Reduced myself to desperate, shameless need.
And the worst part?
It felt natural.
Easy.
Like my body and mouth have learned a script I didn't know I was memorizing.
Like begging is becoming automatic.
"Perfect," Vaughn says, still holding me upright. "That was absolutely perfect. Do you see how easy it is when you stop fighting? When you just let yourself ask for what you want?"
"I don't want this," I say, but it sounds hollow. A lie we both recognize.
"Your body disagrees. And in seven days, you'll beg for me just like that in front of the Consortium. And they'll see exactly how well-trained you are. How devoted. How completely you belong to me."
The reminder makes reality crash back like cold water.
Seven days.
One week.
Then this stops being practice and becomes performance.
Then everything becomes real.
That night, I can't sleep again.
It's becoming a pattern.
Vaughn beside me breathing deep and steady, asleep, while I lie awake staring at the ceiling trying to process everything.
Trying to understand who I'm becoming.
Trying to remember who I used to be.
Two weeks ago—or is it more? Three weeks? I genuinely don't know—I ran from this house.
Chose potential death in the freezing woods over submission to Vaughn Sutherland.
Now I'm here.
In his bed wearing silk pajamas he bought me.
My body trained to respond to his commands like a perfectly tuned instrument.
Craving his approval like it's oxygen.
What happened to me?
When did I stop being the woman who escaped a cult and start being the woman who begs to come?
When did resistance become compliance?
When did I start anticipating training sessions instead of dreading them?
When did I start to forget why I wanted to leave in the first place?
