Chapter 3

John's face twisted in rage at my laughter. He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed my upper arm, his grip like steel.

"Stop it!" he snarled, his face inches from mine. "You're hysterical."

The physical jolt shocked me out of my defiant haze. The pain was sharp, but the casual cruelty of it was worse. This wasn't the man who used to hold me as if I were made of glass.

"You're hurting me, John," I said, my voice flat.

He didn't let go. Instead, his eyes, cold and analytical, scanned my face. "Pain? You want to talk about pain?" he said, his voice low and venomous. "I lived in a black pit for two years, Eve. And you were so busy with your work, your precious project. You always loved it more than me. I was just your guinea pig, your ticket to fame."

He was twisting my dedication, my sleepless nights spent trying to save him, into a selfish ambition. He was rewriting our history to absolve himself of his guilt.

Then, his grip softened almost imperceptibly. A flicker of something that looked like regret crossed his face. "I just want us to be strong, Eve," he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "Stronger than this. Vivian's work... it can make us better. It can prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else. It's the only way forward."

His "us" was a lie. His "way forward" was a path paved by Vivian. It was a self-serving justification he repeated like a mantra, a shield against the horror of what he had become.

"The only way forward?" I repeated, a bitter, sarcastic edge to my voice. "Is that what you tell yourself at night, John? Does it help you forget that you killed our son?"

The words hit him like a physical blow. His face went pale, and for a moment, the monster vanished, replaced by the broken soldier I had married. But the moment was fleeting. His rage returned, colder and more controlled this time.

"He's dead because you were weak," he said, his voice like ice. "Your methods were weak. You will be confined to the facility's residential wing. You will not leave. You will not contact anyone. You will cooperate with Dr. Thorne. That is an order."

He was treating me like a prisoner, a disobedient soldier. He turned and walked out, leaving me with Vivian and her father.

Vivian stepped forward, a look of faux pity on her face. "Now, now, Evelyn. No need for hysterics. If you're a good girl, we might even let you consult on the project. You could still be a part of this."

She reached out and patted my cheek, a condescending, infuriating gesture. I jerked my head away.

"Don't touch me," I spat.

Her smile tightened. "Have it your way." She turned to her father. "General, I think Dr. Reed needs some time to... reflect. Perhaps a more... isolated environment would be conducive to her cooperation."

General Thorne nodded grimly. "The sub-level containment rooms are secure."

They were talking about a prison. A concrete box in the basement of the research facility. They dragged me down there, to a cold, windowless room with nothing but a cot and a toilet. They left me in the dark, the heavy steel door slamming shut with a sound of utter finality.

Hours, or maybe days, passed. I lost track of time. They would bring me food and water, but no one spoke to me. The silence was a physical weight. Then, they started the sessions.

They would strap me to a chair in an interrogation room, a bright light in my face. Vivian would be there, a clipboard in her hand, asking me technical questions about the neural architecture. Questions whose answers she already had in my stolen data, but she wanted to break me. She wanted to force me to participate in the perversion of my own work.

When I refused to answer, they would bring John in. He would stand in the corner, watching with those cold, dead eyes as they used non-lethal methods to cause me pain. A device that induced vertigo. A low-frequency sound that vibrated through my bones, making my teeth ache. Nothing that would leave a permanent mark, but everything designed to wear me down, to make me feel helpless.

He just stood there. Watching. Cold and unmoved.

One night, as I lay shivering on the cot in the darkness, I heard a faint, disembodied whisper. It wasn't real, just a trick of my exhausted mind, a ghost in the machine of my own memory.

It's not over.

The voice was my own, but it was different. Stronger. It was the voice of the woman I had been before all this, the scientist, the creator. It was a spark in the overwhelming darkness, a tiny, impossible seed of hope. They could lock my body in a cage, but they couldn't touch the part of me that had built worlds inside my mind.

---