The distraction was minimal but enough. I bolted for the door. Made it three steps before she caught my hair, yanked me backward. Pain exploded through my scalp, familiar but wrong because it wasn't his hand, wasn't done with care,wasn't—
"Should have come quietly," she hissed.
The last thing I saw was her fist descending. Then darkness swallowed me, and my final thought was relief.
At least unconscious, I couldn't obey the wrong hands.
Awareness returned in fragments. Movement. Engine noise. My head pounding rhythm against something hard. Leather seats that smelled wrong, felt wrong, weren't his car.
I kept my breathing even, stayed limp. Let her think I was still out while I tried to process. She'd taken me. Was taking me somewhere. To someone who'd "acquired" Gabriel's abandoned project.
The horror of it should have sparked rage. Should have ignited whatever remained of the old Lilah who'd have fought tooth and nail. But all I felt was grief. Not just for what was happening, but for what it revealed.
He'd truly abandoned me. Left me so thoroughly that predators could identify me by the shape of my damage. Could track Institute "products" through some network I'd never imagined. Could claim ownership of things that should have been protected.
"I know you're awake." Her voice came from the front seat. "Your breathing changed. He really did train you well—even unconscious, you try to hide. But I've handled enough Institute girls to know the tells."
Enough Institute girls.
"How many?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
"Oh, she speaks." Amusement colored her tone. "How many what? How many girls like you are out there? How many has Gabriel personally destroyed? Or how many have I collected?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The implications made me sick.
"More than you'd think, to all three. The Institute is good at what they do. And Gabriel? He's their best. His projects always fetch the highest prices. Broken so perfectly they can't be fixed, only maintained."
"I'm not broken."
"No?" She laughed. "You let me into your apartment because I said the right words. Sat next to me despite every instinct screaming danger because I gave you an order. You can't even run properly because he trained the fight out of you."
All true. All horrible. All evidence that everything I'd thought was love had been systematic destruction.
"Where are you taking me?"
"To someone who appreciates Gabriel's work. Who's been waiting for one of his to become... available." A pause. "You lasted longer than most, you know. Three weeks. Most give up after a few days. Kill themselves or break completely. But you kept trying. Kept forcing yourself to function. Made you easier to find."
"He'll come for me." Empty words. Desperate hope. "Gabriel will—"
"Gabriel has already moved on to his next project. That's how this works. They break you, study the process, publish papers on innovative conditioning techniques. Then they releaseyou to see if the programming holds without reinforcement. You're not a person to them—you're data."
"You're lying."
"Am I? Then where is he? Why hasn't he come for his precious Bunny? Why was it so easy for me to find you when he could have kept you hidden?"
I had no answers. Only the growing certainty that she was right. That I'd been an experiment from start to finish. That all his promises had been part of the process, designed to make me compliant enough for complete reconstruction.
"Almost there," she announced. "Be good when we arrive, and this might not be completely awful. My client has specific tastes, but he's not cruel. Not like some. You'll be fed, housed, used but not abused. Could be worse."
Could be worse. The kind of thing you said about prison sentences. About chronic illness. About fates that fell short of death but nowhere near life.
"I won't—"
"Won't what? Fight? We've established you can't. Run? Where would you go? You can barely order coffee without falling apart." Her voice gentled with false sympathy. "This is what you were made for, Bunny. To be owned. Might as well accept it."
The car slowed, turned. Gravel crunched under tires. My window showed trees, isolation, the kind of place where screams wouldn't carry. Perfect location for keeping acquired Institute girls.
This was happening. This was really happening. And everything in me that might have prevented it had been carefully removed by the man I'd trusted with my transformation.
