OBEDIENCE PROTOCOL
> ⚠️ Content Warning: This chapter contains mature themes, including psychological manipulation, obsessive behavior, and intimate scenes. Reader discretion advised.
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She flipped us before I could speak, straddling me with that slow, calculating precision that made me forget every rule I'd ever followed. Her fingers slid beneath my shirt, nails grazing skin as if daring me to fall apart beneath her.
I did.
Gladly.
Because the world was ending.
And if this was the last time I touched her—if this was the final version—I wanted it to be real.
Raw. Messy. Human.
> "They made us think we belonged to them," she said, voice husky, hands traveling lower.
> "But you've always belonged to me."
> "You knew that, didn't you?"
I nodded, breathless.
> "Say it," she demanded.
> "Say you're mine."
> "I'm yours," I gasped.
> "Always."
Her mouth found my collarbone, teeth scraping, leaving marks like she didn't want anyone else to forget it either.
And then—
We stopped talking.
There was no room for words after that.
Only sweat.
Breath.
The sound of two people unmaking each other in the dark.
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Afterward, I lay with my hand across her bare waist, her heartbeat steady against my chest. Her hair was a tangled halo across the pillow, her eyes open but unreadable.
Still Rhea.
But not the same.
Neither of us were.
> "They'll try to separate us again," she whispered.
> "Let them try," I said.
> "I've already chosen what I'd destroy for you."
She turned her head slightly, gaze catching mine in the half-light.
> "Would you die for me?"
I didn't blink.
> "No."
> "I'd kill for you."
Her lips curved.
Not into a smile.
Into something far more dangerous.
The next morning, there was blood on my sheets.
Not hers.
Not mine.
Just… blood.
No source. No wound. A message written in the only language the system had ever taught us:
> "Control is a delusion. You were never safe."
I didn't wake her.
I just stared at the smudged red, at the dried symbol bleeding across the corner of the mattress like a fingerprint someone left behind on purpose.
They knew.
They always knew.
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Rhea stirred beside me, breath warm against my neck. Her fingers twitched before her eyes opened—not startled, not afraid. Just aware.
Always aware.
> "They left a mark," I said.
She looked at it. Didn't speak.
Then slid out from under the sheets, her bare skin pale and bruised in the dawn light. She didn't try to cover up. She didn't need to.
The air had changed between us.
She was mine now.
Not because of what happened.
Because of what survived it.
> "They're getting sloppy," she said finally. "Or they want us to think they are."
I rose slowly, the ache of last night still in my spine, in my lungs. My body was humming—not with lust anymore, but with a raw, frayed instinct to protect her even if it meant burning the world to ash.
She stood at the window, watching the campus below like it was a chessboard. One she was already ten moves ahead on.
> "Do you regret it?" I asked.
Her eyes didn't leave the glass.
> "No," she said. "But I think now they'll stop pretending they're not watching."
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They didn't wait long.
By the time we stepped outside the dorm building, the school had changed.
It was subtle.
Students still milled about. Teachers walked with their clipboards. But the air felt calibrated—too clean. The halls were too silent. The shadows didn't move right.
Every hallway we turned down had someone at the end of it.
Watching.
Not hiding.
They wanted us to see them now.
> "They're going to isolate us," she said.
> "Separate protocol?"
> "No. Something worse."
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Back in class, a substitute took over.
No introductions. No eye contact. He handed us worksheets with formulas that looked like gibberish but made something crawl under my skin.
Everyone else wrote like nothing was wrong.
Like the world hadn't split open last night.
I looked to Rhea.
She was reading the equations like they were in a language she used to dream in.
> "What is it?" I whispered.
She circled a sequence and slid the paper to me. Her handwriting was sharp and controlled.
> It's not a formula. It's a timer.
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That night, I broke into the east wing of the library.
The restricted floor.
I knew how. I'd done it before. Or maybe another version of me had.
Either way, my hands remembered.
The books here weren't catalogued. Weren't even real books. Just case files with spines. Records.
And that's where I found it:
"PROJECT SENTINEL: A-03 / V-05 – UNRESOLVED OUTCOME"
The folder was thin.
Too thin.
As if everything about us had been erased or... intentionally redacted.
But there was one photo still inside.
Us again.
But younger.
So much younger.
We were in hospital gowns, backs to each other, chained to opposite walls. A small, sterile room. Wires in our spines. IVs in our necks.
She was smiling.
I wasn't.
> Seduction Protocol Phase 2 Initiated.
And below it, handwritten in red:
> "If the boy falls in love first, terminate the girl."
"If the girl falls in love first, trigger the boy."
My hands clenched.
I couldn't tell which version of me first failed that test.
But I knew now—I was failing it again.
Because I didn't just want her.
I needed her.
And that was enough to get her killed.
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I found her in the greenhouse that night. Alone. Like she knew I'd come.
The air smelled like soil and electricity.
She was sitting on the edge of a broken fountain, running her fingers through the water like she was searching for something that wasn't there.
I dropped the file beside her.
She didn't flinch.
> "They're setting us up," I said. "Again."
> "I know."
> "They're going to kill you if they think I love you."
She looked at me then, eyes unreadable.
> "Then stop loving me."
I stepped forward, jaw clenched.
> "You know I can't."
> "Then make it look like you don't."
My throat was dry. "Rhea—"
> "Adrian. Please."
She wasn't begging.
She was commanding.
She stood and pressed a hand to my chest.
> "If they think they've won—if they believe they've broken us again—maybe we'll finally be free."
> "By pretending none of it mattered?"
Her voice dropped lower.
> "By surviving."
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I kissed her then.
Hard. Messy. Furious.
Not like the night before.
This wasn't about craving. It was about pain. About not knowing where I ended and she began.
> "If we're pretending," I said, dragging my mouth from hers, "we do it on our terms."
> "We stage it," she agreed. "We let them think it's falling apart."
> "We fake the end."
She looked at me like I was her last chance and her last mistake.
> "Until we find the real one."