Chapter 3

My agreement to "mind" Elias was seen as defiance by Isabelle.

Or perhaps she just needed a new reason to torment me.

The next day, Thorne Security guards dragged me from my small room.

No explanation was given.

They were rough, their hands bruising my arms.

I was taken to a stark interrogation room, the kind I knew Thorne Industries used for difficult employees.

Marcus was there, standing by a one-way mirror, his expression unreadable. Isabelle was beside him, whispering in his ear.

"She needs to understand her place, Marcus," I heard Isabelle say, her voice carrying clearly in the sterile room.

Marcus turned to the head of security. "Discipline her. Ensure she understands obedience."

He didn't look at me. He simply walked out, Isabelle on his arm.

The discipline was brutal. Not a physical beating that left visible marks for long, but hours of forced standing, of repetitive, meaningless tasks until my body ached and my mind felt numb.

They destroyed the few personal items I had managed to keep – a small photograph of my parents, a worn poetry book.

"These things belong to your past," one guard said. "You have no past here, only what Mr. Thorne and Miss Vance allow."

Isabelle then convinced Marcus that my very presence, my memories of our life together, were a "dark cloud" over their happiness.

He authorized an experimental program.

They called it "mental recalibration."

I was taken to a medical wing. They gave me drugs that made the world spin and warp.

Bright lights flashed in my eyes, disorienting sounds filled my ears.

Doctors, their faces blurred, asked me questions about my past with Marcus, then told me my memories were wrong, that I was confused, that I had imagined his affection.

"You were always just a companion, Sarah," a calm, detached voice would repeat through speakers. "A placeholder. You knew that, didn't you?"

The psychological pain was immense, a constant pressure trying to crack my mind open and pour poison in.

They wanted to break my spirit, to erase who I was, to make me an empty, compliant shell.

I felt parts of myself fraying, memories becoming uncertain, but a core deep inside me, a strength I didn't know I possessed, held firm.

It was like a tiny, unyielding flame in a hurricane.

This resilience, this refusal to completely shatter, seemed to frustrate them.

The treatments became harsher, but I held on. I had to.