Chapter 11 Recruitment
Recruitment
Nathan's apartment had become my confessional, the place where truths I'd buried deeper than bodies clawed their way to surface. Tonight, he sat across from me with files spread between us like tarot cards predicting a past I'd tried to forget.
"Her name was Sally," he said, touching a photograph of a woman with hollow eyes. "Twenty-four when she signed the contract. They offered her fifty thousand to participate in a psychological study. Six months, they said. Controlled environment. Good money for a grad student drowning in loans."
I studied Sally's face, noting the familiar blankness that came after conditioning. We all got that look eventually—thousand-yard stare in a ten-by-ten room.
"What did they actually want?" My voice stayed clinical. Safe.
"Everything." Nathan's jaw tightened. "The contract gave them total authority. Where she lived, what she ate, who she spoke to. They renamed her Subject Seven. Wouldn't respond to her real name after month three."
"Names are the first thing to go," I heard myself say. "Can't maintain sense of self if you don't own your identifier."
He looked at me sharp. "Experience talking?"
"Continue."
Nathan pulled out another file. "Mathew Thompson. Veteran. PTSD made him desperate enough to sign anything that promised help. They told him they were developing new therapeutic techniques."
"Were they?"
"If you consider systematic destruction of personal autonomy therapeutic.
" His hands flexed like he wanted to hit something.
"They broke him down completely. Taught him he couldn't make decisions without permission.
Couldn't eat without approval. Couldn't shit without someone telling him it was allowed. "
My fingers found the edge of the table, gripping hard enough to whiten knuckles. Each word was a mirror, reflecting memories I'd repackaged as training rather than programming.
"By the time local authorities raided the facility, Mathew couldn't function. Asked permission to breathe if someone didn't explicitly tell him to continue." Nathan's voice went rough. "He killed himself six months later. Left a note asking if that was okay."
"How many?" I asked.
"That we know of? Ninety-seven confirmed subjects across three facilities. Most were vulnerable—homeless, addicted, desperate. The Institute promised safety, structure, purpose." He laughed bitterly. "Delivered on all three. Just not how anyone expected."
"They weren't all like that." The words escaped before I could stop them.
Nathan went still. "What do you mean?"
"Some subjects—some of us chose it. Wanted it. The complete surrender, the freedom that comes from having every choice made for you." My hands shook slightly. I pressed them flat against the table. "It's seductive when your mind won't stop racing. When decisions feel like drowning."
"Bunny..."
"I was twenty-three when Gabriel found me.
" The words tasted like ash and honeyed poison.
"Living in a studio apartment that came with a free cockroach infestation and view of a dumpster, working two jobs just to afford it.
Paranoia and hypervigilance from a childhood that taught me everyone was a threat.
Couldn't maintain relationships because trust was just another word for vulnerability. "
Nathan stayed quiet, letting me unspool the thread that might unravel everything.
"I'm not too sure how they found me, just that they did." I touched my temple where phantom headaches lived. "Offered me a job. Said he ran a research facility that could use someone with my particular damage for research, with my particular life lessons."
"You believed him?"
"I wanted to." The admission scraped. "He was so calm. Controlled. Everything I wasn't. When he spoke, the chaos in my head went quiet. First time in years I could think straight."
"Classic manipulation. Target the vulnerable—"
"No." I cut him off. "That's the thing. He never lied. Never promised healing or normalcy. Said he wanted to see how far my mind could bend without breaking. Said he'd give me structure, purpose, a framework to exist within. All I had to do was sign."
"The contract."
"An obscene amount of pages that all read the same thing, I would be property.
That I was volunteering for experimental protocols.
That I was waiving all rights to autonomous decision-making within Institute grounds.
" I laughed, the sound like breaking glass.
"I signed because I didn't believe they would actually cash in.
I was hoping to scam the scammers, trick them out of their money and disappear.
Who would have "All rights of refusal revoked upon activation," in a contract? "
Nathan reached across the table. I pulled back.
"Don't. I need to finish this clear-headed.
" I pressed my forehead against the cool window.
"Sleep deprivation. Sensory manipulation.
Rewards and punishments calibrated to reshape my responses.
He was teaching me to be perfectly obedient, completely dependent.
A pet who couldn't function without her master's hand. "
"You got out though. Survived without him."
"Did I?" I turned to face him. "I live by schedules rigid enough to be pathological. Eat the same foods in the same amounts. Can only sleep if I've completed specific routines. Even now, even free, I'm dancing to his programming."
"You're healing. Growth isn't—"
"He didn't save me, Nathan." The words cracked something fundamental. "He selected me. Saw a broken toy that could be reshaped into what he wanted. And I let him. Begged him to, most days, once the initial phases ended."
Nathan stood slowly, approaching like I might bolt. Smart man. "You were vulnerable. He exploited that."
"I liked it." The admission burned. "The submission. The structure. Even when it hurt, even when he pushed past any reasonable boundary, part of me craved it. Still does."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting structure. Or even submission in a healthy context—"
"This wasn't healthy. This was systematic destruction of self.
" I laughed again, bitter as hemlock. "He made me need him like air.
And when he left me—when I thought he abandoned me—I almost died.
I would have been another statistic on those pages, if rage hadn't given me something else to focus on. "
"But you didn't." Nathan stopped just out of reach, reading my body language with sniper's precision. "You survived. Rebuilt. That's strength, not programming."
"Is it? Or is survival just another protocol he installed?" I met his eyes. "What if everything I am is just scar tissue shaped like a person?"
"You're more than that."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're questioning it." He took another step closer. "The others, the ones who didn't make it—they never questioned. Accepting programming was easier than fighting it. You fight every day, even when you don't realize it."
"I signed up for it." Shame burned my throat. "Those others were tricked, coerced. I volunteered to be unmade."
"You were tricked to. He perverted that into something else, into thinking that you chose it." Nathan's voice went hard. "There's a difference between seeking support and being systematically destroyed."
"The line's thinner than you think."
"Maybe. But you're on the right side of it now."
I studied his face, looking for the lie, the judgment, the disgust that should be there. Found only steady acceptance that threatened to break me more than any condemnation.
"I need you to understand," I said slowly. "Parts of me will always be his. Responses he programmed. Needs he created. I can't just therapy my way out of reconditioning that went soul-deep."
"I'm not asking you to." He took the final step, close enough to touch but still letting me control distance. "I'm asking you to let me love you anyway."
The word hit like a physical blow. Love. Not want, not need, not fascination with damage. Love.
"You don't love me. You love the idea of fixing me."
"Bullshit." The profanity startled us both.
"I love your sharp edges and broken places.
Love how you rebuild yourself every morning.
Love that you saved those women even though it went against everything you were taught.
" His hand lifted, hovering near my cheek.
"I love you, not despite the damage but including it. "
"Nathan—"
"Let me show you." His voice dropped soft. "Let me love you the way you should have been loved from the start. No contracts. No conditions. Just choice."
"I don't know how to be loved without being owned."
"Then let's learn together."
The simplicity of it broke something loose in my chest. I nodded, not trusting words, and let him lead me to his bedroom.
He undressed me like I was worth reverence, fingers gentle on zippers and buttons. Each revealed scar got attention—not the clinical cataloguing Gabriel had done, but soft presses of lips that made my throat tight.
"Knife?" he asked, tracing a thin line along my ribs.
"Box cutter. I was sixteen. Thought pain might make the noise stop."
He kissed it, then found another. "This?"
"Cigarette burn. Angry ex boyfriend." I shivered as his mouth moved over damaged skin. "Taught me to sleep light."
"I'm sorry." He worked his way across my torso, mapping trauma with tenderness. "This one?"
"Gabriel." The name sat heavy between us. "Scalpel. He wanted to see how much I could take without making sound."
Nathan's hands stilled. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No." I touched his face, marveling at my own boldness. "I want to overwrite him."
He understood. Rose to kiss me properly, deep and claiming but without force. I could pull away any time. The power of that choice made me dizzy.
"Lie back," he murmured. "Let me take care of you."
I obeyed—choice, not conditioning—settling against his pillows that smelled like him. Safe. Real.