Chapter 23 Reconditioning
Reconditioning
Iwoke in stages. First, awareness of warmth—soft blankets instead of medical restraints. Then scent—lavender and something clinical underneath. Finally, sound—his voice, low and careful, reading from what sounded like medical notes.
"Subject shows expected resistance patterns. Cognitive dissonance between implanted narratives and original conditioning creating systemic stress. Recommend graduated reintegration protocol with emphasis on positive association rebuilding."
My eyes wouldn't open properly. Too heavy, like someone had weighted the lids. But I could turn my head slightly, enough to see him sitting in a chair beside the bed. Not the regression suite anymore. Somewhere softer. Somewhere that smelled like him.
"Pupil response indicates consciousness returning." He set down his tablet, leaning forward. "Hello, sweetheart. Take your time. The sedatives were a bit stronger than usual—your system was severely compromised."
I tried to speak. Managed only a croak that might have been his name or a curse. Hard to tell when your throat felt like sandpaper.
"Here." A straw touched my lips. "Small sips. Your stomach's still settling."
The water tasted wrong. Too clean, with a bitter edge that meant medication. I turned my head away after two sips, rebellion in the smallest gesture.
"I know it tastes off. Just a mild mood stabilizer, some vitamins. Nothing that will compromise your autonomy." He set the glass aside, studying me with those winter-sky eyes. "How do you feel?"
Like I'd been unmade and reassembled by someone working from corrupted blueprints. Like my bones were in the wrong places. Like every truth I'd built was actually a lie, but I didn't know which direction the deception ran.
"Nathan." The name escaped before I could stop it.
Something flickered across Gabriel's face. Not jealousy—darker than that. "Being held for questioning. The facility's security isn't mine, if that's what you're wondering. Institute cleanup crew. They're very interested in his recent activities."
"You said he is your brother."
"He is." Gabriel's fingers found my wrist, checking pulse with casual intimacy. "The conditioning conflicts, the memory implants, the trauma bonding—all standard protocol. But actually developing feelings? Taking you to ground instead of immediate retrieval? That wasn't in his contract."
I tried to process this. Failed. Everything felt sideways, like looking at the world through broken glass.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" So calm. So reasonable. "Tell me, Bunny—what do you actually remember about your time with him? Not feelings, not impressions. Actual memories. Clear, sequential events."
I reached for them. Found fog. Moments of clarity surrounded by strange gaps, like someone had edited the film of my life.
Nathan's hands. Nathan's mouth. The safe house that materialized exactly when we needed it.
The intelligence that arrived just in time.
How convenient it all was, when I really thought about it.
"That's the memory blockers working," Gabriel continued. "Makes it easier to implant false narratives if the real ones are chemically suppressed. You'll start recovering them as the drugs leave your system. Though I warn you—the process can be distressing."
"Stop." But the word had no force. I was too tired, too confused, too aware of how right his hands felt checking my vitals. "Just stop talking."
"If that's what you need."
He fell silent, but didn't leave. Just sat there, presence heavy as gravity, while I tried to sort truth from manipulation.
The room was nice—soft greys and creams, morning light through gauze curtains.
Nothing like the clinical spaces I associated with him.
Or was that another lie? Another implanted association designed to make me distrust?
"Where are we?"
"Recovery suite. Private facility about two hours from the city." He anticipated my next question. "Not Institute-affiliated. I've been quite careful about maintaining distance from them since... since I lost you."
Since he abandoned me. Since he left me to die without him. Since whatever actually happened that my broken memory couldn't quite access.
I tried to sit up. Made it halfway before muscles protested, everything weak and uncoordinated. Gabriel moved to help and I flinched back, body confused about whether his touch meant safety or danger.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"You already have."
"Yes." Simple acknowledgment. "Though I'd argue the context matters. Everything I did was to prepare you, protect you, make you capable of surviving what was coming. Would you prefer I'd left you ignorant? Untrained? Unable to defend yourself when they came?"
"I'd prefer you hadn't made me at all."
Something shifted in his expression. Pain, maybe, or its clinical cousin. "You weren't made, Bunny. You were refined. Shaped. There's a difference."
"Semantics."
"Truth." He leaned back, giving me space but not leaving. "You came to us already extraordinary. All I did was help you realize that potential."
"Through torture. Conditioning. Making me need—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't name the hungers he'd built into my bones.
"Through training," he corrected gently. "Though I understand why you can't see the distinction right now. Nathan's done excellent work muddying those waters."
Always back to Nathan. Like a wound he kept prodding.
"Tell me what you remember about the first time he touched you."
"Stop."
"Was it comfort after nightmares? Careful, respectful, letting you set boundaries?" Gabriel's voice stayed clinically neutral. "Classic trauma bonding technique. Create the problem, provide the solution. Make the asset dependent on your presence for emotional regulation."
"You're describing yourself." The realization hit like cold water. "Everything you're saying he did, you did first. You're just angry someone else used your own methods."
"Not angry." But something flickered in his eyes. "Concerned. My methods were designed to build strength. His were designed to create weakness. Can you really not feel the difference?"
I wanted to say no. Wanted to throw his manipulation back in his face. But my body was already betraying me, responding to his proximity in ways that made thought difficult. The neural pathways were carved too deep, associations too strong.
He noticed, of course. Gabriel always noticed everything.
"Your pulse is elevated."
"Fuck you."
"Skin flushing. Pupil dilation. Breathing pattern shifting." He listed my responses like reading grocery items. "Your body remembers even if your mind resists."
"That's not—" But I couldn't lie when the evidence was painted across my skin. "That's just conditioning. Chemical responses. It doesn't mean anything."
"Doesn't it?" He moved closer, slow enough I could have protested. Should have protested. "Tell me, did Nathan make you feel like this? Did your body recognize him the way it recognizes me?"
Yes. No. Differently. Nathan made me feel human. Gabriel made me feel owned. The distinction mattered and didn't, everything clouded by chemicals and conditioning and the terrible truth that I didn't know which responses were real anymore.
"You're in my head." The words came out small, defeated. "Both of you. I can't tell what's mine anymore."
"Then let me help you remember."
His hand cupped my face, thumb tracing cheekbone with terrible familiarity. My body lit up instantly—every trained nerve recognizing home. I hated it. Craved it. Wanted to lean into his touch and bite his fingers bloody.
"Don't." But I didn't pull away. Couldn't, when every cell remembered this specific warmth.
"Your body knows the truth even when your mind's confused." His other hand found my throat, not squeezing, just resting. Claiming. "Every response lovingly crafted. You think a few months of chemical manipulation could overwrite that?"
"He didn't manipulate—"
"Didn't he?" Gabriel's thumb pressed against my pulse point, feeling how it raced. "Tell me something, sweetheart. Did he ever touch you without permission? Even once?"
The answer should have been no. Nathan always asked, always waited, always let me lead.
But memories were shifting now, details emerging from fog.
The first time in the shower—had I really initiated?
The way he always seemed to know exactly when I was most vulnerable, most receptive. How convenient his comfort always was.
"You're confusing me."
"I'm clarifying things." His hand slid lower, tracing collar bones through thin fabric. "Your body's responses are honest. It's your mind that's been tampered with."
"Stop." But the word came out breathy, undermined by how I arched slightly into his touch.
"Do you really want me to?" He paused, hand stilling. "I will, if that's what you actually need. But I think what you need is to remember. To feel the difference between real and lies."
I should have said yes, stop, leave me alone to sort through the wreckage of my mind. Instead, I heard myself whisper, "I hate you."
"I know." He leaned closer, breath warm against my ear. "And yet your body tells a different story. The training didn't just disappear, Bunny. Every response I built is still there, waiting. All those careful associations between pleasure and surrender."
His fingers found the hem of my shirt—when had I been changed into pajamas?—and slipped beneath. Just fingertips on skin, but my nervous system lit up like celebration fires.
"Your skin remembers." Observational tone, like noting results in an experiment. But his breathing had changed too, gotten rougher. "Temperature rising. Muscles tensing then relaxing in waves. Classic arousal pattern, but specifically calibrated. No one else could map your responses like this."
"Nathan—"