It was my father.
> "You weren't built to love," he said. "You were built to obey. And when we saw love creeping in, we knew the prototype had failed."
Rhea stared at me.
No emotion on her face.
Just rage.
She walked to the center of the room.
Knelt.
Pressed her palm to the floor.
And then—suddenly—her body convulsed.
The lights flared red.
> White Room Lock Failure. Sequence Disrupted.
I ran to her.
But her eyes weren't hers anymore.
They were glassed over—focused on something I couldn't see.
She whispered words I didn't recognize.
Numbers. Equations. Names.
> "Subject A-03. Subject V-05. Pattern loop unstable."
> "Reset required."
No.
No no no.
I grabbed her shoulders.
> "Rhea. Look at me."
Nothing.
> "Rhea, listen. You're not a trigger. Not anymore. You're real."
Nothing.
Then—
> "Say it," I whispered. "Say my name."
Her lips parted.
Silence.
Then—
> "Adrian."
And just like that, the trance broke.
She collapsed into me.
Shaking.
Crying—real tears this time.
> "They're still in my head," she choked. "I'm scared I'll hurt you."
I held her tighter.
> "Let them try," I said. "We'll burn them out. Together."
On the wall behind us, a hidden panel slid open.
Inside?
A chair.
Leather straps.
Dried blood.
A plaque.
> Weapon Protocol Chair No. 01
Initial Subject: A-03
Control Sequence Assigned: V-05
Rhea traced it with a trembling hand.
Then looked at me.
> "This is where they taught me to control you."
> "Then this," I said, yanking the plaque off the wall, "is where we start unlearning."
The file activated the moment the plaque hit the floor.
No prompt.
No password.
Just a whisper in the air:
> "Welcome back, Seraphine."
Rhea froze.
I watched her pupils contract—like the word itself was a trigger.
> "That's not me," she said.
But her hands were already shaking.
The wall beside us flickered again.
This time, not white.
Static. Glitch. Memory.
Screens lit up.
Clips played.
Her—strapped to a table. Electrodes in her skin. Tubes in her spine.
A voice:
> "Subject V-05 pre-designation: Seraphine Vale. Twin to A-03."
I stopped breathing.
Twin.
> "You were my sister," I said slowly.
Rhea backed away. "That's not possible."
But her file didn't lie.
> "Separated during early trials due to emotional instability. One retained physical aggression. The other… strategic seduction."
It wasn't love they feared.
It was our bond.
They split us before we could form it.
Erased our names.
Burned the connection from our heads.
But not our bones.
Rhea—no, Seraphine—was pacing now.
Panicked. Angry.
> "They made me want you," she whispered.
> "No," I said. "They made you forget you already did."
She looked up at me.
The last of the static faded.
And for the first time, I saw her—not as the girl in gloves, not the cold manipulator, not the seductress.
Just Seraphine.
Mine.
And something in her shattered.
She pressed a hand to my chest.
> "If this is true… if we were made to ruin each other—then how the hell are we still breathing?"
> "Because they underestimated us."
Suddenly, alarms screamed again.
The file self-deleted.
Emergency override.
But before it went dark, one final message appeared:
> SERAPHINE.EXE: FAILED TO DISSOCIATE. EMOTIONAL BOND INTACT. SEQUENCE REWRITE RECOMMENDED IMMEDIATELY.
She stared at the screen.
Then at me.
> "I don't want to forget you again," she said.
I took her hand.
> "Then we don't run."
> "What do we do?"
I smiled—dark and sure.
> "We destroy the system."
We didn't go back to class the next day.
We didn't sleep, either.
We stayed in the basement of the west wing, surrounded by shattered tech and the dying buzz of the deleted file.
She sat on the floor, legs drawn up, fingers pressed to her lips like she could hold everything in.
But I saw it.
The fracture behind her eyes.
The fear that this—whatever we were—wasn't real.
Or worse: it was, and it had always been designed to implode.
> "They trained me with simulations," she said. "Told me if I ever felt too much, I had to say the phrase. My safe word."
I turned to her. "What was it?"
Her voice cracked.
> "Adrian."
I stared.
She laughed bitterly.
> "You were my fail-safe. My off-switch. Every time I said your name, the system would drain it out of me. The need. The bond. The want."
But it hadn't worked.
Because she was still here.
Because she still wanted me.
Because when she said my name now…
…nothing shut down.
It woke her up.
I knelt in front of her.
Took her trembling hand and set it against my chest.
> "No more codes," I said.
> "No more walls."
> "Say my name again. Not to end something. To start it."
Her eyes searched mine.
Slowly, like it hurt to even hope.
> "Adrian."
And I didn't break.
I burned.
We didn't kiss like people afraid of being caught.
We kissed like we were the only two things left alive in a dying machine.
Her body climbed into my lap, and mine pulled her in like gravity had always pointed to this.
Gloves off.
Breath sharp.
Hands roamed like they were learning a language with no words.
> "I want to remember everything," she whispered. "Even if it destroys me."
I pressed my mouth to her neck.
> "Then let's remember us."
Clothes came off, not recklessly—but reverently.
Touch by touch. Scar by scar.
Her skin had codes written into it.
Mine had burn marks I didn't know the origin of.
But none of it mattered.
Not in that moment.
Not with her above me, gasping my name like it never meant stop.
Only go.
It wasn't about dominance.
Or control.
It was about claiming something the system never gave us permission to feel.
It was the kind of connection no machine could simulate.
Wild. Breaking. Healing.
Possessive in the way that said:
> "You were never anyone else's."
> "You were always mine."
Afterward, she lay beside me, her fingers threading through mine.
She didn't speak for a while.
Oh then—
> "I'm scared they'll try to take you again."