I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Tomorrow, I'd be Nathan's good girl again.
Tomorrow, everything would be fine.
2
Phantom Limb
The pink room was breathing.
I stood in the center of it, bare feet sinking into carpet that felt like living flesh, and the walls expanded and contracted with a rhythm that matched my own heartbeat. The lullaby was playing—that familiar melody I could never quite place, the one that made my shoulders drop and my jaw go slack no matter how hard I fought it.
"You're thinking too much again."
His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, that voice I'd trained myself not to remember. Deep and cultured and patient as stone. I turned, and he was there—Gabriel, wearing the charcoal suit I'd seen him in a hundred times, his storm-grey eyes watching me withthat particular intensity that made me feel like a specimen pinned to a board.
"I'm not supposed to be here," I said, but the words came out wrong. Slurred. Like my tongue belonged to someone else.
"Aren't you?" He moved closer, and I couldn't back away. Couldn't do anything but stand there while his hand found my throat—not squeezing, just resting, the weight of it a claim I'd been trained to accept. "You've been trying so hard to forget, sweetheart. But the body remembers. The body always remembers."
"I'm healed." The words sounded like a prayer. "Nathan says I'm healed."
"Nathan." Gabriel's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Nathan says many things. But tell me—when you kneel on his kitchen floor and don't know why, is that healing? When you find pills that don't match the others, is that healing? When you wake in the night with my name on your lips..."
"I don't—"
"You do." His thumb pressed against my pulse point, feeling how it raced. "You call for me in your sleep, Bunny. You call for Daddy. And he hears you, and he doesn't tell you, because he needs you to believe you're free."
The lullaby grew louder, filling the room until I couldn't hear my own thoughts. The walls pulsed faster.Gabriel's hand tightened on my throat, and I felt the familiar weight of a collar that wasn't there—phantom leather, phantom metal, phantom ownership pressing against my skin.
"Wake up," I whispered. "Wake up, wake up—"
I surfaced with a gasp, my hands flying to my throat.
Nothing there. Just skin and sweat and the hammering of my pulse beneath my fingers. The bedroom was dark except for the city lights filtering through the curtains, painting silver stripes across the ceiling. Beside me, Nathan stirred—his arm had been draped across my waist, but my sudden movement had dislodged it.
"Bunny?" His voice was rough with sleep, but I heard the alertness underneath. Nathan woke fast. He'd been trained to, the same way I had. "Nightmare?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't find words past the phantom sensation of leather around my throat. My fingers kept pressing against my skin, searching for a collar that wasn't there, had never been there—except it had, once, in another life, and my body hadn't forgotten.
"Hey." Nathan sat up, his hands finding my shoulders. Not restraining, just grounding. "You're safe. You're in our apartment. Whatever you saw, it wasn't real."
"It felt real." The words came out scraped raw. "He was here. Gabriel was here, and hesaid—"
"What did he say?"
I opened my mouth to tell him, and the words died in my throat.You call for Daddy in your sleep. He hears you.How could I tell Nathan that? How could I look at the man who'd saved me and admit that some part of me still reached for the monster who'd broken me?
"I don't remember." The lie tasted like copper. "Just... his voice. The lullaby. The room."
"The conditioning room." Nathan's hands moved to my face, tilting it toward him. "It's a trauma memory. Your brain is processing old wounds. That's all."
"Then why does it feel so real?"
"Because it was real." His thumb traced my cheekbone, wiping away tears I hadn't realized were falling. "What he did to you was real. The damage was real. But you're not there anymore, Bunny. You're here, with me, and he can't touch you."
I wanted to believe him. I'd been wanting to believe him for months, and most days I succeeded. Most days I was his good girl, his equal partner, the woman who'd clawed her way out of hell and built something beautiful from the ruins. But tonight, with the ghost of Gabriel's hand still warm on my throat and the lullaby still echoing in my ears, belief felt like a luxury I couldn't afford.
"Hold me," I whispered. "Please. Just hold me."
