I hesitated. Matt knew about Gabriel—the broad strokes, at least. He knew I'd been conditioned, knew I'd escaped, knew Nathan had helped me rebuild. But he didn't know about the pills. Didn't know about the strange dreams that had started creeping into my sleep, dreams where I was back in the pink room and Gabriel's voice was telling me things I couldn't quite remember when I woke.
"Have you ever had a feeling that something was wrong," I said slowly, "but you couldn't figure out what?"
"All the time. Occupational hazard."
"This is different. It's like..." I searched for the right words. "Like I'm forgetting something important. Something I should remember, but every time I reach for it, it slips away."
Matt was quiet for a moment. "You think it's related to what happened to you?"
"I don't know. Maybe." I traced the rim of my coffee cup with one finger. "Nathan says it's just my brain healing. That flashbacks are normal."
"Nathan's not a doctor."
"He was FBI. He knows about trauma."
"He knows about interrogation," Matt corrected. "There's a difference."
The words hung in the air between us. I wanted to argue, but something stopped me. Matt had never liked Nathan—not actively, but there was a wariness in the way he watched us together, a reserve he didn't show with anyone else.
"You don't trust him," I said.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." I set down my cup. "He saved me, Matt. When I was at my lowest, he found me and he helped me and he never asked for anything in return."
"Nobody does anything for nothing."
"He loves me."
"Maybe." Matt picked up his clipboard again. "But I've been around long enough to know that love looks different on different people. Just... be careful, Bunny. You've been through enough. Don't let someone else write your story for you."
I wanted to be angry at him. Wanted to defend Nathan, to list all the ways he'd proven himself, to point out that Matt didn't know what it was like to be broken so thoroughly that you forgot how to be human. But the strange pill in my medicine cabinet sat in the back of my mind like a splinter, and I couldn't quite find the words.
"I should finish the inventory," I said instead.
"Sure." Matt turned back to his work, and I knew the conversation was over. But his words followed me through the rest of the morning, a shadow I couldn't shake.Don't let someone else write your story for you.
Nathan picked me up at noon, right on schedule. He'd changed into a grey sweater that made his eyes look like forest shadows, and he kissed me hello with the easy familiarity of someone who'd been doing it for years instead of months.
"Good shift?"
"Uneventful." I buckled my seatbelt, watching the city slide past as he pulled into traffic. "Matt thinks I'm distracted."
"Are you?"
"I don't think so." I paused. "Do you think I'm different? Since the flashbacks started?"
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, just slightly. "Different how?"
"More... uncertain. Like I used to be sure of things, and now I'm not."
"The healing process isn't linear." He reached over and took my hand, his thumb stroking across my knuckles. "You've been through something most people can't imagine. It's going to take time to feel like yourself again."
"But what if I don'tknow who 'myself' is?"
He glanced at me, and I caught something flickering in his expression—too fast to name. "Then we figure it out together. That's what partners do."
Partners. The word settled into my chest like a stone dropping into still water. I'd spent so long being owned—first by Gabriel, then by my own desperate need to survive—that the idea of partnership still felt foreign. But Nathan made it feel possible. He'd shown me that two people could be equals, could choose each other without losing themselves in the process.
