. The terrified woman underneath it all wants to scream.
"Diana should be here any moment," Grace says, moving around the room. "She specializes in neurochemical recalibration. The psychological approach has been useful, but your professional training has created certain resistances. We need to bypass them."
Diana.
The name should mean something, but it slides through the haze in my mind. Another part of myself, the one desperately clinging to thoughts of Killian, to the connection we formed—tries to focus, to remember why this matters.
The door opens. The woman who enters pushes a cart loaded with equipment that resembles surgical instruments.
She smells floral. Lilac, maybe lavender.
The combination turns my stomach because it’s too close to the funeral home where I viewed my father’s body.
Her copper hair catches the light in a way that makes it look almost bloody, and when she places her hand on my arm, her fingers are ice cold. Corpse-cold.
“Subject appears conscious but disoriented,” she says. "Has the preliminary dosage been administered?"
Subject.
Not ‘she.’
Not ‘Dr. Hart.’
Not even ‘the patient.’
Subject.
Like I’m a lab rat, like I’m not a person at all. The word hits me like a slap, but my face doesn’t move. Can’t move. The drugs have stolen even that.
"Thirty minutes ago," Grace confirms. "Minimal impact on resistance levels."
“Remarkable,” she murmurs. “Most subjects begin disintegration by day fourteen. We’re well past that threshold, and she's still fighting.”
She says it like it’s a compliment.
She pulls up a rolling stool, sitting where I can see her clearly. "Dr. Hart, I'm going to explain what happens next. Not because you need to understand, but because your understanding will actually facilitate the process."
Her voice is smooth, almost hypnotic.
“Look at this.” Diana turns the screen toward me, showing brain scans in thermal color, bright networks like city lights.
“This is a whole person. Integrated. All the parts talking to each other.” She swipes to the next image.
The lights are separated now, isolated islands in darkness. “This is what we’re going to make you.”
I stare at the images. Before. After. The brain scans look different, but I can’t—the colors are bleeding together. Separated pathways. Islands with no connection. Not healing. Breaking.
“Your father built bridges between divided selves,” Diana says, checking my vitals. “We’re going to burn those bridges. Compartmentalize each part of yourself so that they can’t communicate or help each other. Make it easier to rebuild you.”
"Not...” My voice emerges as a whisper. “What he wanted… not this."
Diana looks up.
"Grace, let's show her the comparative outcomes. The visual contrast is quite instructive."
Grace moves to a console near the wall, typing briefly. A screen above my bed illuminates, showing what appears to be archived video footage. The date stamp shows it's from fifteen years ago.
The image shows a sterile room. A young man strapped to a chair, electrodes at his temples, his slender frame covered in bruises. For a moment I don’t recognize him. Then, the camera zooms in on his face.
Those eyes.
Beautiful even then, even with his face swollen and bruised.
My heart stops. Actually stops. I feel it, the pause between beats that stretches too long before it stutters back to rhythm.
"Subject demonstrates continued resistance to behavioral modification," Dr. Peters's voice says in the video. "Implementing the inverse of Dr. Hart's attachment protocol, increasing neurochemical intervention to Level Three as adapted from his research."
I close my eyes. I can’t watch this.
Diana’s fingers pry my lids open, her breath mint-fresh when she leans close. “No retreat, Dr. Hart. Observe what was done with your father's work."
On screen, Killian’s body goes rigid, arching against the restraints. He convulses violently. Then he goes completely still, except for his chest rising and falling too fast.
When his eyes open again, they’re vacant. Not silver anymore. Just gray. Dead gray.
A sound tears out of me. No words. Just sound.
Grief and rage and horror tangled together. Because that broken boy on the screen is the man who once held me like I’m something precious. They did this to him. Turned him into—
“Fascinating,” Diana murmurs, watching my vitals spike. “Attachment despite everything.”
"Perfect receptivity achieved," Dr. Peters notes on the screen, making an entry on his clipboard. "Proceed with the imprinting sequence using the inverted Hart protocol."
The footage continues, showing Dr. Peters systematically rebuilding Killian’s personality, installing triggers, responses, and behavioral parameters. Creating a weapon from a human being.
"Your father called it healing," Grace says, watching my face more than the screen. "They called it weaponisation. His research on giving purpose to damaged individuals became their method for stripping purpose away and replacing it with blind loyalty."
Diana turns off the display.
"The point, Dr. Hart, is that resistance is futile. This process has been refined over decades. Your father created healing techniques that we've perfected to break you down. And soon, you'll be rebuilt according to our specifications, to carry on his legacy."
The cracked parts of my consciousness react differently to this horror.
The professional, analyses the methodology as if it were a case study.
The daughter screams at what they’ve done to my father’s work.
The captive has already surrendered to whatever comes next.
And whatever part of me holds feelings for Killian searches that footage for him, for any trace of the man I know in that brutalized boy with the dead eyes.
"Now," Diana says, preparing a syringe with clear fluid, "we'll begin with a baseline neurochemical adjustment. This will soften the boundaries between your fragmented selves. Think of it as tilling the soil before planting."
Reed enters the room, his massive frame filling the doorway. His eyes travel down my restrained body with familiar hunger. "Need any help?"
"Not yet," Grace replies. "Though you may observe if you wish. Eleanor's progress should be educational for you."