Chapter 17 Processing
Processing
The evidence lived in my head now, taking up residence like unwanted houseguests who rearranged all the furniture. Three days since finding those files, and I still couldn't make the numbers match my memories.
But the memories in my head sang a different song. Gabriel's voice, warm honey over broken glass: "You're special, little bunny. My greatest success."
Success. The word tasted different now, bitter where it had once been sweet. If I was supposed to be a success, why was I marked as failure? If I failed by surviving, what did that make me now?
"You're doing it again," Nathan murmured from beside me, voice rough with sleep.
"Doing what?"
"Trying to solve yourself like an equation. Some things don't have clean answers."
I closed the laptop harder than necessary. "Everything has an answer. I just have to find the right formula."
"Bunny—"
"Did you know S-132 lasted eight months? Longest one before me. The notes say she showed 'exceptional resistance to protocol.' I wonder if Gabriel was proud or annoyed." I traced patterns on the sheets, unable to be still. "Maybe she got special attention for lasting so long. Maybe he—"
"Stop." Nathan sat up, hand covering mine. "You're spiraling."
"I'm analyzing."
"You're torturing yourself with hypotheticals."
He was right, but admitting it felt like failure too. Another mark in the wrong column. Can't die properly, can't process trauma properly, can't even obsess properly.
"I need to understand," I whispered. "The evidence says one thing, but my memories... He made me feel special. Chosen. How do I reconcile that with being just another number in a ledger?"
"Maybe he did think you were special. Maybe that's why you're still alive." Nathan pulled me against him, my back to his chest. "Abusers aren't cartoon villains. They can feel genuine affection for their victims while still being monsters."
The word hit like cold water. Abuser. I'd never used it before, never let it cross my lips in connection with Gabriel.
"He didn't abuse me," I said automatically, then heard how hollow it sounded. "I mean, he... What he did was..."
"What would you call it if you heard about someone else experiencing what you did?"
The question hung in the dark between us. What would I call it? If my neighbor told me someone had put an explosive collar on her, isolated her, controlled her every movement, programmed her to self-destruct when abandoned?
"Abuse," I admitted, the word scraping my throat raw. "I'd call it abuse."
Nathan's arms tightened around me, but he didn't speak. Didn't need to. The word settled into my bones, rearranging more furniture. Abuse. Abuser. Abused. Such simple syllables for such a complex reality.
"I should sleep," I said eventually.
"Should and will are different things."
"I'll have nightmares."
"Then I'll wake you up."
It sounded so simple when he said it. Like nightmares were just inconveniences to be managed rather than torture chambers I built for myself each night.
But I was tired of fighting sleep, tired of losing to it anyway.
I let him arrange us under covers, his warmth at my back like armor against the dark.
Sleep came like drowning, pulling me under into memories turned monstrous.
I was in the pink room again, but the walls breathed. In. Out. In. Out. Like being inside a living thing. Gabriel stood in the center, but wrong. His face kept shifting—sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, sometimes nothing but numbers where features should be.
"My special girl," he said, but his voice was a spreadsheet. "My greatest failure."
The collar around my neck wasn't metal. It was paper, covered in tiny writing. All the names of the dead girls. S-117. S-118. S-119. They whispered their stories as the paper tightened, cutting into skin.
"You were supposed to join us," they chorused. "Why didn't you die properly?"
I tried to explain, but my mouth was full of pills. White ones, blue ones, red ones. All the ways I should have ended it. Gabriel watched with clipboard in hand, making notes.
"Suboptimal outcome," he murmured. "Subject shows excessive survival instinct. Recommend increased conditioning."
The chair appeared—his favorite tool. But when I sat, it was made of bones. Other girls' bones. They held me in place while electricity coursed through, not physical but emotional. Pure distilled abandonment injected directly into my nervous system.
"This is love," Gabriel explained, increasing the voltage. "If you loved me properly, this would kill you."
I screamed, but it came out as laughter. High, bright, broken. The little girl voice he'd cultivated.
"Silly bunny," I heard myself say. "Death is for successful experiments."
The room filled with water then. Dark water full of floating papers. Case files. Death certificates. Love letters written in blood. I tried to swim, but the collar dragged me down. This is it, I thought. Finally doing it right.
But I couldn't sink. Kept bobbing to the surface no matter how hard I tried to drown. Gabriel shook his head, disappointed.
"Even your death is defective," he sighed, then started cutting. Not my skin. My shadow. Separating me from it with surgical precision. "Let's see if we can fix that."
I woke up swinging, fight response in full activation before consciousness caught up. Nathan caught my wrists, gentle but firm, already talking.
"You're safe. You're in my apartment. It's Tuesday, 3:47 AM. You had a nightmare. You're safe."
"Can't breathe—" But I was breathing, just too fast. Hyperventilating.
"Yes you can. Match my rhythm. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. There you go."
It took time to come back to myself. To remember I wasn't drowning, wasn't being dissected, wasn't failing to die properly. Nathan kept up a steady stream of grounding details—the temperature, the street sounds outside, the feel of sheets against skin.
"Want to talk about it?" he asked when I'd finally stilled.
"I was in his lab. All the dead girls were there. They wanted to know why I didn't join them." I pressed my face into his shoulder. "He was disappointed in me for surviving. Said even my death was defective."
"Your brain is trying to process. Mixing the evidence with your memories."
"My brain is a sadistic asshole."
That surprised a laugh out of him. "Yeah, trauma brain tends to be like that."
We lay in the dark for a while, just breathing together. I felt raw, flayed open, but also strangely empty. Like the nightmare had purged something toxic.
"I want to try something," I said eventually.
"At four in the morning?"
"I want to practice."
"Practice what?"
I sat up, decision crystallizing. "Consent. Saying no. Saying yes. Having it mean something."
Nathan studied me in the dim light from the window. "You sure you're up for that right now?"
"No. But I want to try anyway." I managed a small smile. "That's consent too, right? Choosing to try even when unsure?"
"Okay. How do you want to do this?"
I'd been thinking about it for days, since he'd mentioned it in passing. The idea of practicing consent like scales on a piano. Building muscle memory for boundaries.
"I want to touch you. And I want you to tell me when to stop, when to continue, when to change. Real responses, not just exercises." I met his eyes. "And then I want to switch."
"Alright. But we go slow. And if either of us needs to stop completely—"
"We stop. I know." I took a breath. "Can I kiss you?"
"Yes."
I leaned in, pressed my lips to his. Soft, searching. When I pulled back, he was watching me intently.
"Can I touch your chest?"
"Yes."
My hands mapped familiar territory, but the constant checking made it new. Each yes felt like permission to exist, to want, to act on want.
"Can I kiss your neck?"
"Yes."
I found his pulse point, felt it jump under my tongue.
"Can I use teeth?"
"No."
The word stopped me short. I pulled back, heart racing for different reasons now.
"Okay," I managed. "Can I still kiss without teeth?"
"Yes."
We continued like that, me asking, him answering. Yes to hands in hair. No to marks that would show. Yes to touching over clothes. No to removing them yet. Each boundary honored felt like rewriting code. This is how consent works. This is how choice feels.
"Switch?" I asked eventually.
"If you're ready."
We changed positions, and my heart kicked into overdrive. Being asked, having to respond—this was harder. Gabriel had never asked. Had trained me to anticipate, to offer, to never refuse.
"Can I kiss you?" Nathan asked.
The word stuck in my throat. Old programming screamed that no was dangerous, forbidden, would lead to punishment.
"I... yes," I whispered.
He kissed me gently, then pulled back. "Can I touch your face?"
This time I found it: "No."
Nathan's hands stayed where they were. No anger. No disappointment. Just acceptance.
"Okay. Can I hold your hand?"
"Yes."
We went slow, so slow. Each question an opportunity to choose. Some yeses came easy. Some nos fought their way out like pulled teeth. But he honored every single one, until I started to believe in their power.
"Can I touch you over your shirt?"
"Yes."
"Can I touch skin?"
"No. Wait." I breathed through the panic of changing my mind. "Yes. But just... careful."
His hands were reverent, tracing patterns on my stomach, my sides. When I shivered, he paused.
"Still yes?"
"Still yes."
We kept going until something shifted in me. The constant checking stopped feeling like interruption and started feeling like safety. Like proof that I existed as more than just a collection of wants to be fulfilled.
"I want to try something else," I said. "Something harder."
"Tell me."
"I want to tie your wrists." The words came out in a rush. "Not tight. Not to hurt. Just... I need to see that you'll let me. That you trust me even when I have power."
Nathan studied me for a long moment. "Okay."